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I stumbled across this today on IMDB where it's listed as being in post-production. Willem Dafoe, Lauren Bacall, Lily Tomlin, Woody Harrelson, Ned Beatty and Kristin Scott Thomas are among the cast.

The plot outline on the site is: Harrelson will play an escort of society ladies in D.C. Schrader said the character is his vision of what his "American Gigolo" protagonist would have become when he hit 50.

Does anyone have anymore info on this film?

Wow, he's actaully shot it ? Great.

When this was first initiated Steve Martin was talked about for playing the lead.

Schrader's script was inspired by a New York magazine article about "walkers" who have become a dying breed thanks to

1) Gay Liberation

and

2) AIDS

The "Extra Man" used to be prized in "sophisticated" urban society -- taking Mrs. Moneybags to the opera cause Mr. Moneybags was bored shitless by it. Providing "amusing remarks" at dinners and other events.

Jerome Zipkin, pal of Nancy Reagan's and former boytoy of Cary Grant and Randolph Scott's (for three-ways) was one such "walker."

From what I understand Schrader's script concerns a "walker" whose world is upended when a murder takes place ampong his social set. He's not a suspect or a target but everything falls apart nonethless and he's forced to rethink his life.

This could be good.

David Ehrenstein wrote:From what I understand Schrader's script concerns a "walker" whose world is upended when a murder takes place ampong his social set. He's not a suspect or a target but everything falls apart nonetheless and he's forced to rethink his life.

That sounds a hell of a lot like Light Sleeper, one of my personal faves. If so, that's okay. I certainly don't mind him retreading ground that was so productive before. Hopefully it will prove to be a fruitful variation on the theme. It might be particularly interesting if he included yet another variation on the end of Pickpocket. Talk about auteuristic through lines.

This the 4th of the sequence following the same character type -TAXI DRIVER (20s), AMERICAN GIGOLO (30s), LIGHT SLEEPER (40s) & THE WALKER (50s)... An outsider looking in on society, wanting to be there but excluded by their own nature...

The character 'walks'/accompanies society ladies/widows in Washington (originally appearing in the Reagan era), being sexually unthreatening in straight circles. housetrained and socially skilful and witty, however when scandal hits (like AMERICAN GIGOLO) who are his friends and indeed who is he really, and what does he really amount to?

He's apparently AMERICAN GIGOLO who leaves his flies unzipped, except with the boys...

Spent a day with Schrader last year - interesting guy!...

He is indeed an interesting guy, and "outside looking in" is his M.O.
As for the world he's so curious about, Cole Porter described it best back in 1929

"I should like you all to know,
I'm a famous gigolo.
And of lavender, my nature's got just a dash in it.
As I'm slightly undersexed,
You will always find me next
To some dowager who's wealthy rather than passionate.
Go to one of those night club places
And you'll find me stretching my braces
Pushing ladies with lifted faces 'round the floor.
But I must confess to you
There are moments when I'm blue.
And I ask myself whatever I do it for.

I'm a flower that blooms in the winter,
Sinking deeper and deeper in snow.
I'm a baby who has
No mother but jazz,
I'm a gigolo.
Ev'ry morning, when labor is over,
To my sweet-scented lodgings I go,
Take the glass from the shelf
And look at myself,
I'm a gigolo.
I get stocks and bonds
From faded blondes
Ev'ry twenty-fifth of December.
Still I'm just a pet
That men forget
And only tailors remember.
Yet when I see the way all the ladies
Treat their husbands who put up the dough,
You cannot think me odd
If then I thank God
I'm a gigolo. "

There's a great rendition of it by William Hickey -- the immortal aged Don of Prizzi's Honor. You'll find it on the original cast cd of Ben Bagley's The Decline and Fall of the Entire World as Seen Through the Eyes of Cole Porter

Schrader is such a genius and does his work so brilliantly that it absolutely pains me to see him include a fucking murder in EVERY one of his movies! Case in point (as this movie is apparently most like GIGOLO), why the hell didn't he just explore the Richard Gere character and the darkness of the world he was involved in? Why add a murder in it? Why add a murder into the plot for Light Sleeper - why not allow the films explore the character and moral ambiguity which he does so brilliantly?

I just can't understand that.

This will be screening out of competition at the Berlin Film Fest. I'm anxious to hear what the early word on this picture will be.

This will be screening out of competition at the Berlin Film Fest. I'm anxious to hear what the early word on this picture will be.

Schrader is chairperson of the competition jury at Berlin this year, hence the screening format....

A few more details about the film:

Follow-up to 'American Gigolo' premieres at Berlinale
by Deborah Cole Tue Feb 13, 2:55 PM ET

BERLIN (AFP) - Hollywood director and screenwriter Paul Schrader revisits the ground he covered in "American Gigolo" in his Berlinale entry, "The Walker", starring Woody Harrelson as an ageing high-class escort.

