Schrader claims that he does not make films under the “transcendental style” — but does that make it so?
Though American-filmmaker Paul Schrader expressed great admiration for what he called the “transcendental style” of filmmaking, he always insisted that his own films were not made in this manner. However, a close examination of Schrader’s latest film, First Reformed (2017), reveals a number of elements that it shares with the transcendental films of Japanese-filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu. This essay will explore Schrader’s writings on “slow cinema” and the transcendental style, as well as provide a close reading of Ozu’s later films and Schrader’s First Reformed in order to demonstrate their similarities.
“No, no, no, that’s not me.”
Paul Schrader on the transcendental style in his work.
In a 2018 interview with Sofia Coppola, American-filmmaker Paul Schrader briefly notes that, although he admires films made in what he calls “the transcendental style,” his own films do not follow that format. But just because he says it, does it mean it is so? To answer this question, this essay will look closely at Schrader’s recent film, First Reformed. The transcendental style, defined by its slow pacing, quietness, and connection to the spiritually transcendent, was coined by Schrader in his 1972 book, Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer. In it, Schrader identifies Yasujiro Ozu as a filmmaker who has mastered the style, especially in his films Late Spring (1949), Early Summer (1951), and Tokyo Story (1953). Interestingly, when one looks closely at Schrader’s recent films, especially First Reformed, the same elements of the style are also present. Though Paul Schrader claims that he does not make films in the transcendental style, he is in fact significantly influenced by the movement and, in particular, the transcendental elements of Yasujiro Ozu’s work. Questioning Schrader’s intentions begs the question: Does the artist have the last word?
In order to find out if Yasujiro Ozu’s transcendental elements are embedded within Paul Schrader’s latest film First Reformed, research needed to be done. The most valuable source that can help find this connection is Paul Schrader’s 1972 book on the transcendental style (Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer). At the age of 24, then-film-student Paul Schrader wrote a book on the major inventors of a new cinematic style, which he called the “transcendental style” (named after the theological notion of the transcendent). In 2018, over 40 years after its original publication, Schrader added a new section to the start of his book, providing an updated reflection on the ideas he first presented in 1972. For this paper, Schrader’s book is vastly useful because it defines the transcendental style and explains how Ozu’s films embody it.
One of the few scholars to have interpreted Ozu’s work within Schrader’s framework of the transcendental style is Robert Boyers, an English professor at Skidmore College. In “Secular Vision, Transcendental Style: The Art of Yasujiro Ozu,” Boyers reflects on Schrader’s theory of the transcendental style as it applies to Ozu’s films. By using this source, I am able to provide a brief, secondary look at Schrader’s interpretation of Ozu’s embrace of the transcendental style.
To fully understand the similarities between the films of Ozu and Schrader, one must be familiar with Ozu and Schrader themselves. This is why I include sources providing information about each director’s life, creative inspirations, and filmic content. Particularly useful is Woojeong Joo’s essay, “Cinema of Ozu Yasujiro: Histories of the Everyday,” and George Kouvaros’ essay, “Paul Schrader.”
Paired with more sources, these findings lay the foundation for understanding who Yasujiro Ozu was, who Paul Schrader is, and the unifying style that connects them. By using this information, I will show that Paul Schrader’s First Reformed exhibits Ozu-like properties of the transcendental style.
Yasujiro Ozu (1903–1963) is considered one of the greatest filmmakers of his generation. Throughout his career, Ozu specialized in telling mundane stories of middle-class Japanese families. Growing up in a traditional Japanese household, Ozu was surrounded by the ideals and traditions of Zen culture. At the core of Zen is enlightenment (or, as Schrader describes, the transcendent). Put simply, Zen holds that, by focusing on the mundane, one can achieve enlightenment. This concept appeared throughout Ozu’s films in the form of characteristically slow pacing and somber tone. These films include, most notably, Late Spring (1949), Tokyo Story (1953), Floating Weeds (1959), and An Autumn Afternoon (1962). Though many decades separate Ozu’s films from Schrader’s First Reformed, Ozu’s usage of Zen and enlightenment can be translated into Schrader’s use of the mundane and the transcendent — both of which are deeply embedded in Paul Schrader’s latest work.
