MASTER GARDENER: The Paul Schrader Film

As opposed to *A* Paul Schrader Film, because it sure seems like he's made the same movie again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSgmJ9_60Ms

This New Yorker piece doesn't make me want to see the new movie any more, but it does remind me why I'm mildly obsessed with Schrader's movies in general.

I'm about halfway through Rolling Thunder, not a particularly good movie, but definitely in line with some of his themes.

Rolling Thunder has its moments. Devane and Jones are both fully committed throughout.

Absolutely.

This is one nutty film. In the best sense most of the time.

Wonderful to watch Sigourney Weaver let'er rip in a major role too.

The one consolation for Schrader running his current formula into the ground.

enjoyed the shrader profile in this weeks new yorker

Me too.

I more or less loved this film, even though it ended with the usual Bressonian redemption flourish. I admire his commitment to his own ideas of stilted Bresson-Ozu, down to the dialogue. He's on his own trip.

alfred did you make a letterboxd yet?

Didn't like this at all, but then I didn't think a whole lot of First Reformed (and hated The Card Counter), so maybe he's a blind spot. (Yet I consider Affliction a masterpiece.)

I looked up Joel Edgerton as soon as I got home; I knew him from something (Boy Erased?) but couldn't place him. He's the biggest problem (should have picked up as much from the trailer)--I'm surprised Schrader would put such a monotone bore at the center of this. Or maybe I'm not; maybe he sees purity in the performance. Edgerton almost makes the improbabilities and the pure hokum of the gardening-related voiceover moot. Sigourney Weaver camps it up a couple of times, but she just made me wince. Quintessa Swindell's good, though it's hard to see past all the dreary stuff.

Definitely felt like three films at once.

You guys.

3 films for the price of 1? Love a bargain!

I liked First Reformed a lot, and didn’t like Card Counter at all. So, based on that - I’ll skip Master Gardener and circle back to Hardcore or Autofocus (which I haven’t seen yet) or rewatch Blue Collar.

Your rankings are correct yet I urge you to watch it because within its mild pomposities (if that's a thing) it's a trip -- and Weaver's a delight. "You're impertinent" is the year's most delicious line reading.

Will see for Sigourney Weaver … and Schrader, of course

I went back to what I wrote about First Reformed and The Card Counter, which were probably both posted hours after seeing them. The second was as negative as I expected, but I'm puzzled by how positive the first was. I only saw it the one time, but somehow, as time passed, I started thinking it was really overrated. I don't feel like seeing it again, but I suppose should, to try to find out what I actually think about it.

May I ask why you reacted so to The Card Counter?

For my part, my reaction to First Reformed was mixed but positive (boo for wholesale stealing from Bresson and Tarkovsky, yay for showing left-wing Christianity and environmentalism versus megachurches). This was my first Schrader film, which undoubtedly factored.

I didn’t like the card counter that much, but I’ve spent a lot of time in casinos and around gamblers and found the portrayal a little hokey

Honestly, I just …

I thought all the actors played their parts well.

It was something about the story - the emotional hole in the film. There was never a moment in watching this where I could connect with the experience (in a theater btw) to get to “I am peering into another world”. I was very, very conscious of the act of watching a movie, and constantly thinking “when can I get out of here?”

Which isn’t to say that movies should care about making an audience comfortable. But -

Look, I have seen other Paul S movies that aren’t great, like “Dog Eat Dog” or “The Canyons” and I can imagining watching those again. I would never watch “The Card Counter” again.

Alfred, I’ll take your point about Master Gardener under advisement.

For one thing--my fault, not Schrader's--I actually went to Card Counter hoping to see a good film about gambling/poker. I like gambling films: California Split, The Gambler, Rounders, they're all good to great. So it was disappointing when it veered off into Abu Ghraib. Besides being caught off guard, though, I also found that stuff turgid. Like Raymond, spent the second half of the film thinking "When can I get out of here."

It's not a good film.

Light Sleeper is my Schrader jam, if you're on his wavelength it's kind of a perfect film with an amazing sense of atmosphere, and some sublime performances.

I even like the Michael Been score. You just gotta roll with the portentousness and the foreboding.

A colleague has Light Sleeper among his all-time jams

Top ten for me

Yeah i love Light Sleeper

Light Sleeper is one of my favorites too, though I hate the songs.

I haven't seen everything he's done, but I'd rank what I have seen kinda like this:

Affliction
Light Sleeper
Hardcore
Cat People (yes, really)
Mishima
Blue Collar
The Comfort of Strangers (fond memory, mostly; I haven't seen it in like 30 years, but Walken's amazing in it)
American Gigolo
First Reformed (just couldn't connect with this the way so many others have)
The Card Counter

Enjoyed Master Gardener and Card Counter, still not really understanding the dislike of the latter, is this a broad consensus among his fans?

What did I just watch?

Also, friend of mine who worked on Light Sleeper said Schrader originally wanted to use and maybe did use, Springsteen songs, but couldn’t afford it so then said “eff it!” and just went with the other guy, but I’m not sure if I really believe this.

I liked certain things about this, the look, the vibe, the titular character, but something about the story didn’t sit well with me.

Wikipedia:

Schrader had originally intended to use songs from Bob Dylan's album Empire Burlesque, but Schrader and Dylan could not agree on which songs to use and Schrader decided to use songs by Michael Been instead.[6]

Ah, okay, now that makes total sense. Feel like if it had been The Boss a way would have been found to make it work.

the world missed a chance to re-acquaint itself with "Clean Cut Kid" and "Tight Connection to My Heart."

I wish Schrader had been able to convince Randy Newman to change one word of his biggest hit, for the theme song to Cat People.

It's weird to me that this is the case, but Schrader and Springsteen are friends, I don't know from how far back, but they maybe could have worked something out. But yeah it was Dylan songs.

Honestly can't quite imagine that film with Dylan songs though, I think it required music which had a certain moodiness. Like how Neil Jordan deployed Leonard Cohen's a thousand kisses deep a couple times in The Good Thief.

Thought that Sigourney Weaver was okay but her character was kind of stock. Like maybe a similar character played by, say, Isabelle Huppert would be more interesting or at least tougher in an interesting way. Maya character was very well-acted but maybe underwritten and overdetermined. Finally, feel like I would have preferred if the ending was either more or less violent.

This is on Hulu now and as discussed above, I like a lot of Schrader's movies, but I think this one's gonna take a while to get through because it's just...too much of A Paul Schrader Movie? The first half hour is him doing a greatest hits show, and I feel like he's capable of more.

It's worth looking for his hilarious explanation as to why he gave his main character that shady past. I saw him explain it during a Q&A for the film, but I'm sure he's said it in interviews. It also explains the stunning posts he made about wishing he could cast Kevin Spacey long after his years of misdeeds were exposed. (Master Gardener hadn't been announced yet, or possibly cast.)

xps And Schrader talks about licensing Dylan's songs for Light Sleeper towards the end of this clip from his 2008 interview at the Brooklyn Academy of Music - pretty amusing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0z0dUluZcE

Paul on a movie of close to the same title:

ALL OF US ARE STRANGERS. I was slow to see this spectuclar film because I assumed it was another gay love story, instead of the poem of memory and loss it is. An example how the democritization of filmmaking--lowering of production costs--not only creates a lot of junk but also a few gems which would have been inconceivable thirty years ago.