Harrelson's Carter Page III, the gay black sheep of an old-line political family, squires the grande dames of the Washington social scene played by Lily Tomlin, Kristin Scott Thomas and screen legend Lauren Bacall.

Schrader, who is also serving as the jury president at the 57th Berlin Film Festival, told reporters that he had based the character on the real-life "walker" of Nancy Reagan in the 1980s, Jerry Zipkin, who offered her platonic companionship and a regular date to Washington social events.

"It's a certain kind of gent, usually fairly witty, sometimes money is exchanged but more often than not it's men who like this world and like girl-talk and gossip," said Schrader, 60.

"It's kind of a progression of a metaphor I've used in the past, like Taxi Driver," he said, referring to the screenplay he wrote for the gritty 1976 drama starring Robert De Niro.

He said the trajectory of male icons ran from the angry young man in "Taxi Driver" to Richard Gere's male prostitute in "American Gigolo" in 1980 to the natty 50-year-old toupee wearer in "The Walker".

"In 'American Gigolo' there's a scene that's become famous of Richard Gere dressing. So I thought, OK, we'll do a scene of Woody undressing but we'll end it with him taking his hair off," he said with a laugh.

Bacall, 72, said she relished the chance to play the doyenne of the group and had no plans to retire.

"I have too much energy to stop working," she said. "I like the adventure and the discovery of it and the enthusiasm of it."

Although the film touches on contemporary politics in the United States, presenting a deeply conservative administration enmeshed in the Iraq war, Schrader said the film was not intended as a political statement.

"This is a character study," he said.

Schrader declined to be drawn on his opinion of De Niro's Berlinale competition entry, "The Good Shepherd", or any of the other contenders.

"See these fingers here?" he asked, holding up four. "They cut them off if I answer that question," he quipped.

"The Walker" is screening out of competition at the Berlinale, which wraps up Sunday after the top prizes are awarded at a gala ceremony Saturday night.

So it was directly inspired by Jerry Zipkin, eh? Fabulous! According to Brendan Gill, Zipkin (a confidant of Nancy Reagan) was shared by Cary Grant and Randolph Scott.

I imagine they had a "days of week" schedule worked out between them. Very Design for Living.

Review by David D'Arcy, Screendaily.com

THE WALKER
Dir. Paul Schrader, USA, 2007, English, 107 minutes, colour.

Writer/director Paul Schrader has built The Walker around a gay man of style and superficiality (Woody Harrelson) who escorts rich Washington women to lunch and to the cultural events that their powerful husbands scorn. When a friend's lobbyist lover ends up dead, Carter Page III's resolve is tested by enemies on the Right, confirming the cynical political adage, "if you want a friend in Washington, get a dog."

Scenes from Iraq on TV news and talk of character assassination and betrayal by the White House come up throughout. Emek, Page's boyfriend (Moritz Bleibtreu), a newspaper photographer, can't get his pictures of torture victims shown in a gallery.

Yet counting on the film's topicality may be a miscalculation in the marketplace. The film's scandal is less incendiary than the daily headlines – whether it's the Jack Abramoff lobbying scams, the Scooter Libbey character assassination gambit, or official manipulations of intelligence.

Americans have 24-hour news for these stories, although Harrelson, Lauren Bacall and Lily Tomlin could bring their fans out to theatres. In foreign territories, the film can count on strong anti-Bush sentiment globally, which shows no sing of waning.

Carter Page III, son of a politician and grandson of a Virginia planter, knows the town's secrets and dirt, and shares it all with choice women. An interior decorator and real estate broker to the rich, he plays cards with a troika of ladies (Tomlin, Bacall and Kristin Scott Thomas) who love his jokes, fine grooming and wallpaper tips.

When a senator's wife Lynn Lockner (Thomas) finds her lover's bloody body, Harrelson troubleshoots to protect her and her husband from getting smeared, and almost gets himself killed.

"Car" comes under attack from the US Attorney, Mungo Tenant (William Hope) who smells liberal blood. Yet the corporate scandal that the murder victim could have exposed soon implicates a large company, a major law firm, and the government itself.

The prosecution of the dapper "Car" is called off, but he's already been abandoned by his former friends. For companionship, he adopts the dead man's cat. No kidding.

As Page, Harrelson plays a gossip, more refined than bitchy, who's chagrined that Washington has less depth than even he imagined. Schrader focuses on his inner struggle once the body turns up, sacrificing plot tension and action.

What could have been a chilling story with serious political implications, although never dull, never really gets frightening. As the Fed's pursuit of Page intensifies and unravels, characters get preachy, as if to make up for lost time.