Paul Schrader (1946-) was born into a strict, Dutch Calvinist household. His parents deemed movies “worldly amusements,” and forbade their children from viewing films of any kind. This did not deter Schrader, as he occasionally, inconspicuously went to the movies, taking any chance he could get to experience the rush of cinema. Growing up in this heavily religious setting led Schrader to focus his studies on theology as an undergraduate at Calvin College in 1964. Later in his college career, Schrader developed an interest in literature and film, which he sought to integrate with his earlier interest in theology. After graduating, Schrader moved to Los Angeles and attended the UCLA School of Film. There, he wrote his book on the transcendental elements in the work of Ozu, Bresson, and Dryer. To this day, film critics cite Schrader’s rebellious response to his upbringing as the source of his obsession with portraying religious themes from the perspective of a troubled outsider. These traits are especially notable in his films such as Hardcore (1979), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist (2005), and most recently, First Reformed (2017).
In the revised edition of Transcendental Style in Film, Schrader locates the origin of what he called the “transcendental style” in 1972 within the context of “slow cinema.” The term “slow cinema” was coined by the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, who distinguished between what he called “movement-image” and “time-image.” Movement-image, naturally originating with the creation of cinema, refers to the projected image and the action with which it is associated. An example of this would be the famous 1895 Lumière brothers film, L’arrivée d’un train en gare de La Ciotat, in which a train comes rushing into a station. As a first for its medium, this 50-second film made audiences jump in their seats, so afraid that the photographed train would burst off of the screen and barrel into the theater. The visual of the train moving is the primary concern here — the movement of the train takes priority, time merely follows suit — this is the nature of a movement-image film. Conversely, in time-image film, time, or “duration,” takes precedence; the actions and visuals are subservient. In a time-image piece, editing is based on the desire to display images in relation to time, not actions. In his book, Schrader contrasts movement-image editing with time-image editing:
Man exits one room, enters another — that’s movement-image editing. Man exits one room, shot of trees in the wind, shot of train passing — that’s time-image editing. Man exits one room, the screen lingers on the empty door. That’s time-image editing.
After World War II, filmmakers began to realize the true potential of the time-image. They conjectured that, just as a movement-image film could create suspense, a time-image film could inspire introspection. Schrader goes on to claim that the first true time-image film was one by Ozu, specifically Late Spring, which creates this introspection by intercutting a character’s tears with her smile while using the repeated imagery of a vase. Ozu is able to use editorial pacing in order to do this. By holding certain images for long enough, Ozu slows time so as to compel the viewer to actively attempt to understand the scene. This is a major goal of the slow cinema movement.
In addition to holding images for longer than expected, filmmakers retard time in other ways. Schrader argues that there are thirteen ways in which time can be slowed down: delayed edits, doubling, heightened sound effects, minimal composed score, minimal coverage, modified screen ratio and color, repeated compositions, silence by minimal dialogue, slowness, static frames, the use of non-actors, visual flatness, and wide angles.
Of these thirteen ways in which time can be slowed down, the films of Schrader and Ozu share eight of them: delayed edits, static frames, minimal score, minimal coverage, the abundance of wide angles, modified screen ratio and color, silence by minimal dialogue, and slowness. In order to best understand the roots of the transcendental style, one must be familiar with these eight aesthetics of slow cinema seen in both Schrader’s and Ozu’s work.
Delayed edits and static frames
In a typical film, edits would often cut a character’s action short. For example, a shot in which a character washes dishes would often cut before the character is done. In a slow cinema film, cuts are often offset (or, “delayed”), meaning the cut comes after the action is completed. Such cuts disrupt the rhythm that moviegoers have come to expect, thus introducing an element of uncertainty into the scene as the shot lingers.
Schrader argues that Ozu was the first director to make use of such “offset edits,” and that he used them as “filmic punctuation marks.” For example, in Ozu’s Tokyo Story, we watch for fifteen seconds as Noriko, the daughter-in-law, enters the frame, shuffles some clothes around, and leaves. Ozu decides to begin this clip before Noriko enters, and waits to cut away until after she leaves. Restrictive shots like these appear throughout Ozu’s films, adding a slow, calming, and zen-like pace to his narratives.
Schrader also uses delayed edits for similar effects throughout the rhythm of his film, First Reformed. A prime example of this is towards the end of the film, when the main character, Reverend Toller, comes to the door to greet Mary, one of the members of his congregation. After hearing the doorbell, Reverend Toller gets up and walks off-frame to answer the door. Instead of cutting to a shot of the Reverend letting Mary inside, Schrader intentionally refrains, utilizing the power of time-image editing. He holds the viewer on the now-empty room as we wait for Toller to reenter frame, (which he eventually does, but only after of a delay of thirteen seconds). As in Tokyo Story, First Reformed includes many delayed edits, each causing time to slow to a crawl.
