Filmmaker Kelly Reichardt has offered a frank evaluation of American cinema’s tendency to recycle its own myths, telling an audience at the Visions du Réel documentary festival in Nyon, Switzerland, that “the American story keeps repeating itself.” During a Tuesday masterclass as part of a broader retrospective to the acclaimed director, Reichardt discussed how her films intentionally reposition perspective on traditional narratives, particularly the Western genre. Rather than claiming to rewrite history, she characterised her approach as a intentional recalibration of the cinematic lens—moving away from the patriarchal perspective that has traditionally shaped 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 From a Different Lens
Reichardt’s revisionist approach finds its most pointed expression in “Meek’s Cutoff,” a film that tracks a group of pioneers lost in the Oregon desert and functions as a direct commentary on American expansionist ideology. The director explicitly linked 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, highlighting how the film depicts the recurring pattern of American overextension and the dismissal of those already inhabiting the territories being seized.
The film’s exploration of power extends beyond its narrative surface to scrutinise the foundational structures of American society itself. Reichardt described how “Meek’s Cutoff” investigates an early form of capitalism, studying a period before currency was established yet when rigid hierarchies were already firmly entrenched. This historical lens allows the director to reveal how systems of exploitation—whether directed at Indigenous communities or the natural environment—have historical origins in American expansion. By repositioning the Western genre away from celebrating masculine heroism and frontier mythology, Reichardt exposes the violence and recklessness woven throughout the nation’s founding narratives.
- Expansion towards the west driven by male arrogance and expansionist goals
- Power structures created prior to formal currency systems
- Mistreatment of Indigenous peoples and environmental destruction
- Cyclical repetition of American overreach and territorial expansion
Systems of Authority and Capitalism’s Impacts
Reichardt’s filmmaking persistently explores the structures of power that support 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, emphasising that her interest lies in revealing the structural dimensions of exploitation. This thematic preoccupation runs throughout her body of work, taking shape through narratives that show how seemingly minor transgressions—a stolen commodity, a small crime—connect to sprawling systems of corporate greed and institutional violence that structure the nation’s economic and social landscape.
“The film First Cow” illustrates this methodology, with Reichardt explaining how the film’s core story of stealing milk serves as a reflection of broader capitalist structures. The seemingly inconsequential crime transforms into a window into understanding the workings of business expansion and the disregard with which those systems handle both the ecological systems and marginalised communities. By focusing on these links, Reichardt reveals how control works not through grand gestures but through the routine maintenance of power structures that advantage certain populations whilst consistently excluding others, particularly Indigenous peoples and the natural world itself.
From Early Trade to Contemporary Systems
Reichardt’s analytical study of capitalism reveals how contemporary power structures have deep historical roots extending back centuries. In “First Cow,” she examines an early manifestation of capitalist logic functioning in pre-currency America, a period when formal monetary systems had not yet been established yet rigid hierarchies were already deeply embedded. This temporal positioning enables Reichardt to demonstrate that greed and exploitation are not contemporary creations but core features of American colonial and commercial enterprise. By tracing these systems backward, she exposes how modern capitalist systems constitutes a continuation rather than a departure from established precedents of environmental destruction and dispossession.
The director’s examination of initial economic systems serves a double aim: it contextualises contemporary economic violence whilst also exposing the extended lineage of Indigenous dispossession. By demonstrating how systems of control worked before formal monetary systems, Reichardt demonstrates that frameworks of subjugation antedated and fundamentally enabled the rise of modern capitalist systems. This perspective questions accounts of improvement and modernisation, proposing rather that US territorial growth has repeatedly rested on the subjugation of Indigenous peoples and the appropriation of raw materials, trends that have only transformed rather than fundamentally transformed across long spans of time.
The Calculated Pace of Resistance
Reichardt’s method of cinematic rhythm represents far more than aesthetic preference; it serves as a deliberate act of pushback against the accelerated consumption trends that shape contemporary media culture. By rejecting conventional pacing, she opens room for viewers to observe 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 designed for rapid consumption and immediate gratification. This temporal strategy becomes inseparable from her thematic preoccupations with institutional domination and environmental destruction, forcing audiences to sit with discomfort rather than escape into narrative catharsis.
When faced with portrayals of her work as “slow cinema,” Reichardt bristled at the nomenclature, remembering a notably contentious broadcast debate with NPR’s Terry Gross about “Meek’s Cutoff.” Her resistance to this label reflects a more expansive artistic philosophy: that her films unfold at the pace required to truly investigate their thematic content rather than conforming to industrial standards of entertainment consumption. The conscious development of plot operates as a formal choice that reflects her thematic concerns, producing a integrated aesthetic framework where technique and meaning complement each other. By championing this strategy, Reichardt challenges audiences and the industry alike to reassess what movies can do when released from commercial pressures to entertain rather than provoke.
Combating Market Exploitation
Reichardt’s refusal to accept accelerated pacing operates as implicit critique of how capitalism structures not merely economic relations but temporal experience itself. Commercial cinema, influenced by studio interests and advertising logic, conditions viewers to expect fast editing, escalating tension, and quick plot resolution. By declining these norms, Reichardt’s films demonstrate how standards of the entertainment industry serve to naturalise consumption patterns that benefit corporate interests. Her deliberate pacing becomes a form of formal resistance, maintaining that genuine engagement with complicated social and historical matters cannot be forced into standardised structures intended for maximum commercial appeal.
This temporal resistance goes further than simple aesthetic decisions into the realm of genuine political intervention. When audiences experience extended sequences of landscape, labour, or quiet conversation, they experience time differently—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 the workings of power in moments that conventional cinema would dismiss as dramatically empty. By safeguarding these moments from commercial manipulation, she creates possibilities 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 commercial reinforcement.
- Extended sequences reveal power’s ordinary, commonplace operations within systems
- Slow pacing resists entertainment industry’s increase in consumption and attention
- Temporal resistance permits viewers to foster critical consciousness and historical awareness
Truth, Fiction and the Documentary Impulse
Reichardt’s approach to filmmaking breaks down traditional distinctions between documentary and narrative fiction, a distinction she considers increasingly artificial. Her films operate with documentary’s dedication to observational truth whilst employing fiction’s structural possibilities, developing a hybrid form that examines how stories unfold and whose perspectives influence historical narratives. This methodological approach embodies her view that cinema’s power lies not in spectacular revelation but in sustained scrutiny of overlooked details and peripheral perspectives. By declining to overstate or theatricalise her material, Reichardt insists that authentic understanding emerges through continued engagement rather than contrived affective moments, encouraging viewers to acknowledge documentary value in what might initially look unremarkable or undramatic.
This commitment to truthfulness extends to her treatment of historical material, especially within films exploring 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 functions as a form of ethical practice, insisting that cinema document suppressed stories and alternative perspectives. By maintaining formal restraint and refusing to impose predetermined meanings, she creates room for audiences to develop their own analytical perspective of how American power structures have historically operated and continue to influence contemporary reality.