Ultimately, it's an illusion that you can understand yourself.

The same year Schrader received the Austin Film Festival's DistinguiPaul Schraderd Screenwriter Award. Inspired by Japanese writer Yukio Mishima the film interweaves episodes from Mishima's life with dramatizations of segments from his books. Although many of his films or scripts are based on real-life biographies (Raging Bull Mishima Patty Hearst Auto Focus) Schrader confessed having problems with biographical films due to their altering of actual events which he tried to prevent by imposing structures and stylization instead.

Paul Joseph Schrader (born July 22 1946) is an American screenwriter film director and sometime film critic. Schrader also wrote or co-wrote screenplays for the Martin Scorsese classics Taxi Driver and Raging Bull.