Minimal score
Every sound in a film is either diegetic or non-diegetic. Diegetic sounds are those that come from on-screen action (wind, a pianist performing, conversational dialogue, etc.); non-diegetic sounds are sourced from outside the filmed world (added music/score, sound effects, etc.). Slow cinema rarely uses non-diegetic sound. Schrader claims that non-diegetic sound (specifically an added film score) can uncontrollably influence film time. In slow cinema, by minimizing (or completely removing) this score, a filmmaker can heighten reality and even “extend time” at their own will.
Ozu famously used music sparingly. In Tokyo Story, Ozu relegated most scoring to the film’s conclusion. By withholding music for over two hours before finally employing it, the dramatic effect of the music is heightened because it is unexpected. Out of nowhere, the music soars as we watch the landscape of Onomichi slowly fade away. This final moment’s use of score sets the scene against the quietness and quaintness of the previous two hours, converting the mundane into the transcendent.
Schrader does the same in First Reformed. Throughout the first two acts of the film, there is no score, only diegetic sounds. Finally, at the start of the third act, around twenty minutes before the film’s conclusion, music begins to play. Heavy and dull “drone” sounds (a low, continuous humming-like noise) engulf the film in an odd and uncomfortable tone — something that comes as a surprise to the viewer. These sounds are unnatural and strange, creating a surreal filmic environment. Like Ozu, Schrader uses this unexpected score sparingly, and when he does, it transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary.
Minimal coverage and the abundance of wide angles
“Coverage” is the mix of angles that a filmmaker uses to tell a story: wide shot, medium shot, two-shot, over-the-shoulder, etc. By controlling the coverage, a film can direct the viewer where to look. Similar to minimizing score, minimizing coverage is a device to further withhold information from the viewer and thus compel the viewer to take a more active role in understanding the scene.
Ozu utilizes minimal coverage throughout his films. His array of viewpoints are fairly consistent and can be boiled down to four shots: wide establishing, tatami (a wide, low, eye-level angle), medium, and close-up. In Tokyo Story, the many wide establishing shots in Ozu’s work are used to give the viewer an idea of location while showing the smallness of his characters, tatami shots are used inside the character’s houses, medium shots are rare and used alongside the tatami shots to show a closer view of a character’s reaction, and close-ups are saved for the most intimate moments (for example, when Noriko cries after being offered Tomi’s golden watch after her passing).
Like Ozu, Schrader uses minimal coverage, alternating between very wide and very close shots. In First Reformed, Schrader restricts himself to extreme-wide shots, medium shots, close-ups, and cutaways. Schrader uses extreme-wide shots to set the scene’s location and to show how physically small Reverend Toller is (a central theme to the film is how powerless Toller is), medium shots to capture conversations, close-ups to show character’s reactions, and cutaways to show Toller’s grim diary entries. By using just a small handful of different shot-types alongside delayed edits and minimal non-diegetic sound, Schrader and Ozu emphasize the smallness of their characters and the vastness of the world around them.
Modified screen ratio and color
Limiting the frame’s area and color is yet another way to withhold information from the viewer — to give them less so they have to do more. This is why many directors of the slow cinema style employ heavy desaturation and a boxy aspect ratio in their films. While Ozu’s contemporaries utilized color celluloid, Ozu still shot his films in black and white (until around 1958). In First Reformed, Schrader used the same aspect ratio found in Ozu’s films: 1:1.33 (known as a “pillarbox” for the black bars on the left and right of the frame). Moreover, Schrader originally intended on making First Reformed in black and white, though the film’s distribution company would not allow it. Like Ozu, Schrader wanted to limit the visual information provided to the viewers so that they would need to play a more active role in interpreting the scenes before them.
Silence by minimal dialogue
In an attempt to retard the pace of their films, slow cinema filmmakers minimize their use of dialogue. Schrader says that humans are “vococentric,” meaning that our ears tend to prioritize the sound of the human voice over other sounds. By intentionally reducing dialogue, these filmmakers are able to prioritize other sounds, allowing them to precisely direct viewers to specific moments. By doing so, they are able “reorient” time so that it appears to move more slowly.
Ozu’s use of minimal dialogue is connected to the filmmaker’s engagement in Zen thought. Ozu’s characters tend to live in a world where the lack of sound is as important as the presence of sound. A great example of this takes place in the scene in Ozu’s Early Summer (1951) when Setsuko informs her parents about her plan to marry. Setsuko leaves and the mother makes a remark to the father, who replies simply with “ah… ah.” The mother leaves, then — silence; this is far more powerful than if someone had said something. Schrader describes this silence as “electric.”
