Filmmaker Kelly Reichardt has offered a candid assessment of American cinema’s tendency to recycle its own myths, telling attendees at the Visions du Réel documentary festival in Nyon, Switzerland, that “the American story perpetually recycles itself.” During a masterclass on Tuesday as part of a wider tribute to the celebrated filmmaker, Reichardt discussed how her films deliberately shift perspective on traditional narratives, particularly the Western genre. Rather than asserting to revise history, she characterised her approach as a deliberate repositioning of the cinematic lens—moving away from the male-dominated viewpoint that has long dominated the form to examine what happens when the mythology is examined from a different angle. Her remarks came as the festival celebrated her distinctive body of work, which continually examines power dynamics and hierarchies within American society.
Examining the Western Through a Different Lens
Reichardt’s revisionist approach reaches its sharpest articulation in “Meek’s Cutoff,” a film that follows a group of settlers stranded in the Oregon desert and functions as a direct commentary on American imperial ambition. The director directly connected the film’s themes to the political moment of its creation, drawing parallels between the hubris of westward expansion and the military intervention in Iraq. “Meek was this guy with all this hubris – ‘Here we go!’ – heading into some foreign land and mistrusting the Indigenous people,” she explained, emphasising how the film captures the cyclical nature of American overreach and the dismissal of those already occupying the territories being conquered.
The film’s exploration of power transcends its narrative surface to challenge the foundational structures of American society itself. Reichardt described how “Meek’s Cutoff” explores an early form of capitalism, studying a period before currency was established yet when rigid hierarchies were already deeply rooted. This historical lens allows the director to uncover how systems of exploitation—whether directed at Indigenous communities or the natural environment—have deep roots in American expansion. By repositioning the Western genre away from promoting masculine heroism and frontier mythology, Reichardt demonstrates the violence and recklessness embedded within the nation’s founding narratives.
- Westward expansion propelled by masculine hubris and expansionist goals
- Power structures established before formal currency systems
- Exploitation of Indigenous peoples and ecological damage
- Recurring pattern of American overreach and territorial conquest
Power Structures and Capitalism’s Effects
Reichardt’s filmmaking regularly examines the structures of power that support American society, viewing her work 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, emphasising that her interest lies in uncovering the institutional basis of exploitation. This thematic preoccupation runs throughout her body of work, taking shape through narratives that demonstrate 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” exemplifies this methodology, with Reichardt explaining how the film’s core story of stealing milk operates as a window into broader capitalist structures. The ostensibly minor crime serves as a gateway to understanding the mechanisms of capitalist wealth-building and the carelessness with which those structures treat both the environment and marginalised communities. By examining these links, Reichardt demonstrates how power operates not through sweeping actions but through the continuous reinforcement of social orders that privilege certain groups whilst deliberately marginalising others, particularly Indigenous peoples and the natural world itself.
From Early Commerce to Contemporary Systems
Reichardt’s historical examination of capitalism demonstrates how modern power structures possess deep historical roots extending back centuries. In “First Cow,” she explores an early manifestation of capitalist logic functioning in pre-currency America, a period when formal monetary systems did not yet exist yet strict social orders were already firmly entrenched. This temporal positioning allows Reichardt to illustrate that exploitation and greed are not contemporary creations but foundational elements of American colonial and commercial enterprise. By examining these systems historically, she exposes how contemporary capitalism constitutes a continuation rather than a departure from historical patterns of dispossession and environmental destruction.
The director’s analysis of initial economic systems serves a dual purpose: it historicises present-day economic harm whilst at the same time uncovering the extended lineage of Indigenous dispossession. By demonstrating how power structures operated before formal monetary systems, Reichardt demonstrates that frameworks of subjugation preceded and indeed enabled the rise of modern capitalist systems. This perspective challenges stories of advancement and growth, suggesting instead that US territorial growth has repeatedly rested on the domination of Aboriginal communities and the appropriation of raw materials, patterns that have merely evolved rather than radically altered across long spans of time.
