Paul Schrader has reopened a decades-old wound in his relationship with Brian De Palma, tracing the permanent rupture between the two filmmakers to their 1976 collaboration on "Obsession." The film, directed by De Palma and written by Schrader, arrived during a moment of creative ascent for both men. Schrader was riding high off "Taxi Driver," which had premiered at Cannes the previous year and launched him into the upper echelon of screenwriting. De Palma was establishing himself as a virtuoso of psychological thrillers, his style emerging from the Hitchcockian traditions he had been perfecting.
Yet success bred resentment. The partnership fractured over questions of authorship and artistic control that remain unresolved fifty years later. Schrader's account suggests a fundamental disagreement about the creative ownership of "Obsession," a film that marked a commercial and critical turning point for De Palma but left Schrader feeling diminished by the director's singular vision.
The rift between these two architects of 1970s American cinema speaks to tensions that plagued the era's most ambitious filmmakers. Both men operated in an industry still learning how to balance writer and director authority. De Palma's visual mastery and Schrader's psychological depth should have complemented each other. Instead, they collided.
Schrader went on to direct "American Gigolo" and "Mishima," establishing himself as a full auteur rather than remaining a screenwriter for hire. De Palma continued refining his distinctive formal approach through films like "Dressed to Kill" and "Body Double." Their separate trajectories proved more fruitful than collaboration, yet the unhealed wound of "Obsession" endures. Schrader's willingness to revisit this history now suggests that time has not reconciled what their creative partnership could not.