Schrader also invokes this “electricity” in First Reformed. As in many of Ozu’s films, there are a handful of lengthy scenes in First Reformed in which there is no dialogue. For example, in the scene where Reverend Toller goes on an extensive car ride, the film is practically silent. Then, as we witness Toller walking in an open field wearing a makeshift explosive belt, the only words he utters are, “I think I have found a new form of prayer.” This line is abnormally loud, making it further stand out from its surrounding quietness. After it — more silence. Without an immediate resolution or audible form of closure, the scene forces us to question Toller’s radical actions. As in Ozu’s Early Summer, the effect is palpable and chilling.
Slowness (a brief conclusion on slow cinema)
Schrader presents “slowness” as the ultimate goal of “slow cinema.” When filmmakers use delayed edits, restricted scores, reduced coverage, and minimal dialogue, they effectively slow time. By looking at how Ozu and Schrader embrace slow cinema, it is clear that Schrader was aesthetically influenced by Ozu. In order to find deeper similarities, though, we have to explore the transcendental style.
As defined by Schrader, the “transcendental style” is a filmic method that represents the transcendent — the invisible, ineffable realm that exists above reality. Schrader gives an ordered list of three steps that need to occur in a film to achieve this transcendence: first, convey the everyday; then, create disparity; finally, employ stasis. Only after these three steps have been successfully achieved, then and only then can the transcendent emerge. According to Schrader, the master of this style in the East is Yasujiro Ozu. By Ozu incorporating Zen into his films, Schrader argues that the master of this style is able to achieve the transcendent by his film’s conclusion.
The everyday
The first step to achieving the transcendent is to focus on the everyday — the dull, mundanity of life — what film scholar Amédée Ayfre calls “le quotidien.” Not to be confused with realism, films about the everyday are stripped of life’s melodramatic moments. In the everyday, as Schrader describes, “nothing is expressive, all is coldness.” This “coldness” is achieved by using the aforementioned elements of slow cinema. By using these time-slowing elements, a filmmaker directs the viewer to experience the dullness and monotony of everyday life. When filmmakers working in the transcendental style start their films with this mundanity, they are able to set the viewer up for the diametric opposite — the transcendent.
Ozu’s and Schrader’s use of the everyday is rich. Most shots from their films are from the same angle and static compositions. The characters that both filmmakers depict engage in simple conversations and their expressions are muted. Furthermore, events seem to happen one after the other, but without any logical connection between them. These factors make Ozu’s and Schrader’s films difficult to watch as it can be challenging to remain focused when so little happens on the screen. However, when eventually contrasted with the climax at the end of the film, the viewer is often rewarded with the feeling of transcendence. As Schrader describes it, the transcendental style, when done right, can even make waiting enjoyable.
Disparity (and the decisive action)
After viewers are numbed by “le quotidien,” they are ready to witness what Schrader calls “disparity.” This disparity is defined by a character’s extreme inner conflict, culminating in what film scholar Jean Sémolué calls “un moment décisif.” This disparity is a small tear in the mundanity of the everyday, drawing suspicion from the viewer, making them question if there might be more than what meets the eye. By Schrader’s definition, the transcendent needs to include an “inexplicable outpouring of human feeling” — and disparity is the filmmaker’s chance to slowly craft this.
A good example of disparity in Ozu’s work can be seen in Tokyo Story. In it, the two older parents, Tomi and Shukichi, travel from their rural port town to Tokyo to visit their adult children. While in the modern city of Tokyo, their children do not have enough time to spend with Tomi and Shukichi, leaving them alone in Tokyo. After coming back to their small town, the two parents reflect on their trip to the city with Noriko, their daughter-in-law. They describe how they felt alone in the city, causing the three to feel horrible. The disparity of Tomi, Shukichi, and Noriko at this moment is what bonds the three together. More importantly, it is what causes the decisive action of Shukichi giving Noriko Tomi’s golden watch after her passing — something that would, in Japanese culture, likely be done only to the biological offspring of the deceased. The disunity between the parents and the environment of Tokyo eventually caused this surprising choice.
Schrader’s First Reformed also creates a disunity between character and environment. After having a somber conversation with Michael, a hopeless environmentalist, Reverend Toller begins to question his purpose in life. Toller’s repetitive days of working in the church have been uprooted by the modern environmental crisis. After Michael commits suicide, Toller feels the need to finish what Michael started by healing the world. As this is an impossible task, Toller becomes isolated and depressed. This immense disparity leads to Toller’s decisive action — his plan to kill the CEO of a company that he believes is responsible for polluting the environment. On the day of his church’s 250th anniversary, Toller plans to commit this act by donning an explosive vest and detonating it near the company’s CEO.
