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Not only has Sigourney Weaver rejuvenated by transmuting into the blue body of na'vi teenager Kiri in Avatar, but she's also living a second professional youth. At 73 years of age, the three-time Oscar-nominated actress opens under the orders of Paul Schrader in The Master Gardener, a film that hits theaters this Friday. In it she embodies a lady of high society, owner of a large nineteenth-century garden, in the care of Joel Edgerton, a guy persecuted by a past related to white supremacism, who is also her lover.

The last film of the filmmaker who became known as screenwriter of Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976), completes a trilogy, begun with The Reverend and continued with The Card Counter, which can also be seen as a second youth. The three films have deserved the unanimous applause of the critics for their austere style and content, in tune with the three masters -Bresson, Ozu and Dreyer-, which a very young Schrader already claimed in his well-known essay The transcendental cinema. Formally, the floral motifs allow this time striking aesthetic solutions, which connect, in some way, with the well-known environmental activism of the protagonist of Gorillas in the Mist (1988).

The veteran actress, who became a feminist icon for standing up to the slimy Alien, will premiere in early AugustWe are all Jane, a film directed by Phyllis Nagy, to date known as the screenwriter of Carol (2015), by Todd Haynes. It's the true story of a group of Chicago anti-abortion activists who, between 1968 and 1973, performed about 11,000 clandestine abortions. Sigourney Weaver plays the leader of the so-called Jane Collective, which remained active until the Supreme Court, with the ruling in Roe v. Wade, set a legal precedent that, in practice, allowed abortion in the United States.

Jane Roe was the woman who denounced the state of Texas, where abortion was prohibited except when the pregnancy endangered the life of the mother. What those involved in We Are All Jane did not see coming was that the ruling in the case ended up being overturned before the film was released, allowing states to restrict or nullify the right to abortion. To date, there are already 14 states in America in which abortion is prohibited.

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Cinema.

Sigourney Weaver: "Women have the right to be unfriendly"

  • Writing: LUIS MARTÍNEZ Venecia

Sigourney Weaver: "Women have the right to be unfriendly"

Cinema.

Sigourney Weaver: "After 'Alien' no man ever dared to harass me"

  • Editor: LUIS MARTÍNEZ Berlin

Sigourney Weaver: "After 'Alien' no man ever dared to harass me"Working for Paul Schrader was an unfinished business? I hadn't worked with him because he doesn't usually write big female roles. But, on this occasion, he created three very complex characters, and two of them were women. I loved the script and my character in particular. She can be seen as a villain, although her dark side only appears when she is angry or disappointed. She also has a very passionate relationship with Joel Edgerton's character, and those are emotions you don't see very often on the big screen. She is a lady of high society, do you think she represents the elite of her country? I think rich American women have always been very caricatured in film, and what I like about Paul is that he addresses both the flaws and the qualities of his characters. On the other hand, my character has little or nothing to do with women of his social class. Although I was inspired by two friends, they are older than me whom I admire very much. He has a lot of personality. She might be a snob, but she's not. On the contrary, it takes risks. He does not hide behind his wealth, nor his garden. She's clearly someone who lives her life the way she wants to, and that's why I loved playing her. The film can be seen as a dialogue between the nineteenth century, symbolized by the garden, and the present day. Isn't it sad to see that there are things, like racism, that have not changed? I think that dialogue was part of Paul's intentions, because Norma's environment hasn't changed much in the last 200 years. It is like the Garden of Eden in many ways. As for the twenty-first century, Trump and covid have shown us that there are still many white supremacists among us. Like Avatar, Gorillas in the Mist and many of your films, this one is also very connected to nature, how does it take that the United States remains the second most polluting country in the world? I can see the effects of climate change, and how many deny it. I think during Obama's tenure there was a heightened awareness of these issues. But it's clear that we have a lot of work to do... Soon she will premiere We are all Jane. How have you experienced the setback that has occurred in the United States with the issue of abortion? That film tells of the group of women who facilitated countless abortions in the 60s and 70s, providing support and care to hundreds of women. And certainly, when we started shooting, we couldn't know that all this was going to happen. Elizabeth Banks, who leads an almost all-female cast, may have seen it coming, but I didn't. I'm a bit Pollyana, which in America means an hopelessly optimistic person. Being optimistic, do you think there is hope that the right to abortion will be restored in your country? Right now the issue of abortion is a great tragedy in the United States. Many women do not receive any medical care in states where the law has been repealed and that is why it is causing so much anguish, pain and death to many women. Although it will be very difficult, I hope that the right to abortion will be restored in the United States, given the pain that its repeal is causing. Women are coming together to achieve this.

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