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Editors note: Deadline\u2019s Read the Screenplay series debuts and celebrates the scripts of films that will be factors in this year\u2019s movie awards race.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver the years I\u2019ve developed my own genre of films, and they typically involve a man alone in a room wearing a mask, and the mask is his occupation,\u201d said The Card Counter filmmaker Paul Schrader, whose distinctive oeuvre includes classics of American cinema featuring internally tormented central figures in Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, American Gigolo, Light Sleeper and First Reformed, the latter of which earned Schrader his first Oscar nomination.<\/p>\n
\u201cI take that character and run him alongside a larger problem, personal or social,\u201d Schrader explained, detailing how nomadic gambler William Tell, the titular character of The Card Counter played by Oscar Isaac, fits the filmmaker\u2019s mold. In this case, Tell\u2019s serving a self-imposed penance driven by an overwhelming guilt.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat if someone had done something that he cannot forgive himself for?\u201d asks Schrader. \u201cWhile society may have forgiven him, he hasn\u2019t forgiven himself. He did a terrible thing, and now he\u2019s living in a kind of purgatory. How does he work through it?\u201d The film\u2019s story gradually reveals Tell\u2019s former military history and the backstory that continues to haunt him as he drifts aimlessly across the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a nexus between the World Series of Poker and Abu Ghraib,\u201d Schrader said. \u201cI asked myself what he could have done in his life that was so egregious that he simply could not get past his crimes. Even serial killers can forgive themselves, but what if he had done something that stigmatized his own country?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI had to come up with a profession for someone who is waiting, and who is living a sort of non-existence. Gambling felt like the perfect milieu,\u201d Schrader revealed. \u201cHe exists in this limbo, traveling from casino to casino, playing cards, waiting for something to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tell\u2019s perpetually pointless journey is interrupted when he becomes entangled with two fellow loners (Tye Sheridan and Tiffany Haddish) who unexpectedly engage him with the world again, setting him on a new course that could lead to either redemption or ruin.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy aim is to create a crack in the viewer\u2019s skull, opening up a rift between what they desire and expect of my characters and what they feel after spending time with them,\u201d Schrader said. \u201cHow they make that adjustment is up to them, but to get the viewer engaged in this kind of conflict is what every artist seeks. It\u2019s not so important what my viewers think, but that they do think.\u201d<\/p>\n
Click here to read a PDF of the script for The Card Counter<\/a>, which hit theaters in September via Focus Features after its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.<\/p>\n View this article at Deadline<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u2018The Card Counter\u2019: Read The Screenplay For Paul Schrader\u2019s Revenge Thriller Starring Oscar Isaac: Editors note: Deadline\u2019s Read the Screenplay series debuts and celebrates the scripts of films that will be factors in this year\u2019s movie awards race. \u201cOver the years I\u2019ve developed my own genre of films, and they typically involve a man alone
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