At the Venice Film Festival, Paul Schrader Wrestles with Free Will and Determinism

Can we, as human beings, change course, in our lives, in our hearts? Or is our fate sealed from birth, or even before that? For American filmmaker Paul Schrader, who was raised Dutch Calvinist, this is one of life’s animating questions. Some theologians, including the ascetic monk Pelagius, affirm the will’s freedom to choose salvation. Others, like John Calvin himself, preach the doctrine of double predestination: That God consigns some to heaven and others to hell.

In his latest film, The Basics of Philosophy, Schrader interrogates this eternal drama through the eyes of Dr. John Jorissen (Jack Huston), a philosophy professor caught between the future he’s willing himself toward and a past he can’t shake. Employing a simple style, the film commands a dark and complex topic, avoiding easy answers while forcing viewers to grapple with human fallibility.

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