Since her feature directorial debut in 1994, Kelly Reichardt has quietly built one of the most individual and admirable catalogs among American filmmakers. This year the Wexner Center for the Arts celebrates her work with their 2016 Residency Award and Retrospective.
The program begins this Thursday, October 6, with her 2010 period drama Meek’s Cutoff. The filmmaker will be on hand for the Ohio premier of her newest film, Certain Women, screening Thursday, October 20.
Chris Stults, Assistant Film/Video Curator for the Wex, checks in to talk about why they chose Reichardt for this year’s award, what sets her apart as a filmmaker, and what to expect from the retrospective of her work.
Q: Does she have a long history with the Wex?
Kelly first visited the Wexner Center in 2004 to work in our Film/Video Studio Program. We’d gotten a letter encouraging us to work with her from Todd Haynes, a previous Residency Award recipient. She made an experimental short film called Travis but I don’t think she was satisfied with the result. It’s interesting to hear Kelly talk about her experience working here because she positively talks about how productive it was for her to make a film that she considers a failure. This prompted her to return to narrative feature filmmaking and she came back to the Center in 2006 for a screening of Old Joy. Everyone in our Film/Video department has kept in touch with Kelly since then and we’re so pleased to have her back a decade – and many remarkable films – later.
Q: What can you tell me about Reichardt’s Residency Award?
It was pretty easy for us to settle on Kelly as the recipient of this year’s award but we needed to make sure that she had a project that we could help support in a meaningful way. Jennifer Lange, the curator of our Film/Video Studio Program, got in touch with Kelly and, to our delight, she was about to start shooting a new film and had a very specific need. Nearly all of Kelly’s feature films have been shot in 16mm. It’s a pretty significant aspect of her films’ visual aesthetic and helps give them their timeless quality and rich-yet-roughly-hewn texture. At the time Jennifer called her, the film’s budget was going to force her to shoot the film digitally. Thanks to the fortuitous timing of the phone call, we were able to allow her to shoot Certain Women on 16mm film. I think anyone who sees Certain Women will be able to appreciate the qualities that this brings to the movie.
Q: Why do a retrospective of her work?
Even though the number of recognizable movie stars in her films keeps increasing, she is one of the most doggedly independent filmmakers working in the U.S. And, over the past decade especially, she’s maintained an impressively consistent voice while greatly varying the tone of each particular film. The luxury of a fairly concentrated immersion in her work allows for a deeper appreciation of her movies’ uniqueness in the contemporary cinematic landscape. That’s not always the case with many filmmakers.
Q: She’s one of the few female directors to survive the indie darling Nineties, but she never made the leap to big budget Hollywood films. Why do you think that is?
The trajectory of her career is actually much more complicated and revealing than the statement implies. Her first film, River of Grass, debuted at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival to positive reactions and she was one of only two female filmmakers at the festival. Other filmmakers at Sundance that year such as Kevin Smith, David O. Russell, and Steve James all saw their careers take off while it took Kelly 12 years to make her second feature. I don’t think it’s unfair to say that because she’s a woman, it took her considerably longer than her “indie darling” peers to get her next feature film made.
The types of stories that Kelly tells have no place in the big budget world. They’re quiet films that take place on a very human scale and even the typical Hollywood “independent” films have so much more pizzazz and incident. She’s done something much more interesting and had movie stars want to come and inhabit her world rather than vice versa.
Q: How would you describe her style?
Her movies are both realistic and atmospheric as they chronicle the situations of people living on the margins. They also invest equal time in situating these characters in the distinctly American landscapes that surround them. Strikingly small moments play out against these grand backdrops, creating resonant tales of transformation and loss that situate the political within the personal.
Much is made of the quiet naturalism of Kelly’s style. The New York Times wrote upon the release of Wendy and Lucy that Reichardt had foretold a “Neo-Neo Realism” movement in cinema. But the structure of her storytelling approach isn’t commented upon often. Several of her films are adaptations of short stories, which makes sense because they too are pared down and the narrative structure of the work imparts much of its power and meaning.
Full Kelly Reichardt Retrospective Lineup
- Thursday, October 6, 7pm: Meek’s Cutoff (2010)
- Saturday, October 15, 7pm: Wendy and Lucy (2008)
- Thursday, October 20: Certain Women (2016) – Ohio Premier with Kelly Reichardt in attendance
- Friday, October 21, 7pm: River of Grass (1994)
- Thursday, October 27, 7pm: Old Joy (2006) double feature
- Thursday, October 27, 8:30pm: Night Moves (2013) double feature
Tickets are $8 for the general public, $6 for members, seniors and students. For more information, visit wexarts.org.
Read more from Hope at MADDWOLF.
Looking for more film events in Columbus? CLICK HERE to visit our Events Calendar.