MEEK'S CUTOFF, the new Kelly Reichardt western w/ Michelle Williams in a bonnet with a shotgun

Saw it at the NYFF last fall, but surely will scoop up some indie awards later on and maybe an Oscar nom or two. Dusty, and shot in the old square ratio! What more could you want?

so peeved I missed this at TIFF last year, looks awesome.

i think we could probably c + p 100 posts from a lost in translation thread, in which the deeper meanings of an ambiguous endnote were fiercely debated, & set this rolling.

i liked this, fwiw - square worked well!, the colours - during the scene with the wagon-winching, & at the end, too - were occasionally magnificent. i read up on it after (there's a really interesting KR interview that touches on the logistical reasons for the ending, which since i'm not sure whether this thread is spoiler free i won't go into unless prompted) - one review said the dialogue was clunky, which - with it only being a marginal focus, really, laconic as her films are - didn't strike me, but maybe seems true, in retrospect, although not disastrously.

yea i liked this too. pretty fabulous how dark all the night scenes are. id be interested in at least a link 2 that interview.

grand total of 6 ppl in the theater when i saw it

The story of Meek's Cutoff used to be notorious in Oregon, but all that local history stuff gets lost or disregarded with all the churning of population, both in- and out-migration. I can tell you there's plenty there to make a gut-wrenching drama out of.

Toronto's Cinematheque is playing all her films alongside Meek's Cutoff. I saw Old Joy last night, I'll see Meek's Cutoff tonight or tomorrow. Old Joy was perfect for me, although many would be bored silly--give me long travelling shots of countryside with Yo La Tengo playing in the background, and it just doesn't get any better. The movie leaves one large question unanswered; more accurately, there's the question of whether it leaves one large question unanswered. For me, yes, for someone else, no. Which is great. After Wendy and Lucy and Old Joy, if Meek's Cutoff is as good as I'm hoping it will be, she'll jump to the top of my list of favourite directors.

has anyone seen any of her other, older flicks?

i will probably see this cuz i love dat dude bruce greenwood

Disappointed to say this, but I thoroughly disliked Meek's Cutoff. I wish American directors would stay clear of the old west at this point--they turn ponderous and reverential, and a slow director like Reichardt becomes even slower, past the breaking point. There's such a beautiful feeling for the people in Old Joy and Wendy and Lucy; I didn't know who these people were, where they were going, or why (beyond the fact they needed water). No great faces, nobody as finely drawn as the old man in Wendy and Lucy, no Yo La Tengo, just a lot of ugly bleached-out landscapes. It was half an hour before I recognized the wingnut preacher kid from Let There Be Blood (everyone's so shadowed in this film); I thought about how the last time I saw him he was getting his head bashed in with a bowling ball, and that was somewhat amusing. I liked the non-ending.

Having said all that, I realized tonight that they screened River of Grass last week, so I'm kicking myself for missing that.

no Yo La Tengo

sold!

I've got another three million movies you might like.

Liked this a lot more than Wendy and Lucy

Wow...that really does surprise me. This one just seemed so tedious and abstract to me next to Wendy and Lucy (whose only flaw, of course, was the absence of Yo La Tengo).

Loved W&L, which feels like Die Hard in comparison to this, but Meek's Cutoff is the better film by far. Just love how everything happens subtextually, how everything from aspect ratio to sound design is full of meaning and intent. One person's "tedious and abstract" is my "involving and pointed." There was genuine anxiety going on onscreen that felt unpredictable, I never knew what was going to happen next, and I became so immersed in the film. By the time it was over I was so in awe of Reichardt's choices, and so satisfied in a way I rarely am when watching a movie.

I really don't think she was reverential of the West at all; in fact it felt like such a subversion of what one expects of a "Western." Methodical and thoughtful instead of loud and chaotic, boxed-in and paranoid instead of grand and galloping, focused on the "mundane" (shots of washing clothes or making bread or collecting firewood; y'know, everyday survival things) instead of the dramatic (shooting guns and arrows flying and high noon showdowns etc). Feminist no duh, you could already tell that by the awesome poster, but Reichardt's commitment to it while pulling off a fascinating no-bullshit narrative is something commendable. I can't think of very many American directors who could've pulled this off.

That's a great defense of the film--as this thread lengthens, I'm sure I'll read more than a few posts that make me think, "I'd love to see that film."

By reverential, I meant more towards the conventions of the genre than the west itself. Headstrong woman, praying scene, etc. (No funeral, at least.) I'll leave it to time to judge whether it's a better film than Wendy and Lucy. Reichardt's at a place in her career (coming off a couple of films that were underappreciated, and one that grazed Academy-Award acceptance) where I think critics often rush in and try to make up for lost time. I'll be interested to see how Meek's Cutoff is viewed a few years from now. I think Wendy and Lucy will outlast it, just like I think people will care about Boogie Nights long after There Will Be Blood is just a footnote.

Opened on Friday. Yea or nay?

