Abel Ferrara vs Paul Schrader

This is incredibly tough. Two of my absolute all-time favorite filmmakers and both are somewhat unpredictable, bold and versatile even if there are some themes they love to keep coming back to. When I look back, "Light Sleeper" and "King of New York" were probably among the films which made me fall in love with cinema at the first place. I was incredibly fascinated with the lead characters of them both. They never stopped being great but I'll give the slight edge to Ferrara because there's something insanely watchable and fascinating about every film I've seen from him, while Schrader sometimes may have his dull moments. I also think Abel is slightly more productive. Just last year we got "Tommaso" AND "Siberia", and whatever he makes, I end up being fascinated with. It's like he can't stop without creating - since there are those documentaries also. But again, I don't know, on some other day I may go with Paul. It only helps that I consider Dafoe, Walken and Keitel among the GOAT actors. 

Some underrated films from them:
Ferrara: Welcome to New York, 4:44 Last Day on Earth, Go Go Tales, Mary, Fear City.

Schrader: Comfort of Strangers, Auto Focus, Light of Day, Adam Resurrected.

Yeah.  Paul Schrader is pretty negligible to me.  He directed a bunch of movies I've never seen, despite my being a somewhat serious cinephile.  He's like mid-level DePalma without ever having his hits, or regressing to the pathetic state of De Palma's current career.  

I'm not a big fan of neither. I like just a few of the films they've made:

Body Snatchers, Bad Lieutenant, King of NY

vs.

First Reformed, Affliction, Blue Collar


I prefer the ones from Ferrara.

They're also different. Schrader started as a critic (under Kael btw), and wrote that book on Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer. He was for a while a dominant screenwriter. Now a voracious highly amusing Facebook poster (lol). Ferrara is more like a street musician - I mean he is a musician, and in his personality more street than any filmmaker. He also started over and relocated to Rome in the aughts and became a Buddhist. His little documentaries are sort of his "facebook posts" - like Sportin' Life they're scrapbook movies, looking back as he forges forward.

They both have maybe 9-10 movies I'd rate 7 or higher. My initial pick was Schrader....bc First Reformed, Blue Collar, and Mishima are just a truly astonishing three to have made. And I really like Hardcore, Affliction, Light Sleeper, Auto Focus. But then there's Abel.... who started in porn (hey, so did Coppola), and with less tools has done more. Ms 45 and Bad Lieutenant are the big ones. Not so many great movies, but many good ones, some trashily fun, even his failures fascinate.  

Recently....Tommaso was a beautiful, questioning, open-hearted movie. He's developing as a person, and so he is as a filmmaker, yet he keeps experimenting too. And never stops working. I keep thinking about that line he said, "Gotta get ya shots off, any motherfuckin' way you can."

Ferrara's cinematographer on New Rose Hotel was distracted on set bc he kept wanting to go Christmas shopping for his kid....Ferrara eventually blew a fuse and fired him. It pissed him off, how important could a fuckin' toy be? Then he made R Xmas a movie about Christmas shopping and how important a toy could be.

What I'm saying is I'm stuck but after a few more Abels (I'm currently catching up), it might be a done deal.