The Deliberate Speed of Defiance
Reichardt’s approach to cinematic rhythm represents far more than aesthetic preference; it functions as a deliberate act of pushback against the accelerated purchasing habits that characterise contemporary media culture. By abandoning conventional pacing, she establishes scope for viewers to observe the granular details of power’s operation, the nuanced methods in which hierarchies make themselves known through routine and recurrence. Her films demand patience and attention, qualities increasingly rare in an entertainment landscape engineered for rapid consumption and immediate gratification. This temporal strategy proves integral to her thematic preoccupations with systemic oppression and environmental destruction, obliging spectators to sit with discomfort rather than escape into narrative catharsis.
When confronted with portrayals of her work as “slow cinema,” Reichardt resisted the nomenclature, remembering a particularly memorable broadcast debate with NPR’s Terry Gross about “Meek’s Cutoff.” Her objection to this label demonstrates a wider conceptual framework: that her films unfold at the tempo needed to genuinely examine their thematic content rather than conforming to market-driven norms of entertainment consumption. The deliberate unfolding of plot operates as a artistic selection that mirrors her thematic concerns, creating a integrated aesthetic framework where structure and substance strengthen each other. By championing this strategy, Reichardt pushes spectators and commercial cinema to reassess what film can achieve when liberated from commercial pressures to entertain rather than provoke.
Tackling Corporate Deception
Reichardt’s rejection of accelerated pacing operates as implicit criticism of how capitalism shapes not merely economic relations but experience of time itself. Commercial cinema, shaped by studio interests and advertising logic, prepares viewers to expect fast editing, mounting tension, and immediate narrative resolution. By declining these norms, Reichardt’s films demonstrate how entertainment industry standards serve to naturalise consumption patterns that advantage corporate interests. Her deliberate pacing becomes a type of formal resistance, maintaining that genuine engagement with complex social and historical questions cannot be squeezed into standardised structures designed for maximum commercial appeal.
This temporal resistance goes further than simple aesthetic decisions into the realm of genuine political intervention. When audiences sit through extended sequences of landscape, labour, or quiet conversation, they perceive temporality in alternative ways—not as something to be consumed and optimised but as material substance worthy of attention. Reichardt’s films thus educate audiences in alternative modes of perception, prompting them to recognise the workings of power in moments that conventional cinema would consider narratively inert. By protecting these spaces from commercial manipulation, she opens avenues for critical consciousness that rapid editing and manipulative scoring would eliminate, demonstrating cinema’s capacity to serve as an instrument of ideological resistance rather than commercial reinforcement.
- Extended sequences reveal power’s ordinary, commonplace operations within systems
- Slow pacing opposes the entertainment sector’s acceleration of consumption and attention
- Temporal resistance permits viewers to develop critical consciousness and historical awareness
Fact, Narrative and the Documentary Instinct
Reichardt’s method of filmmaking blurs conventional boundaries between documentary and narrative fiction, a separation she views as increasingly artificial. Her films function through documentary’s dedication to observational truth whilst drawing on fiction’s narrative frameworks, establishing a hybrid form that questions how stories unfold and whose perspectives shape historical narratives. This working practice reflects her belief that cinema’s power doesn’t reside in spectacular revelation but in patient examination of minor particulars and peripheral perspectives. By refusing to exaggerate or embellish her material, Reichardt insists that genuine insight arises from prolonged focus rather than manufactured emotional crescendos, prompting viewers to identify documentary value in what might initially seem ordinary or undramatic.
This dedication to truthfulness extends to her treatment 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 power structures, exploitation, and environmental destruction through the experiences of those typically rendered invisible 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 maintaining formal restraint and resisting predetermined meanings, she creates room for audiences to cultivate their own analytical perspective of how American power structures have historically operated and continue to influence contemporary reality.