I've seen it twice, so I like it, but I understand where the naysayers are coming from.

it only lasted here a week, so i missed it

does anyone know where the KR interview mentioned above is?

i missed its initial theatrical run out here but they're re-running it at the egyptian in a few weeks. trailer looks amazing, stoked (should probably see w&l first tho, i guess)

ryan, it was either in the Village Voice or on a pretty cringe-worthy Fresh Air interview (Terry Gross thinking the aspect ratio was the projectionist's fault, etc)

Still prefer W&L, but this film's obstinacy is its strength, in moments.

this was totally underwhelming.

sometimes less is less

i've always been of the 'more is more' school

i'm with you, amateurist. this completely evaporated upon exiting the theater. really loved her previous two films though.

yeah, it wasn't necessarily a chore to watch, but it didn't add up to much. it was obviously "in conversation" with the conventions of the western, but it didn't seem to have a whole lot on its mind beyond negating them/upsetting audience expectations. i mean, that's a place to begin, not a place to end.

some stuff in it was cool. i liked michelle williams taking 2 min. to load and fire her shotgun. more emphasis on process would have made it more compelling, i think, or given it more of a raison d'etre.

there's a really interesting KR interview that touches on the logistical reasons for the ending, which since i'm not sure whether this thread is spoiler free i won't go into unless prompted

still got the link?

there were a couple of moments i liked: the gun loading, that time early on when they say good morning and it is totally pitch dark, the debate between the men at the salt lake where you can hardly hear what they are saying.

but yeah, totally forgettable, and i loved the last two.

saw this in munich last night. packed festival screening (technically the german premiere), it wasn't subtitled so i don't think most of them could understand meek. went down very badly with them. some minor booing at the ending.

here you are.
sorta a ridiculous thing to apply 'SPOILER' to, but, kinda: SPOILER:

"The film actually ends a little differently than the script," Reichardt admits, somewhat bashfully. "The sun went down before we got our final shot on the last day, and I came back home without an ending to the movie, which is really devastating. I had to rearrange it in my mind. We didn't have the money to go back out there, so it had to become something other than what it was designed to be. I have this little prayer I say, where I tell myself that the lack of means is somehow working in my favour. Often it's true, and it can lead you some place good. In this case, it led me to an ending which was more suited to the film."

Was the movie originally going to finish with a happy-ever-after, or a musical showstopper?

"Oh no," she laughs. "Even in its original form it wasn't an ending that would have left anyone feeling satisfied."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/apr/09/kelly-reichardt-meeks-cutoff

i think i'd feel weird applying 'forgettable' to this, because in a different way from w&l i think it was aiming at being ephemeral, and sorta didactic, and just tracking this posse while they did their thing, and its success in portraying this and being compelling throughout doesn't have to jive with it being 'memorable'. i guess it's ostensibly similar to the last one in terms of its scale?, but those two seem easier to come away from with something to latch on to.

still real interested to know if anyone's seen + can speak favourably of her earlier films.

you mean the pre-old joy ones?

guess the lady outside my theater jokingly asking if they had to end the movie like that because they ran out of money was right.

you mean the pre-old joy ones?

yeah, of which there are several, & which seemed to have been made in a pleasingly pick-up-and-go fashion, from what i know. you can find them (on the internet).

I watched the DVD this today, really liked it. Fairly reminiscent of Picnic at Hanging Rock I thought - ie, against a backdrop of sun-blasted blankness a lot of 'nothing' happens, except for a quietly escalating gnawing anxiety. I love Michelle Williams anyway, so.

Now on Netflix Instant Watch, although I acquired a higher resolution copy to watch. A good move, I reckon, as the visuals were brilliant—both in the sense that they attest for a great deal of mastery on the part of KR and the cinematographer and in that the quality of light was important and exploited. The tenebrous night scenes were a unique choice that I enjoyed and appreciated, I feel like you don't see such darks often. I also loved the soundtrack.

The similarity between this film and Old Joy in the use of music and scenery I find exciting; different landscapes, music, speeds, and feelings but all precisely utilized and expressed in both films. I suppose Wendy and Lucy is also a kind of road trip movie.

This time around though I thought the characters were nowhere near as evocative or developed as in the previous two films. The ending admittedly bothered me—not so much because of a lack of resolution but more because I felt the pace was off. I wish Meek had been less one dimensional, less of a villan. Instead of the turmoil resulting between character against character, I'd rather it come from the psychological element of uncertainty.

I'll check it out--what are some other good Michelle Williams movies?

Blue Valentine is pretty good. I also liked Wendy and Lucy and Me Without You.

Thanks, will check. Despite all the amputations (and drugs), I have no prob remembering choice bits of art and/or arty westerns from the mid-60s on (ditto cheerfully offbeat commercial fare like Paint Your Wagon, Cat Ballou, Support Your Local Shariff). "Psycho-Westerns" (as they were hyped, like Left-Handed Gun, more truly psycho or pro-psycho ones dir. Peckinpah, plus verious things involving Jack Nicholson, Harry Dean Stanton, Scorsese, Malick, Altman, Picnic At Hanging Rock for that matter. The Coens' version (not a remake, since they avoided seeing the original) of True Grit didn't include the true harshness of the narrators' religious/traumatized POV, which is starkly succinct in the novel. So couldn't have the true harshness confronted by revealed truth of Rooster's past or of vengence come true, with new bloodshed relatiing back to her parents. That's the disadvantage of the Coens' brutally realistic all-in-a-days-work, life-and-death-is-just-one-damn-thing-after-another cowbell groove. Which is still pretty cool, far as it goes (and certainly not slow, reverential etc)

Local Sheriff, that is (and sorry for the xtra "f," Omar).