Though these decisive actions are clearly incomparable (one is a simple act of giving, the other a dramatic act of destruction), their preceding disparity is quite similar. In both cases, the disunity between the character and their environment leads them to their unexpected decisive action.
Stasis
After the decisive action comes to fruition, disparity’s initial “small tear” of everyday reality eventually ruptures. This “rupture” (as Schrader calls it) results in stasis — a moment where life seems to freeze and break free from itself. This moment is not a resolution to the disparity, but it is a transcendence from it, albeit a temporary one. Stasis is the final step in the transcendental style.
In Ozu’s work, stasis is found in and around his final “pillow shots” (lengthy, introspective landscape imagery shown throughout his films). In Tokyo Story, after Noriko receives Tomi’s gold watch, Noriko bursts into tears seemingly out of nowhere, unable to express her gratitude. Following this, we are shown the bay outside of the family’s house. This is Ozu’s last coda, one that connotes “oneness.” By returning to this visual trope for the last time, Ozu finally introduces the non-diegetic music mentioned above. By doing this, Ozu suggests a transcendence from the ordinary to the “mysterious” and “unknowable.” This, Schrader argues, is the ultimate goal of a filmmaker using the transcendental style.
In First Reformed, an Ozu-like emotional outpour also acts as the film’s stasis. Schrader ends the film with Toller in his office, moments before he walks into the church with his explosive vest. Though the door was locked, Mary, Toller’s love interest, somehow appears inside his office, startling Toller. The room has now become inexplicably brighter, a note to the viewer that we are not in reality anymore — we have just transcended it. While in this new, mysterious realm, Schrader is finally able to break the rigid rules he has set himself. Toller then runs to Mary, leading the camera, for the first time, to unlock itself and circle around the two as they passionately embrace and caress each other. After a minute of spinning around the two as they “freeze” in their unexpected embrace, the film abruptly ends. In both this film and Ozu’s, an unexpected outpouring of emotions move us away from the disunity of despair and transports us to the realm of the transcendent.
Analyzing the films of Yasujiro Ozu and Paul Schrader’s First Reformed within the context of the transcendental style reveals many interesting connections. On the surface, it is clear that Schrader has been influenced by Ozu’s style. What is more fascinating, though, is the way in which Ozu and Schrader attempt to reach the transcendent. Both filmmakers seem to be fascinated with placing characters in incompatible environments. When Ozu places elderly in a modern city, and when Schrader places a priest in a dying world, conflict must arise. In both Ozu’s films and Schrader’s First Reformed, this conflict is paired with a trip to the transcendental realm — a place that is so unusual, it can change how you look at the norm.
What, then, to make of Schrader’s insistence that his style is not “transcendental?” Are we forced to conclude that the artist does not, in fact, have the last word on their art? Despite the fact that Paul Schrader says that he does not make films under the transcendental style, it is still the case that in First Reformed, we did more than exit the physical realm — we transcended it.
Written as my final paper for my freshman seminar.
Texts
Boyers, Robert. “Secular Vision, Transcendental Style: The Art of Yasujiro Ozu.” The Georgia Review 32, no. 1 (1978): 63–91. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41397472.
Joo, Woojeong. Cinema of Ozu Yasujiro: Histories of the Everyday. Place of Publication Not Identified: Edinburgh Univ Press, 2018.
Kouvaros, George. Paul Schrader. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008.
Schrader, Paul. Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2018.
Media
Fuller Studio. “Rethinking Transcendental Style in Film | Paul Schrader.” YouTube video, 26:23. Posted [April 2018]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0CCMz7nJdo.
“This Is How It Should End with Paul Schrader & Sofia Coppola.” A24 Podcast. Accessed April 09, 2019. https://a24films.com/notes/2018/05/episode-04-this-is-how-it-should-end-with-paul-schrader-sofia-coppola.
TIFF Originals. “Paul Schrader on Revisiting Transcendental Style in Film.” YouTube video, 1:28:13. Posted [May 2017]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4F8I8OVmUU.
Films
Early Summer. Directed by Yasujiro Ozu. Japan: Shochiku, 1951.
First Reformed. Directed by Paul Schrader. United States: A24, 2017.
Late Spring. Directed by Yasujiro Ozu. Japan: Shochiku, 1949.
Tokyo Story. Directed by Yasujiro Ozu. Japan: Shochiku, 1953.