Bacall, Tomlin and Thomas fit the template of smug "ladies who lunch" with time on their hands, feeding on nasty stories. Costume designer Nic Ede dresses them for the part. Harrelson is garbed in foppish suits, befitting his vocation. His convincing toupee is part of the uniform.

Interiors, shot on the Isle of Man, come close enough to Washington not to get in the way of the story. The problem is that the fictional story can't compete with the real stuff which, as the saying goes, you can't make up.

stroszeck wrote:Schrader is such a genius and does his work so brilliantly that it absolutely pains me to see him include a fucking murder in EVERY one of his movies!

I couldn't agree more, although it seems more than ever that for a film to be funded, it must follow a simple genre outline that can be sold in the trailer. That, or Schrader is still obsessed with guns.

From the little I've read, I'm already wishing this was the film Scorsese could have made 10 years ago - script by Vidal set in the 80s (simply titled Social), scored by Alan Vega performing standards, starring Jessica Tandy and Bob Newhart, with all the cameos you could still muster.

Saw the film and am mixed on it. Woody Harrelson's performance really took a long, long time to warm up to - especially his accent. And there was a bit of laughter when Moritz Bleibtreu showed up. But their relationship never really struck me as being "real", and the whole "political thriller" aspect is based on a rather shakey structure. Great cast, but not used to the full extent that it should be. But if you're a Schrader fan there's still things to like here, especially since it has the requisite Schrader signature.

And there was a bit of laughter when Moritz Bleibtreu showed up. But their relationship never really struck me as being "real",

Why?

Because someone was inherent surface and shallow like Harrelson's character just doesn't seem like would be a fit with Bleibtreu's agit-pop photo artist type of character. Plus, there was never any chemistry between the two.

It looks like the UK will be getting a theatrical release of the film first. Here is the official site with the trailer.

I was really impressed with this. As usual with Schrader I tend to underestimate what I will get from him and that almost always works gloriously to his advantage (especially in the magnificent Forever Mine, the film which should have received all the critical adulation reserved for and heaped upon Haynes' Far From Heaven--Give All For Love indeed).

Anyway, at first I'll admit it seems a little unsteady; Woody's performance calls attention to itself and the murder mystery is an unwelcome intrusion into this social study--it feels forced and convoluted and threatens to derail the picture. But somehow, very gradually, we begin to sense that there is a larger agenda at work, that Schrader has more on his mind than the obvious. What's challenging about The Walker is exactly that, though. We're more or less prepared for a carefully observed, sympathetic portrait of a very superficial man and that is what we get but that's just the lead in.

Schrader's true accomplishment here will probably only begin to become clear after several viewings. Certainly there is a minutely detailed sociological study at work, which is fascinating enough on its own terms, but what really shines is the deceptive simplicity of the piece, the way it seems to lay all its cards on the table and yet the real mystery lies elsewhere (as Harrelson himself acknowledges at the end), beyond the overt clues and polemical, up-to-date pronouncements. Because, of course, this is a superficial society, after all--there is a reason Woody's affect initially brings to mind the disdainful disconnect of Capote. Everything stated bluntly or implied directly is everything that can be acknowledged or understood in these environs. The real story emerges through Schrader's deft, subtle camera work (close-ups on hands connecting or not, slow moves in on peoples' features to emphasize the ironic impossibility of knowing their true nature and our frustrated inability to fully empathize); it also emerges through his smart, precise scripting. All the elements in play are acknowledged (superficial lives, frustrated empathy, class consciousness, marginalized social status, feelings of familial inadequacy, the inability to ever invest completely in someone or something) but what is truly great here and what sets this picture so far apart from the pack is that Schrader acknowledges these ideas just to set them into play--the real kinetic kick and intellectual pleasure is watching them reflect off one another and inform each other until the whole picture feels drawn taut. It's why there's a "mystery plot" at all. Schrader beautifully makes use of the hackneyed cliches and otherwise boring confrontation scenes to express something progressively deeper and more profound about his characters and their social network, how it informs the parameters of their lives and vision. This is brilliant as it is the only good reason to indulge in such a static, rote form.

Harrelson is ultimately superb here, completely disappearing into his character and inhabiting him. He deserves an Oscar nomination for it, though that won't happen. The cast is uniformly excellent, even when they are provided only one or two scenes to leave their mark (as with Dafoe and Ned Beatty). And I'll never be able to hear a certain Bryan Ferry song again without thinking of this picture. I notice, with some bemusement, that Schrader invokes a very familiar closing line once again at the end. Still, what might normally cause me to roll my eyes did not. He had earned whatever he wanted to do.

I suppose that this won't be a particularly successful or impactful film but that has far more to do with prevailing fashions than the quality of the work. Watching this renewed my appreciation for Schrader as a director and screenwriter who embraces an aesthetic that deceives in its simplicity. His triumph is satisfied with remaining within his work; he shows little need to lord it over us.

