Paul Schrader premieres moral drama The Basics of Philosophy at Venice

Festival premiere and production

Paul Schrader's 26th directorial feature, The Basics of Philosophy, held its world premiere out of competition at the Venice Film Festival on Friday. The film stars Jack Huston as John Jorissen, a philosophy academic navigating moral reckoning and buried guilt. Martin Scorsese served as executive producer on the project, marking his second executive producer collaboration with Schrader following the 2021 release The Card Counter. Their professional partnership extends across several decades, including earlier work on Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and The Last Temptation of Christ.

Narrative and moral conflict

Set at the fictional Ridgemont College in Missouri, the narrative centres on Jorissen, who teaches an introductory philosophy syllabus to undergraduate students while writing a book on Baruch Spinoza. The professor argues to his class that moral simplicity takes precedence over theoretical complexity, focusing on whether individuals can truly change. Tensions escalate on campus after a female student demands a grade change, attempts a seduction that Jorissen rebuffs, and claims to know what he did. Jorissen's structured life fractures further following the death of his wealthy father Melvyn, played by Bill Pullman in black-and-white flashback sequences. At the funeral, Jorissen encounters Miguel, played by Daniel Zovatto, whom Jorissen sexually assaulted years earlier when Miguel was an underage boy and Jorissen was a young adult. The assault was concealed through financial compensation arranged by Jorissen's family, prompting Jorissen to seek closure years later.

Cast and character dynamics

Alongside Huston, Sofia Boutella portrays Professor Rebecca Richards, a psychology colleague and single mother to a 14-year-old son. Jorissen maintains a formal and sexless relationship with Richards, frequently taking her to stiff dinners and avoiding staying over under the pretext of his academic writing. Richard Gere makes a cameo appearance as the college's genial campus dean, while Karl Glusman, Dana Delany, Shiloh Fernandez, and Elizabeth Petruso appear in supporting parts. During the press conference in Venice, Huston reflected on the character's surface presentation and internal conflict.

It's not a portrait of the boogeyman, the man coming at you with a knife held high. It's the person living in plain sight. It's the everyman. I thought it was a really interesting portrait of somebody who is actually struggling with a terrible part of his past, and trying to recompense this idea of: am I a monster?

Thematic roots and theological background

Speaking in Venice, Schrader explained how his Dutch Calvinist upbringing and theological education continue to drive his focus on guilt, predestination, and redemption across his filmography. The film follows earlier character studies such as The Card Counter and Master Gardener, while arriving after a 2025 sexual misconduct allegation against Schrader by a former assistant, which he denied.

I was raised a Dutch Calvinist, and, you know, Freud said you're programmed by the time you're five or six, maybe it's even as late as eight or nine. But anyway, once they pour that programming into you, you just run that program for the rest of your life, and no matter how far you run and how fast you run, you don't outrun your childhood. My childhood was one of predestination, of guilt, of total depravity and all that, and, you know, Christian schools all the way through divinity school. So I don't know how I do not write about guilt and redemption.