Schrader once wrote a book called Transcendental Style in Film, which focused on such great filmmakers as Ozu, Dreyer, Rossellini and Bresson. The transcendental style was developed, according to Schrader, "to express the Holy": it is characterized by an austere, formalist rigor; a deep respect for objects and light; and a reflective pace and silence-gathering, indwelling calm, often in the face of narratives about intense suffering. Schrader himself has directed seven feature films, which, while fascinating, generally suffer from an unresolved tension between his transcendental-cinema formal leanings and his penchant for sensationalist content.