With writer/director Paul Schrader currently in the news for his critically lauded new film, First Reformed, it might be a good time to discuss one of his earlier efforts, one known to about five people outside of The Criterion Collection enthusiasts and a favorite of yours truly since checking it out on VHS back in the late 1980s.
While the literary chops of, say, a Robert James Waller (“I am the highway and a peregrine and all the sails that ever went to sea.” — The Bridges of Madison County) or E. L. James (“Vaguely, I’m aware that I’m still in my sweats, unshowered, yucky, and he’s just gloriously yummy, his pants doing that hanging from the hips thing…Finally, my medulla oblongata recalls its purpose. I breathe…” — Fifty Shades of Grey) are much more formidable, the CFS™ grudgingly accepts the news that Nagasaki-born, British-raised writer Kazuo Ishiguro has been awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize for Literature.