Coens abstained from big dramatic climax re vengeance is His and hers, I mean.

interesting you talk about the colours, scott; whenever i think about this film it's about the end, not for its ambiguity but for how alarming & k seductive the tonal shift is for that sequence, suddenly subdued, quieter, v effective.

Sounds very enticing.

this is great; i totally read it as a metaphor for the fight for a better life for one's children told from a woman's perspective.

how is it a metaphor? isn't it kind of literal?

Bah, another Hollywood blockbuster based on a video game

it's blatantly literal until you get to the end and the jig is up

I adored the final two shots of Emily and then the indian though the tree branches. The visuals, colors included, brought to my mind french social realists of the mid 19th century—but better than any Courbet if you ask me. The girl in the yellow as the wind inflated her dress and bonnet, I can't get over it. A parallel here would be the visuals in Reygada's Stellet Licht.

yeah that's a v interesting comparison in general i think, muted in a kinda lifeless way

Favorite Michelle Williams film (although she's has only a supporting role): Synecdoche, NY. Girl is versatile.

no thread for "wendy & lucy"? hmmm. this was pretty good. liked the rhythms. michelle williams is great. i like depictions of poor hippies and artists. they still exist, you know. and plenty of shitty things happen to them.

"wendy & lucy," i mean. haven't seen "meek's cutoff."

i saw them both, and liked them both. i love michelle williams! i couldn't bear to watch the movie where she has it bad for the clown next door or the one with ryan gosling, but i bet she's great in both of them.

haha those are both great

the one where she falls in love with a manic-pixie-dream-boy pedicab driver was directed by sarah polley!

and seth rogen's character is a cookbook author. ... but all his recipes are for chicken!

and sarah silverman has a full-frontal scene in it! (in a shower!)

guys i am telling you. "take this waltz."

i also love sarah polley -- i just couldn't bring myself to see it because ---> a cookbook author. ... but all his recipes are for chicken!
i hope he is given a better personality than "bland chicken cook"

i have not been sold on this movie thus far, sorry ;)

i have to admit i get a kind of emperor's new clothes feeling w/ kelly reichardt. she hasn't made a terrible film--they are all watchable--but they get most of their minor charge from upending clichés. her films aren't depressing and/or appalling like most of american indie cinema, but i don't feel like they have much to offer beyond their studied modesty and a certain endearing receding quality. my strongest reaction to all of them has been a shrug of the shoulders. i guess the talk-radio stuff in old joy was irritating, kind of the indie equivalent of blockbusters invoking contemporary events to make them seem suggestive and relevant.

xpost

ha, the best thing i can say about kelly reichardt (or any filmmaker) is that she is not sarah polley.

i mean basically i think reichardt's films are just too easy. in a similar way that some of the lesser exemplars of "asian minimalist cinema" are too easy. her films leave me feeling "this is just not enough for a movie." not enough ideas, i mean.

and i don't mean ideas as in big ideas. just, you know, ideas. visual ideas, sonic ideas, character ideas, plot ideas, tone ideas. her filmmaking just seems like the path of least resistance. kind of like jarmusch since 1984.

since 1986 i should say.

actually there are some ideas in mystery train and dead man, just not enough of them.

Don't bother with Take This Waltz. Blue Valentine is great though.

New Reichardt film Night Moves looks promising: http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/nightmoves/

NEW THREAD

is there a new thread?

now there is.

Kelly Reichardt's NIGHT MOVES, an ecoterror drama w/ Eisenberg, Sarsgaard, a Fanning

I really don't think she was reverential of the West at all; in fact it felt like such a subversion of what one expects of a "Western." Methodical and thoughtful instead of loud and chaotic, boxed-in and paranoid instead of grand and galloping, focused on the "mundane" (shots of washing clothes or making bread or collecting firewood; y'know, everyday survival things) instead of the dramatic (shooting guns and arrows flying and high noon showdowns etc). Feminist no duh, you could already tell that by the awesome poster, but Reichardt's commitment to it while pulling off a fascinating no-bullshit narrative is something commendable. I can't think of very many American directors who could've pulled this off.

― trippin lookin at my portfolio (billy), Monday, May 16, 2011 10:27 PM (3 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

saw this over the weekend, this post otm! still though even though i thought it was good i think it could've been much longer and more developed than it was. apart from michelle williams' character, her husband, and stephen meek i felt like i knew nothing about these characters. meek could've been fleshed out a LOT more imo, really all of them could have.

also kind of feel like it says something about my age and generation but i kept thinking about that goddamned "oregon trail" computer game that i played on a macintosh in the mid-90s

old joy on the other hand i felt was just right, didn't need to be any heavier than what was showed in the film