Paul Schrader Talks Creepiness and Race Relations in Venice Title ‘Master Gardener’ (EXCLUSIVE)

variety.com:

Naman Ramachandran Revered writer-director Paul Schrader is enjoying a late career renaissance, with “Master Gardener” being his third successive film to premiere at Venice after “First Reformed” and “The Card Counter.” The film follows Narvel Roth (Joel Edgerton), the conscientious horticulturist of the historic Gracewood Gardens estate, which is owned by wealthy dowager Norma Haverhill (Sigourney Weaver).

When she demands that he take on her troubled biracial great-niece Maya (Quintessa Swindell) as an apprentice, Roth’s spartan existence turns chaotic.

Schrader made Roth, a man with a past, a gardener because he felt that the profession is a “rich metaphor” for both good and evil. “On one hand, a white supremacist can say ‘We’re the gardeners, we pull out the weeds.’ On the other hand a humanist can say, ‘We’re gardeners, we help things grow.’ And both are using the gardening metaphor — one is evil and one is good,” Schrader told Variety. “From there on, I had this character who was the gardener for an older woman, and then, once the younger girl shows up, all of a sudden, something starts to happen.” “I said at the time to someone, ‘Wouldn’t it be neat if you could have a scene where Cybill Shepherd and Jodie Foster went out for coffee together?,’ says Schrader, who wrote “Taxi Driver” featuring those two actors. “Afterwards I’m thinking, well, maybe I can have that scene now, where he is involved with a woman old enough to be his mother and another woman young enough to be his daughter.

And, the stress points that puts on the triangle are quite fascinating. “And then, if that’s not controversial enough, just turn up the heat a little bit and throw in the issue of race.” “Master Gardener” is the third in an