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His best films portray tortured individuals struggling for redemption in a world without easy answers.
Schrader wrings humanity and humor from his protagonists darkest moments.
It is nominated for an Oscar for Best Screenplay.
Over the past two decades, Houck has released seven albums of lilting indie rock accented with country twang.
His lyrics tend toward finely wrought sketches of love and loneliness.
In October, he released the surprisingly upbeatCEst La Vie, his first record in four years.
And I stumbled upon Phosphorescent, and I was very, very taken by it.
Its become my go-to writing music for three scripts now.
There was a period where I cheated and went over to Zola Jesus for a while.
Ezra Marcus:What is it about the music that helps you write?
PS:Theres a kind of hypnotic otherworldliness to it that gets into your bones.
So youre not really listening too much, but its still nourishing you.
I wanted to ask, Matthew, how did you come to that technique?
Matthew Houck: [Laughs.
]I think thats what my mother would call it, too.
From the beginning, I always worked by myself to make these albums.
So I started doing it myself.
PS:I want to ask about one of your earlier songs, Joe Tex, These Taming Blues.
I never understood what that title meant, because Joe Tex never made a song called Taming Blues.
So I just lifted it exactly and decided to send that song out to him.
Taming Blues is about being tamed by love, or the need for it.
EM:What did you think ofFirst Reformed?
MH:I was blown away.
I think its the best movie I saw this year.
Paul, I wanted to ask about the part where it goes psychedelic, when they levitate.
Thats where it took off into my favorite kind of movie.
PS:Well, I knew I wanted to get to the other reality thats right beside us.
Sometimes it feels like you’ve got the option to reach out and touch it.
Thats what he always does.
I said,Well, if its good enough for Tarkovsky, its good enough for me.
MH:Have you had a lot of experiences with psychedelics in your life?
A little bit here and there.
But I am actually quite frightened of myself.
MH:Youre kidding me.
PS:Yeah, in the Jacuzzi in Los Angeles.
MH:Thats the craziest thing Ive ever heard.
PS:I was with some friends, and they called my psychiatrist.
He said, I have to take the gun.
I look him up, and sure enough, he is.
I make an appointment, and I go over to his office.
He said, Oh, I remember.
I have the gun right here.
He opens the drawer and he has my gun.
He said, Ive always kept it in the drawer to remind myself what Im really doing.
Did he give it back to you then?
MH:I agree with that about psychedelics.
I think theyre pretty amazing tools.
There are definitely planes that are not this plane.
There are probably a lot of ways to access them, but my first glimpse was through psychedelics.
Its something you cant unlearn.
But I also have that level of fear.
And she didnt say yes, and I jumped out the window.
Can you elaborate on that?
PS:I was a child of the church and the church education, and I rebounded.
MH:It seems pretty clear to me that [the film] is critical of religion.
Youre setting out to show the warped-ness of it.
PS:Yeah, but it takes the spiritual struggle very seriously.
It does not make light of that.
MH:Right, you make him a protagonist.
So did you stay religious, or did you get out early?
PS:Well, I didnt get out early.
I went all the way through Calvin College, which was a seminary.
And then I went to UCLA grad school and went to Los Angeles in 1968.
About five years ago, I got back in.
I started out as Christian Reformed, then I moved over to being Episcopalian.
And now Im over with the Presbyterians, which is a little bit of both.
MH:[Laughs.]
Yeah, they all seem to lay pretty heavy on the guilt part.
I was raised Presbyterian actually.
PS:But you were raised in Alabama.
Presbyterian in Alabamas different than Presbyterian in New York.
MH:I think youre right.
The South has its own way of dealing with those things.
My grandfather was a Presbyterian preacher, so [religion] was just a steady fact of life.
It was so omnipresent that you could actually ignore it.
It was just how things were.
I became disillusioned with the whole thing around my late teens.
I think its a beautiful thing, the search for this higher thing.
But its so obviously flawed and its caused so much horror in the world.
Seems hard to bring it all back together.
PS:Well, I like that quote from John Lennon.
He said, I dont like God much once I get him under a roof.
MH:Thats exactly it.
EM:Paul, I was wondering what you thought ofCEst La Vie.
PS:Well,CEst La Vieis a definite change in tone from the earlier albums.
Theres a sense of a horizon; theres a sense of an opening.
Some of the earlier songs were quite dark, and I like that, too.
I cant sayCest La Vieis an improvement just because Matthew is happier.
I think youre hearing something that a lot of people hear.
I dont know if its all completely in my control, what things emanate from what you make.
I guess you have a pretty heavy degree of separation with a movie?
If you answer all those questions for yourself, you take something special away.
MH:So how do you do it?
Youve still got to convey a sense of purpose to everyone whos working on your film.
PS:Theres a sense of, Were going to do this, and Im not sure why.
One of the things in this filmFirst Reformedis, I dont move the camera.
So that becomes a rule.
No panning, no tilting, no camera moves.
But then, once you make a rule, you get to be the first one to break it.
You have to break it, because people will forget you made it unless you break it.
So one day were shooting, and a weird, weird shot came in my head.
I said to the DP, Lets lay some reel.
Its time to break a move right now.
I didnt think about it in the car on the way there.
MH:Yeah, thats me.
The logistics of making a film which is something I would truly love to do seem showstoppingly difficult.
Its amazing to me that they get done at all.
PS:Yeah, its definitely an alpha practice.
How much time do you spend having to explain what you want to do to a higher-up?
PS:You spend most of your time groveling for coins, right?
Youre like a kind of stray dog, going from tabletop to tabletop, grabbing crumbs that fall.
And eventually you get your film made.
You have to wake up every morning and say, Nobody wanted me to do it.
Lets go take a stab at do it.
