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American director and screenwriter Paul Schrader grew up in a strict Calvinist family in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Since he was not allowed to watch movies, Schrader sneaked out of his home at the age of seventeen to go see his very first picture (The Absent-Minded Professor, which left him thoroughly unimpressed). And even though he was studying to become a minister in the Dutch Christian Reform Church, his path ultimately took him from working as a film critic to thriving as a filmmaker. After writing screenplays for movies such as Sydney Pollack’s 1974 crime film The Yakuza (co-written with his brother Leonard, as well as Chinatown screenwriter Robert Towne), Brian De Palma’s Obsession (1976) and Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976), Schrader made his directorial debut with the crime drama Blue Collar (1978), another film he co-wrote with his aforementioned sibling. The second feature he was set to direct was a 1979 neo-noir drama initially named The Pilgrim, a title chosen so as not to alienate the people of Schrader’s conservative hometown where part of the movie was shot. When The Pilgrim’s real title was revealed, many locals and business owners were in dismay, claiming that they would most likely not have permitted the use of their locations had they been aware of what the movie was actually called. The real title was, of course, Hardcore.

Schrader’s picture follows Jake Van Dorn (played by George C. Scott), a pious Calvinist and successful businessman who lives with his teen daughter Kristen (Ilah Davis) in the city of Grand Rapids, MI. At first glance, they are the perfect family unit living a peaceful and quiet life. But everything changes after Kristen goes on a school trip to California sponsored by the church. She is soon reported missing and Jake is willing to go the extra mile to find her. When the police prove to be of almost no help at all, the exasperated father decides to hire PI Andy Mast (Peter Boyle) to track down his daughter. But what the detective finds out is a pill his client finds rather hard to swallow—Mast shows him an 8mm stag movie (a short and silent hardcore porn film produced in secret) starring Kristen and two young guys. After a falling out with the detective he had been paying quite handsomely thus far, Jake takes matters into his own hands and heads out to Los Angeles in order to track down the movie’s origins and his daughter along with them. This unexpected journey takes our protagonist through L.A.’s seedy underbelly, as he visits sex shops, strip clubs and adult film theaters and studios in search of Kristen, who he is convinced was coerced into doing porn. He manages to get help from Niki, a porn actress/prostitute with a heart of gold, who sees him as somewhat of a father figure, which is something she so desperately longs for.

Although the movie’s title seems rather self-explanatory, seeing as how it pertains to explicit porn films, it may very well be argued that there is another layer of meaning it strives to convey, as it was stated in Movie News magazine in 1979. For the film industry the protagonist’s daughter becomes a part of is not the only thing worthy of being deemed hardcore—Jake’s religious beliefs and conservative values are just as deserving of the adjective in question. This dichotomy is perfectly mirrored in the contrast that can be seen in the movie’s opening scenes showing the snow-covered city of Grand Rapids with its family-friendly, God-fearing community on the one hand and the depiction of L.A.’s shady and morally questionable microcosm on the other. Yet what is truly fascinating about the protagonist is the extent to which he seems absolutely unfazed by the inner workings of the underworld he had all but stumbled into. As he chases the white rabbit down the proverbial rabbit hole, his determination never wavers and his objective remains unchanged, no matter how far down he goes. The people he meets along the way serve merely as a means to an end and in his mind’s eye, they could never even begin to understand him, the world he comes from or the values he holds dear. While that may very well be the case, he himself does not make the effort of giving them the benefit of a doubt and trying to understand them in return. And even though he starts developing a closer bond with Niki than he might have anticipated, with her becoming the only character he engages in a serious conversation with, her role as a sort of surrogate daughter stops being relevant the moment he finds his real one.

But the ‘happy’ ending we got to see was in no way intended from the start. The studio disliked Schrader’s original idea, one in which Jake never tracks Kristen down, but finds out that she died in a car accident that had nothing to do with her porn career. As Schrader himself has said: “The ambiguous ending is always better.” And while that may very well be the case, it could also be argued that the ending we did get was no less ambiguous. For even though Jake manages to reunite with his daughter and convince her to come home with him, the question of whether she would stay put or return to the scene where she felt most welcome still lingers in the viewer’s mind. We are presented with a logical reason behind her radical decision and her father ultimately breaks down in tears, blaming his pride for standing in the way of his emotional availability, something he admits to never having learned in the first place. And while his vulnerable admission is both unexpected and touching, the girl’s decision to go with him seems rushed, dishonest and unmotivated, leaving viewers wanting more. This ending was not only something Schrader was profoundly displeased with in narrative terms, but it also turned out to be a scene that was not very rewarding to film, because of it being an unplanned reshoot that gave the actress important screen time she was deliberately never meant to have. In the director’s words: “One of the complications of changing the ending was that this girl (Davis) had been cast essentially because she would do the nudity, but she wasn’t cast because she was such a strong actress.”

Apart from being dissatisfied with the ending and claiming, in hindsight, that his writing was both bad and too explicit, the filmmaker also regretted that Season Hubley was cast in the role of Niki. He had nothing against her acting, but he “just felt she was too pretty”. He initially gave the role to Diana Scarwid, but studio executives thought that she was not attractive enough for the part. As far as the casting of the lead man was concerned, Scott was exactly the person Schrader had in mind. But as it turned out, Warren Beatty wanted to star in the film. The director had spent half a year working on the script so the actor would like it, but Beatty demanded changes Schrader was just not willing to make: “Warren Beatty wanted to buy the screenplay, but he wouldn't take me as a director. And in his version, it would have been his wife, not his daughter, who split for the Coast. No good. I held out. I turned down a very large sum of money. I went after Scott and I got him. One of the greatest actors in the world.”

And although Schrader got the actor he had wanted all along, their relationship on set ended up being tumultuous at best. Scott had a drinking problem and had at one point chosen to drink and not show up on set. Schrader then went to his trailer and the actor told him that he is a good writer, but an awful director and that “this movie is a piece of shit”. It was only after the filmmaker promised he would never direct another film again that the actor agreed to come back to work. Schrader, as we well know, did not keep his word. Scott also claimed later on that he would not have accepted the part, had he known that the movie would be filmed on actual, real-life locations. And while Scott was not too keen on shooting in sex shops and strip clubs, the film crew was originally looking forward to the prospect, but their excitement dissipated soon enough. According to Schrader: “By the time we were finished I had more than one crew member say ‘Boy I’m gonna be glad to get out of this. I haven’t been able to touch my wife in three weeks now.’”

Hardcore is, in many ways, inspired by John Ford’s 1956 Western The Searchers that has John Wayne searching for his kidnapped niece, but it is also based on a true story Schrader heard while in high school, about a local teen who was reported missing, only to resurface in a porn movie. Hardcore is also a movie in which the main character is modeled after the director’s father, making it one of Schrader’s most personal projects, as well as a film he himself has deemed one of his worst. But despite the filmmaker’s crippling self-criticism, he could not be more wrong. Hardcore is a gripping and well-written story that successfully juxtaposes religious rigidity with unabashed sexuality, while forcing its main character to cross the invisible line between the two, only to see if he would reemerge a changed man.

Screenwriter must-read: Paul Schrader's screenplay for Hardcore [PDF.(NOTE: For educational and research purposes only). The DVD/Blu-ray of the film is available at Amazon and other online retailers. Absolutely our highest recommendation.

Michael Chapman - Paul Shrader's 'Hardcore' (42/94)

Listen To - Harodcare 1979 Commentary