Filmmaker Kelly Reichardt has provided a frank evaluation of American cinema’s habit of repeating its own myths, telling an audience at the Visions du Réel documentary festival in Nyon, Switzerland, that “the American story perpetually recycles itself.” During a Tuesday masterclass as part of a broader retrospective to the celebrated filmmaker, Reichardt explored how her films deliberately shift perspective on traditional narratives, particularly the Western genre. Rather than claiming to rewrite history, she characterised her approach as a deliberate repositioning of the cinematic lens—moving away from the patriarchal perspective that has traditionally shaped the form to examine what happens when the mythology is scrutinised from a different angle. Her remarks came as the festival celebrated her unique oeuvre, which consistently interrogates power dynamics and hierarchies within American society.
Reinterpreting the Western Through a New Lens
Reichardt’s revisionist approach finds its most pointed expression in “Meek’s Cutoff,” a film that tracks a group of settlers lost in the Oregon desert and functions as a explicit critique on American imperial ambition. The director explicitly linked the film’s themes to the historical context of its creation, establishing connections between the hubris of westward expansion and the invasion of Iraq. “Meek was this guy with all this hubris – ‘Here we go!’ – heading into some foreign land and mistrusting the Indigenous people,” she explained, highlighting how the film depicts the recurring pattern of American overreach and the dismissal of those already inhabiting the territories being seized.
The film’s exploration of power extends beyond its narrative surface to interrogate the foundational structures of American society itself. Reichardt described how “Meek’s Cutoff” explores an early form of capitalism, examining a period before currency was established yet when rigid hierarchies were already well established. This historical lens allows the director to uncover how systems of exploitation—whether directed at Indigenous communities or the natural environment—have strong foundations in American expansion. By reconceiving the Western genre away from celebrating masculine heroism and frontier mythology, Reichardt demonstrates the violence and recklessness woven throughout the nation’s founding narratives.
- Expansion towards the west propelled by male arrogance and imperial ambition
- Hierarchies of power created prior to structured monetary systems
- Exploitation of Indigenous peoples and ecological damage
- Recurring pattern of American overreach and territorial conquest
Power Structures and Capitalism’s Consequences
Reichardt’s filmmaking consistently interrogates the structures of power that sustain American society, positioning her output as an investigation into hierarchical systems rather than individual moral failings. “A lot of my films are really about hierarchies of power,” she stated during the masterclass, highlighting how her interest lies in uncovering the institutional basis of exploitation. This thematic preoccupation runs throughout her body of work, manifesting in narratives that reveal how seemingly minor transgressions—a stolen commodity, a small crime—connect to sprawling systems of corporate greed and institutional violence that define the nation’s economic and social landscape.
“The film First Cow” demonstrates this strategy, with Reichardt explaining how the film’s core story of stealing milk functions as a window into larger economic frameworks. The ostensibly minor crime transforms into a gateway to grasping the workings of capitalist wealth-building and the disregard with which those structures regard both the natural world and marginalised communities. By examining these connections, Reichardt shows how authority functions not through grand gestures but through the everyday enforcement of power structures that advantage certain groups whilst consistently excluding others, particularly Native communities and the natural world itself.
From Initial Trade to Modern Platforms
Reichardt’s historical examination of capitalism reveals how contemporary power structures possess deep historical roots extending back centuries. In “First Cow,” she examines an initial expression of capitalist logic operating in pre-currency America, a period when formal monetary systems did not yet exist yet strict social orders were already deeply embedded. This temporal positioning allows Reichardt to illustrate that greed and exploitation are not contemporary creations but foundational elements of American colonial and commercial enterprise. By tracing these systems backward, she exposes how contemporary capitalism constitutes a continuation rather than a departure from historical patterns of environmental destruction and dispossession.
The director’s examination of initial economic systems serves a dual purpose: it historicises contemporary economic violence whilst also exposing the long genealogy of Indigenous dispossession. By showing how systems of control worked before standardised money, Reichardt demonstrates that structures of control antedated and fundamentally enabled the emergence of contemporary capitalism. This analytical approach questions accounts of improvement and modernisation, proposing rather that American imperial expansion has repeatedly rested on the oppression of Native populations and the extraction of environmental assets, trends that have only transformed rather than fundamentally transformed across centuries.
