Up next is "Dino," the Dean Martin biopic that Schrader has scripted for Scorsese, and a prequel to "The Exorcist," which will be his first studio feature as a director since "Cat People" 20 years ago. "I'm pretty excited," he says. "It's nice to have a safety net, a big budget and toys at my disposal." It's also a fitting undertaking for a storyteller drawn again and again to parables of sin and salvation, of divinity in humanity, and the devil in the flesh.

When I caught up with Schrader a couple of weeks before the release of "Auto Focus," he was in an unexpectedly jocular mode, punctuating his comments with sly grins and wheezy chuckles. At 56, Schrader no longer writes under the influence and seems at peace with his demons. Yet, scrunched into an armchair and gripping a cup of strong black coffee, he still gives off some of the restless energy of a man taught early on in life that "this earth is not your home." I spoke with him about Crane and Carpenter's odd-couple relationship, sexuality and homoeroticism, his Calvinist background, and his filmmaking approach.

What attracted you to this project?

The first attraction was the relationship of Bob Crane and John Carpenter, which was something like I'd seen in Stephen Frears' movie "Prick Up Your Ears," about the playwright Joe Orton and his lover. I liked that dynamic. I thought it would be cool if I could do an American middle-aged heterosexual TV-star version of the relationship between Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell. That first drew me in. And as I got into it, I came to realize that Crane was not dissimilar from other characters I'd created. Like the "Taxi Driver" or Nick Nolte in "Affliction," there was a disconnect between who he thought he was and what he was doing.

Does "Auto Focus" continue what you call the "lonely man in his room" theme that began with Travis Bickle?

In some ways, but when I've dealt with characters like this before, these existential loners, they tend to be introspective. They don't get it, but they're trying to figure out how to get it. The interesting thing to me about Crane was that he was not only clueless, he was clueless about being clueless. And I think his greatest flaw wasn't sex, it was selfishness. Hence the title. I don't think he understood or appreciated how his actions affected other people. It was just sort of blithe egoism. So the challenge then was to try to make a film about a superficial character that wasn't a superficial film.

Crane's obsession with sex seems almost adolescent -- even the Crane and Carpenter affair: the combination of peer pressure and adulation.

Yeah, well, they needed each other. If Crane hadn't found Carpenter, he would have found another Carpenter and vice versa. It's hard to know who was the yin, who was the yang. Was John Carpenter the dark side of Bob Crane, or was Bob Crane the dark side of John Carpenter?

The casting is dead-on.

Greg and Willem are such different types. You know, it's like Oscar and Felix. I mean, what could be more fun? Episode 56: Oscar and Felix make a porn film. With the Pigeon sisters! [Laughs.]

It's interesting how the video camera is both witness and accomplice in their exploits.

Well, you know, there were all these elements going on -- exhibitionism and voyeurism, being seen and being watched, and cataloging it all. Bob Crane Jr. told me that he thought his father got more off on the video aspect than he did on the sexual aspect.

That came across especially with the scene when Crane and Carpenter are masturbating to their own video. Was that in the original script?

No. I love that scene. [Mimics Crane.] "What is it about women, Carp?" You know, two great philosophers here discussing women. "Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em." "Truer words were never spoken." [Laughs.] I put that in, I thought it was just a hoot. I was biting my tongue behind the camera to keep from laughing. It was my sort of Norman Rockwell tableau of American male sexuality. You take these kind of Rat Pack guys who have to trade in their narrow ties for beads and bell bottoms in order to score chicks. But of course they remain the same sexist jerks they always were. It's a fascinating period in American male sexual identity.

Were you a fan of "Hogan's Heroes" growing up?

Not really. I was in college when it was on and it was the last thing I was interested in. With the various cultural upheavals and changes that were happening in the '60s, sitcoms just weren't where I was.

You didn't get to watch movies until you were 17 or so. What exactly is the Calvinist objection to cinema?

It happened during the '20s, during the Jazz Age. Our church had a synodical decree outlawing what they called the worldly amusements: cinema attendance, dancing, drinking, card playing, smoking and the like. It wasn't just one individual film either, because the movie industry was seen as corrupt; so it was all forbidden. That was just church edict. It's gone now, that whole world is gone now, but that's the way it was when I was growing up.

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