Filmmaker Kelly Reichardt has provided a candid assessment 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 keeps repeating itself.” During a masterclass on Tuesday as part of a broader retrospective to the acclaimed director, Reichardt discussed how her films deliberately shift perspective on conventional storytelling, particularly the Western genre. Rather than asserting to revise history, she characterised her approach as a intentional recalibration of the cinematic lens—moving away from the male-dominated viewpoint that has long dominated the form to explore what happens when the mythology is scrutinised from a different angle. Her remarks came as the festival celebrated her distinctive body of work, which consistently interrogates power dynamics and hierarchies within American society.
Reinterpreting the Western Through a New Lens
Reichardt’s reinterpretive approach reaches its sharpest articulation in “Meek’s Cutoff,” a film that tracks a group of pioneers stranded in the Oregon desert and serves as a explicit critique on American imperial ambition. The director explicitly linked the film’s themes to the historical context of its creation, drawing parallels between the hubris of westward expansion and the invasion of Iraq. “Meek was this guy with all this overconfidence – ‘Here we go!’ – heading into some foreign land and distrusting the Indigenous people,” she explained, highlighting how the film depicts the cyclical nature of American overextension and the disregard for those already occupying 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” examines an early form of capitalism, assessing 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 reframing the Western genre away from promoting masculine heroism and frontier mythology, Reichardt exposes the violence and recklessness embedded within the nation’s founding narratives.
- Westward expansion propelled by masculine hubris and expansionist goals
- Hierarchies of power created prior to structured monetary systems
- Mistreatment of Indigenous peoples and environmental destruction
- Recurring pattern of American overreach and territorial conquest
Systems of Authority and Capitalism’s Consequences
Reichardt’s filmmaking regularly examines the structures of power that sustain American society, viewing her work as an examination of 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 exposing the systemic nature 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 vast networks of corporate greed and institutional violence that define the nation’s economic and social landscape.
“First Cow” demonstrates this strategy, with Reichardt describing how the film’s central narrative of milk theft serves as a microcosm of broader capitalist structures. The seemingly inconsequential crime becomes a gateway to understanding the workings of corporate accumulation and the disregard with which those systems treat both the natural world and marginalised communities. By focusing on these links, Reichardt reveals how control works not through grand gestures but through the continuous reinforcement of hierarchies that favour certain groups whilst consistently excluding others, especially Native communities and the natural world itself.
From Early Commerce to Modern Platforms
Reichardt’s historical examination of capitalism demonstrates how modern power structures have deep historical roots stretching back centuries. In “First Cow,” she examines an early manifestation of capitalist logic operating in pre-currency America, a period when formal monetary systems had not yet been established yet strict social orders were already deeply embedded. This historical framing enables Reichardt to demonstrate that greed and exploitation are not contemporary creations but foundational elements of American colonial and commercial enterprise. By tracing these systems backward, she reveals how modern capitalist systems constitutes a continuation rather than a break from historical patterns of dispossession and environmental destruction.
The director’s examination of primitive trade serves a dual purpose: it contextualises contemporary economic violence whilst simultaneously revealing the long genealogy of Aboriginal land seizure. By showing how hierarchies functioned before formal monetary systems, Reichardt establishes that systems of domination preceded and indeed enabled the development of modern capitalism. This viewpoint questions stories of advancement and growth, indicating instead that American imperial expansion has consistently relied upon the oppression of Native populations and the extraction of environmental assets, developments that have simply shifted rather than substantially changed across long spans of time.
The Deliberate Speed of Resistance
Reichardt’s approach to cinematic rhythm embodies far more than aesthetic preference; it functions as a deliberate act of resistance against the accelerated purchasing habits that shape contemporary media culture. By eschewing conventional pacing, she establishes scope for viewers to observe the granular details of power’s operation, the nuanced methods in which hierarchies establish themselves through routine and repetition. Her films require patience and attention, qualities becoming scarce in an entertainment landscape engineered for rapid consumption and immediate gratification. This temporal strategy remains bound to her thematic preoccupations with structural inequality and environmental destruction, forcing audiences to sit with discomfort rather than escape into narrative catharsis.
When presented with portrayals of her work as “slow cinema,” Reichardt resisted the terminology, recalling a notably contentious on-air exchange with NPR’s Terry Gross about “Meek’s Cutoff.” Her resistance to this label demonstrates a more expansive artistic philosophy: that her films move at the tempo needed to genuinely examine their narrative focus rather than conforming to market-driven norms of entertainment consumption. The intentional pacing of plot becomes a formal choice that mirrors her subject interests, producing a integrated aesthetic framework where form and content complement each other. By championing this approach, Reichardt pushes audiences and the industry alike to reassess what cinema can accomplish when freed from market demands to please rather than disturb.
Countering Corporate Deception
Reichardt’s rejection of accelerated pacing functions as implicit critique 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 rapid cuts, building suspense, and instant story resolution. By declining these norms, Reichardt’s films demonstrate how standards of the entertainment industry serve to normalise consumption patterns that advantage corporate interests. Her intentional pace becomes a form of formal resistance, maintaining that genuine engagement with complicated social and historical matters cannot be rushed or compressed into standardised structures intended for maximum commercial appeal.
This temporal resistance extends beyond mere stylistic choice into territory of genuine political intervention. When audiences experience extended sequences of landscape, labour, or quiet conversation, they experience time differently—not as commodity to be efficiently managed but as material substance worthy of attention. 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 consider narratively inert. By protecting these spaces from commercial manipulation, she creates possibilities for critical consciousness that rapid editing and manipulative scoring would foreclose, demonstrating cinema’s capacity to serve as an instrument of ideological resistance rather than commercial reinforcement.
- Extended sequences reveal power’s everyday, routine operations within systems
- Slow pacing resists entertainment industry’s increase in consumption and attention
- Temporal resistance enables viewers to foster critical awareness and historical understanding
Truth, Fiction and the Documentary Impulse
Reichardt’s method of filmmaking blurs conventional boundaries between documentary and narrative fiction, a distinction she considers ever more artificial. Her films operate with documentary’s commitment to observational truth whilst drawing on fiction’s compositional potential, establishing a hybrid form that examines how stories get told and whose perspectives dominate historical narratives. This methodological approach embodies her view that cinema’s power lies not in spectacular revelation but in sustained scrutiny of marginal elements and underrepresented viewpoints. By declining to exaggerate or embellish her material, Reichardt insists that real comprehension arises from prolonged focus rather than contrived affective moments, challenging viewers to recognise documentary value in what might initially appear mundane or undramatic.
This dedication to truthfulness informs 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 systems of power, abuse of resources, and environmental destruction by focusing on those typically overlooked in conventional histories. Her documentary impulse thus functions as a form of ethical practice, insisting that cinema bear witness to suppressed stories and alternative perspectives. By preserving stylistic 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 shape contemporary reality.