Paul Schrader has worked in many genres. Although his films vary greatly in both subject and style, his hand is rarely mistakable. His ethos that “style determines the theme in every film,” that “unity of form and subject matter”is paramount, and that for a film to succeed artistically its unique style must deliver “the right solution to the right problem” runs through them all. Consequently, while the visual schemes of, say, The Comfort of Strangers (1990) and First Reformed (2017) could hardly be further apart, the strategy is constant though the stylistic solutions bespoke.

This essay centers on Schrader's use of camera movement (or absence of movement) as a means of articulating themes within his films and, furthermore, as a tool with which he expresses himself prominently as an author.

In many films he makes regular use of “unmotivated” camera movement. He describes this as “when the storyteller imposes himself on the story, when the camera calls attention to itself.” It encourages us to participate actively in the process of viewing and the construction of meanings. “The unmotivated camera is wonderful,” he has said, observing elsewhere that a great film “not only comes at the viewer, it draws the viewer toward it.”

To illustrate and elucidate these points, I focus on four films from different stages of Schrader's career: American Gigolo (1979), The Comfort of Strangers, Auto Focus (2002), and First Reformed, each of which features very different styles and camera techniques. In all these films, style is paramount. Every aspect of production design, performance, cinematography, editing, and music combines to create a distinctive milieu and to draw out the themes of the story at hand. Camerawork cannot exist or function in isolation from these other aspects; to attempt to extricate it fully from them would be folly. Nevertheless, my primary focus is the extent to which in certain scenes or sequences particular camera movements are brought to the fore. In the most extreme examples, they jolt the viewer. Schrader intends that these movements are noticed and they clamor to be interpreted.