HARDCORE
Directed and Written by Paul Schroder
The production notes for this film say that Paul Schrader was born in Grand Rapids, where Hardcore's modest, acutely observed opening sequences are set. They also tell us he was raised in the stern Calvinist tradition that sustains the heroic father figure (George C. Scott) as he searches for his runaway teen-age daughter. The girl has disappeared into the demimonde of pornographic film production in California, with its attendant agonies of drug addiction and prostitution. Schrader's feeling for the small-town society and values of his...