Paul Schrader is an American film director, screenwriter, and film theorist. In 1972, his study of transcendental style in cinema was published, analyzing the movies of Yasujirō Ozu, Robert Bresson, and Carl Dreyer, specifically their theological aesthetics. In the new, expanded edition of this study, Schrader reflects on the evolution of transcendental style and its transformation into «slow cinema», exemplified by the movies of Andrei Tarkovsky, Abbas Kiarostami, Béla Tarr, Chantal Akerman, and other film directors.