“I was part of a generation that wrote very violent films, but it is a time that belongs to the past. The idea of whether and how we can participate in our redemption has evolved.” Paul Schrader leads to Venice exhibitionin the Out of Competition section, ‘Master Gardener’ (The Master Gardener, ed), which will be officially screened at the Lido tonight in the Sala Grande, in which he develops the story of Narvel Roth, a meticulous horticulturalist from Gracewood Gardens with a turbulent past. The devotion to the grounds of the beautiful and historic mansion is equal to the attempt to please his employer, the wealthy widow Mrs. Norma Haverhill. Everything seems to go smoothly, but when the woman asks him to hire her capricious and restless great-granddaughter Maya as an apprentice, chaos enters Narvel’s spartan existence, revealing a past with which all the characters will have to confront.
“We have an idea of Christian redemption through blood, and therefore suffering like Christ who brings salvation -explains Schrader- But things evolve, and in my film there is an end yes violent but perhaps not so much because in the end there is indeed a redemption for the protagonists. Because there is what takes place outside the frame, but then there is what happens inside the characters “. To better understand the concept, Schrader quotes a line from the song that is the soundtrack to the film: “He says’ I don’t want to leave this world without ever saying ‘I love you’. Here, that’s what it is.”
The setting, a garden of splendid flowers that the protagonist describes in a diary that acts as a stream of consciousness, “is the oldest metaphor in art. It all begins in the garden, especially for a character who wishes to hide, and all my characters are hiding. I don’t know if that’s plausible, but I thought: who knows if this person can be forgiven, a former Nazi forgiven in a garden by a black person. The interesting thing about art is this creating hypothetical situations about which we can mull over “.
In the role of the former Nazi gardener Narvel Roth, the Australian actor Joel Edgerton, two strong and beautifully defined female protagonists: the owner of the Garden, played by Sigourney Weaver, and great-granddaughter Maya, an intense Quintess Swindell. “I read the script and it was a revelation – says Weaver – I received the script a couple of days earlier, and it was unlike any script I had ever read, it had a vertical structure. It looked simple on the surface, but with a depth of passion. very particular”. The role of Norma “is one of the most beautiful characters she has ever had, Paul has written two wonderful roles for women”.
“Each character is ready, the pattern is already there, the environment. It was just a matter of diving into the role and adding some elements such as being a young black woman like I am. It was a journey.” says the young Quintess Windell. The director and screenwriter will be on the red carpet tonight at 9pm and will receive in the Great Hall the Lion for Lifetime Achievement of the 79th Venice Film Festival. “I consider myself a lucky person. I made my mistakes like everyone else but movies seem to have a useful life, and this is a difficult thing to deal with – Schrader says – How do you convince a person to come back to see your films later twenty years? I discussed it with Bruce Springsteen, there are films and songs that seem to be made on purpose so that they are made to be revisited after a long time “. And he concludes: “I have been many things, director, screenwriter, but also entrepreneur. There are many aspects, even for this alone, I deserve a Golden Lion”.