Tracker Pixel for Entry

Schrader Concludes His ‘Man in a Room’ Trilogy with ‘Master Gardener’

Cinema | September 21st, 2023

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

Many films have used the unsettling revelation of tattoos as a device to startle the viewer with a visual roadmap to a deeper understanding of character. The “love” and “hate” lettering across the knuckles of Robert Mitchum’s Reverend Harry Powell in “The Night of the Hunter,” in the context of the character’s chilling speech, still inspires nightmares. In “Cape Fear,” Mitchum’s Lieutenant Elgart quips of Robert De Niro’s Max Cady (a villain Mitchum originated on screen in 1962), “I don’t know whether to look at him or read him.” The prison tattoos on the body of Viggo Mortensen’s mysterious Nikolai Luzhin in “Eastern Promises” communicate a detailed history. Francis Dolarhyde’s Blake-inspired dragon, Lisbeth Salander’s own complex ink, and the grim reminders guiding Guy Pearce’s Leonard Shelby are just a few more that come to mind.

But hate tattoos of Nazism and white power reside in their own category of cinematic shock. In “Romper Stomper,” “American History X,” “The Believer,” “Skin,” and others, the display of swastikas, iron crosses, death’s heads, and other Third Reich-related runes, black suns and Parteiadler shock and stun as symbols of evil pasts and harbingers of potentially bad things yet to come.

Paul Schrader draws from the trope in “Master Gardener,” the final installment of his loose, so-called “Man in a Room” trilogy that began with “First Reformed” in 2017. Second entry “The Card Counter” followed in 2021. All three movies are indebted to Schrader’s commitment to slow cinema as originally outlined in his 1972 book, “Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer.”

Like the first two segments – and so many of Schrader’s previous movies – the filmmaker’s obsession with exploring tendencies toward self-destruction alongside the seemingly incongruous accompaniment of redemption links his filmography to the careers of the cinematic heroes he wrote about.

In “Master Gardener,” Joel Edgerton takes on the occupation of the title as Narvel Roth, a devoted horticulturist who oversees the foliage of Gracewood Gardens, the grounds belonging to the wealthy Norma Haverhill (Sigourney Weaver). Norma, who we come to learn knows a great deal about Narvel’s past, informs him that her troubled grandniece Maya Core (Quintessa Swindell) will be joining the staff as Narvel’s apprentice.

The arrival of Maya introduces a triangle that will initiate some measure of return to the kinds of antisocial behavior Narvel practiced before he made the changes that led him to Gracewood.

True to form, Schrader opts for the austerity and narrative asceticism he so admires. Those choices will delight some viewers as surely as they will alienate and frustrate others. In his curious essay on the film, Richard Brody crafts an argument that “Master Gardener” is “altogether different” from the preceding movies in the trilogy, positing that Schrader’s decision to hold at arm’s length the “matters of history and of race, of mentorship and of gardening” are deficiently ornamental and instrumental.

While I agree with Brody’s characterization of “Master Gardener” as an erotic thriller (even if that assessment is too limiting and narrow), I don’t go along with the assessment claiming a weak and tenuous link between Narvel’s redemption and the minimal effort of “a change of heart, good works, and a sense of self-punishing submission to the terms and conditions of one’s new life.” Instead, Schrader’s wicked caginess and determined reticence carves out the necessary room for us to use our own imaginations when it comes to making sense of these peculiar people. 

Recently in:

Press release Celebrate Dinosaur Day on Thursday, Oct. 16 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the North Dakota Heritage Center & State Museum (612 E Boulevard Ave. in Bismarck). This free, family-friendly program is open to all ages. A…

By Michael M. Millermichael.miller@ndsu.edu The Northwest Blade, from Eureka, South Dakota, published a wonderful story in August 2020. It’s called “Granddaughter keeps Grandmother’s precious chamomile seeds,” by Cindy…

Sunday, October 19, 10 a.m.Buffalo River State Park, 565 155th St. S., Glyndon, MNHosted by the Red River Valley Chapter of Herbalists Without Borders at Buffalo River State Park for a fun fall day full of flora. (Say that three…

By John Strandjas@hpr1.com Yes, we know, everywhere you look, the world situation is mental. It’s almost inescapable just how tenuous life’s circumstances are. And how they are mostly — pretty much entirely — out of our…

By Ed Raymondfargogadfly@gmail.comWill we be banging or whimpering at the end of the American empire?T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Hollow Men” accurately portrays the end of most empires in his first lines: “We are the hollow men/…

By Rick Gionrickgion@gmail.com Holiday wine shopping shouldn’t have to be complicated. But unfortunately it can cause unneeded anxiety due to an overabundance of choices. Don’t fret my friends, we once again have you covered…

By Rick Gion and Nichole Hensenrickgion@gmail.com The wait is finally over. Those who have visited Nichole’s Fine Pastry & Cafe lately know about the recent major additions and renovations that have taken place over the past…

By Sabrina Hornungsabrina@hpr1.com Dakotah Faye is a hip-hop artist from Minot, North Dakota, and he’s had a busy year. He’s released two albums. This summer he opened for Tech N9ne in Sturgis and will be opening for Bone…

By Greg Carlsongregcarlson1@gmail.com The multiple meanings of the title location in Mercedes Bryce Morgan’s “Bone Lake” cover the sex and death spectrum that will flummox Diego (Marco Pigossi) and Sage (Maddie Hasson) as…

By HPR staffsubmit@hpr1.com Mark the first weekend of October on your calendar. It’s the weekend of the Studio Crawl, which takes us all on a wonderful, metro-wide tour of our talented (and often wacky) arts community. On October…

Press release“Shakespeare with a sharpened edge.” To launch its 2025 – 2026 season, Theatre NDSU is thrilled to team up with Moorhead-based organization Theatre B to perform a co-production of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and…

By Annie Prafckeannieprafcke@gmail.com AUSTIN, Texas – As a Chinese-American, connecting to my culture through food is essential, and no dish brings me back to my mother’s kitchen quite like hotdish. Yes, you heard me right –…

By Sabrina Hornungsabrina@hpr1.comNew Jamestown Brewery Serves up Local FlavorThere’s something delicious brewing out here on the prairie and it just so happens to be the newest brewery west of the Red River and east of the…

Press Release As Breast Cancer Awareness Month begins, Essentia Health is highlighting an innovative — and recently expanded — program that brings early breast cancer detection services to rural communities. Essentia’s mobile…

By Alicia Underlee NelsonProtests against President Trump’s policies and the cuts made by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are planned across North Dakota and western Minnesota Friday, April 4 and…

By Vern Thompsonvern.thompson@rocketmail.comMoral accountability and the crisis of leadership  As a recovering person living one day at a time for the last 35 years, I have learned not to judge others because I have not walked in…