The Intentional Pace of Resistance
Reichardt’s approach to cinematic rhythm embodies far more than aesthetic preference; it serves as a deliberate act of resistance against the accelerated consumption trends that define contemporary media culture. By abandoning conventional pacing, she creates space for viewers to witness the granular details of power’s operation, the nuanced methods in which hierarchies assert themselves through routine and recurrence. Her films demand patience and attention, qualities becoming scarce in an entertainment landscape engineered for rapid consumption and immediate gratification. This temporal strategy becomes inseparable from her thematic preoccupations with systemic oppression and environmental destruction, compelling viewers to sit with discomfort rather than escape into narrative catharsis.
When confronted with descriptions of her work as “slow cinema,” Reichardt bristled at the terminology, referencing a strikingly vivid radio disagreement with NPR’s Terry Gross about “Meek’s Cutoff.” Her objection to this label reveals a wider conceptual framework: that her films move at the speed necessary to truly investigate their narrative focus rather than conforming to market-driven norms of entertainment consumption. The deliberate unfolding of narrative becomes a structural decision that mirrors her thematic concerns, creating a integrated aesthetic framework where structure and substance reinforce one another. By championing this strategy, Reichardt provokes spectators and commercial cinema to rethink what movies can do when liberated from industry expectations to amuse rather than challenge.
Combating Market Exploitation
Reichardt’s refusal to accept accelerated pacing operates as implicit criticism of how capitalism structures not merely economic relations but experience of time itself. Commercial cinema, shaped by studio interests and advertising logic, conditions viewers to expect quick cuts, escalating tension, and immediate narrative resolution. By refusing these conventions, Reichardt’s films reveal how entertainment industry standards serve to normalise consumption patterns that advantage corporate interests. Her deliberate pacing becomes a form of formal resistance, maintaining that meaningful engagement with complex social and historical questions cannot be hurried or condensed into standardised structures intended for maximum commercial appeal.
This temporal resistance extends beyond simple aesthetic decisions into the realm of genuine political intervention. When audiences experience extended sequences of landscape, labour, or quiet conversation, they perceive temporality in alternative ways—not as something to be consumed and optimised but as substantive material deserving consideration. Reichardt’s films thus train viewers in different ways of seeing, encouraging them to observe power’s operations in moments that conventional cinema would consider narratively inert. By safeguarding these moments from commercial manipulation, she opens avenues for critical consciousness that swift cuts and emotionally coercive music would foreclose, demonstrating cinema’s capacity to serve as an instrument of ideological resistance rather than capitalist reinforcement.
- Extended sequences demonstrate power’s mundane, quotidian operations within systems
- Slow pacing resists entertainment industry’s increase in consumption and attention
- Temporal resistance permits viewers to foster critical awareness and historical awareness
Reality, Storytelling and the Documentary Drive
Reichardt’s method of filmmaking blurs conventional boundaries between documentary and narrative fiction, a distinction she regards as ever more artificial. Her films work within documentary’s dedication to observational truth whilst drawing on fiction’s compositional potential, creating a hybrid form that questions how stories are constructed and whose perspectives influence historical narratives. This working practice demonstrates her view that cinema’s power lies not in spectacular revelation but in careful study of marginal elements and peripheral perspectives. By declining to exaggerate or embellish her material, Reichardt argues that real comprehension develops via continued engagement rather than contrived affective moments, encouraging viewers to acknowledge documentary value in what might initially appear mundane or undramatic.
This commitment to truthfulness informs her examination of historical material, particularly in films addressing Western expansion and early American capitalism. Rather than promoting frontier mythology or heroic conquest narratives, Reichardt’s films investigate systems of power, exploitation, and environmental destruction through the experiences of those typically overlooked in conventional histories. Her documentary impulse thus becomes a form of ethical practice, demanding that cinema bear witness to suppressed stories and alternative perspectives. By preserving stylistic restraint and resisting predetermined meanings, she allows viewers space to develop their own analytical perspective of how American power structures have historically operated and continue to influence contemporary reality.