BTW, I was also intrigued by the "special thanks" to Kenneth Anger. I wonder what exactly inspired that.

He probably asked for information that Anger was only too happy to supply.

What you note about the use of hand suggests Schrader is still very much a Bresson fan. I'm intrigued by the entire project, especially the very unusual casting of Woody Harrelson. He's scarcely the first name that pops into mind when thinking of an actor to play a soigne, ultra-sophisticated gay man-about-town.

This is on my short list of Fall-Winter releases I'm greatly looking forward too -- right along with Savage Grace and of course I'm Not There.

Was at the North American premiere at TIFF on Thursday, and it didn't go well: there was a reel jump (it was the one where the murder in the movie is revealed, to boot) and it took 45 minutes to fix. In the interim, Paul Schrader and Lauren Bacall performed a rather painful Q and A, which combined generic questions with Bacall's frailty (EDIT: it wasn't so much frailty: she was a bit unsteady on her feet and had some trouble remembering details, but I'm sure I'll be in far worse shape when/if I'm 83) and Schrader's somewhat lacking public speaking skills. I get the feeling that Schrader and Bacall would have been fine one on one or in a different setting, but in such a hostile air (many people left right or soon after the reel problem, stuck around and complained, or just looked bored) and in the face of such a lack of organization, things did not go well. Didn't know what to think of the movie after that: it's all in pieces in my mind. Just felt really bad for Schrader and Bacall, and it was a reminder that so much of TIFF is now stuffed shirts who don't care one iota about the films (re: most of the audience in attendance).

Wow, that sounds painful -- it's really too bad the audience couldn't come up with some decent questions because Bacall can be quite the interviewee when she wants to be.

I did my best to come up with something: all I could come up with, though, was to ask Schrader about the upcoming Mishima DVD (I had been waiting in line for almost 2 hours to get in and the reel screwup had thrown me, not to mention that I'm horrible at generating/asking Qs anyways-I had a particularly scarring experience asking Cronenberg a question at a Warhol exhibit), which I couldn't quite manage to do in the disorder (I got the question out, but not quite forcefully enough to get Schrader's attention over someone asking whether he meant for Hardcore's ending to be a happy one or not: on the plus side, I learned that George C. Scott was practically blind in his later days, knowledge I did not possess prior). No bitterness: it just made for a long, terse, occasionally unpleasant evening.

Saw it yesterday and was most impressed. One of Schrader's very, very best. I suspect the laughter over Bleibtreu's appearance was plain simple old-fashioned homophobia. No other way to explain it as the relationship is serious, heartfelt and quite complex. In fact Bleibtreu and Harrelson kiss in a scene that's a clear hommage to Schrader's most thorough obsession, Pickpocket.

Schrader is nothing if not an auteur, as the connections to not only American Gigolo but Light Sleeper are quite obvious. Harrelson is great casting as gay men of this sort are never "pretty" but always "well-turned out" and suave to the max. I was surprised at how intensely political a film this is. Rendition and Redacted fumfer around, but The Walker is a far more devastating evisceration of BushCo. and the changes it has wrought on Washington D.C. Kirstin Scott Thomas is silky smooth as ever as a lady in somewhat ambiguous distress. Lily Tomlin is exceptionally cool as a Washington upper-cruster who's a lot more sinister than she lets on. And Lauren Bacall kicks ass as the Queen of D.C. This role is so completely suited to her she could have walked though it half asleep, but MAN does she ever WORK! In fact it' s one of the very best things she's ever done, and therefore required viewing on that basis alone.

After years of being the cinema's most conflicted male Fag-Hag, Schrader finally gets same-sexuality. There's in incredible moment where Harrelson, who in the context of his social world is scarcely in the closet, speaks disparagingly to Bleibtreu of gay couples with children and how straights laugh at them behind their backs. There's a world of careful observation in this scene nowhere apparent in earlier Schrader.

Sadly in today's market, a film like this will scarcely cause a ripple of interest. But it should recoup on home video.

Wow, nice review David. I'm a huge Lauren Bacall fan so I'm glad to hear she owns her role in this film. It seems the older she gets, the better, more varied and more astounding her roles and performances are. She's certainly upending the established Hollywood rules where good roles for older women can't be had. She's finding them and basking in them. Schrader is always great at casting unsuspecting male leads for his films (Greg Kinnear was a revelation in Auto Focus) so it's no surprise to me that Woody Harrelson is solid.

I really can't wait to see this and I hope it gets halfway decent arthouse distribution.

Antoine Doinel wrote:I really can't wait to see this and I hope it gets halfway decent arthouse distribution.

Me too. It's ThinkFilm, so it's hard to tell. It opens in New York on December 7, and it remains to be seen what will happen after that.

Roger Ebert chats with Paul Schrader about the film.

Poster