Paul Schrader will shoot his next feature Non Compos Mentis in the autumn.
The veteran director revealed the details of the project while speaking at the Cannes Film Festival press conference for his latest film Oh, Canada.
”I’ve written a noir, [about] a kind of sexual obsession, called Non Compos Mentis,” he said, with the producer David Gonzales clarifying the title is Latin for ’An Unsound Mind’.
”[Gonzales] has most of the money for the next one already and we’re not even cast, we’re just down to the actors right now.”
Cinema is “up in the air”
The veteran director also discussed the future of cinema, stating that “the whole concept of movies is up in the air” at the moment and television was leading the charge.
“We used to know what a movie was, we used to know how long it was, we used to know where you saw it, how you financed it. We don’t know any of these things anymore,” he said when answering a question from Screen International. “I can’t tell you how this will morph but television, episodic, is the current present.”
Schrader also discussed the pressure that budgetary constraints put on shooting Oh, Canada. “This new wave of technology means you can’t drag your feet on the stage floor anymore,” he said.
The director alluded to the early days of his career where “45 days was the normal” for a shoot. “Now it’s around 20, 22. You’re getting more footage for half the time which means you have to work twice as fast.”
Later on, the director spoke about the “golden moment” of Hollywood “where [studios] actually wanted to hear what you thought and you could walk into a studio and say ‘I know how to make your money’ and they actually listened to you.”
“They don’t anymore of course,” he added.
The power of cinema
The film’s star Richard Gere was also at the press conference and fielded several questions on power of cinema in the face of war and injustice. “The problems come when we can’t relate to each other as humans because obviously we don’t see ourselves and others,” he said.
‘This movie medium presents the world as us and when it does, communication is complete and mysterious. As in life, when you see the other as ourselves, the problems go away.”
Later on, he spoke more specifically about what artists in countries like Ukraine and Gaza can do. Alluding to the “best years” of Russian cinema during the Soviet Union, the actor said: “And part of it was because of the repression and the oppression. Artists had to find more subtle ways to communicate and be really extraordinary.”
“What I say to my Palestinian friend is it’s not a question of money, it’s a question of having something to say,” he continued. ”Clean your heart, open your mind and be very brave.”
Fellow cast member Uma Thurman was also in attendance while Jacob Elordi, who plays a younger Gere in Oh, Canada, was not present for the film’s premiere or press conference.
Originally published at https://www.screendaily.com/news/paul-schrader-reveals-details-of-next-film-non-compos-mentis/5193702.article
