Filmmaker Kelly Reichardt has offered a candid assessment 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 masterclass on Tuesday as part of a broader retrospective to the acclaimed director, Reichardt discussed how her films deliberately shift perspective on traditional narratives, particularly the Western genre. Rather than asserting to revise history, she framed 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 scrutinised from an alternative viewpoint. Her remarks came as the festival celebrated her unique oeuvre, which continually examines power dynamics and hierarchies within American society.
Reinterpreting the Western From a New Lens
Reichardt’s reinterpretive approach reaches its sharpest articulation in “Meek’s Cutoff,” a film that follows a group of settlers lost in the Oregon desert and serves as a direct commentary on American imperial ambition. The director explicitly linked the film’s themes to the political moment of its creation, establishing connections between the arrogance underlying 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 distrusting the Indigenous people,” she explained, highlighting how the film depicts the recurring pattern of American overextension and the disregard for those already occupying the territories being conquered.
The film’s examination of power extends beyond its narrative surface to interrogate the foundational structures of American society itself. Reichardt described how “Meek’s Cutoff” investigates an early form of capitalism, examining a period before currency was established yet when rigid hierarchies were already firmly entrenched. This historical lens allows the director to expose how systems of exploitation—whether directed at Indigenous communities or the natural environment—have deep roots in American expansion. By reconceiving the Western genre away from promoting masculine heroism and frontier mythology, Reichardt exposes the violence and recklessness woven throughout the nation’s founding narratives.
- Expansion towards the west propelled by masculine hubris and expansionist goals
- Hierarchies of power established before formal currency systems
- Exploitation of Indigenous peoples and ecological damage
- Cyclical repetition of American overreach and territorial conquest
Systems of Authority and Capitalist Impacts
Reichardt’s filmmaking persistently explores the structures of power that underpin American society, treating her films as an analysis of hierarchical systems rather than individual moral failings. “A lot of my films are really about hierarchies of power,” she stated during the masterclass, stressing that her interest lies in exposing the systemic nature of exploitation. This thematic preoccupation extends across her body of work, manifesting in narratives that show 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” illustrates this methodology, with Reichardt describing how the film’s central narrative of stealing milk functions as a microcosm of larger economic frameworks. The seemingly inconsequential crime transforms into a gateway to comprehending the workings of capitalist wealth-building and the carelessness with which those systems treat both the natural world and marginalised communities. By examining these connections, Reichardt demonstrates how power operates not through grand gestures but through the routine maintenance of hierarchies that advantage certain populations whilst consistently excluding others, notably Indigenous peoples and the environment itself.
From Early Trade to Contemporary Platforms
Reichardt’s analytical study of capitalist systems demonstrates how modern power structures have deep historical roots stretching back centuries. In “First Cow,” she examines an initial expression of capitalist logic functioning in pre-currency America, a period when formal monetary systems did not yet exist yet rigid hierarchies were already firmly entrenched. This temporal positioning enables Reichardt to illustrate that greed and exploitation are not modern inventions but core features of American colonial and commercial enterprise. By tracing these systems backward, she reveals how contemporary capitalism constitutes a continuation rather than a break from established precedents of dispossession and environmental destruction.
The director’s analysis of primitive trade serves a dual purpose: it contextualises present-day economic harm whilst also exposing the extended lineage of Indigenous dispossession. By demonstrating how power structures operated before formal monetary systems, Reichardt demonstrates that frameworks of subjugation antedated and fundamentally enabled the emergence of contemporary capitalism. This viewpoint questions stories of advancement and growth, suggesting instead that American imperial expansion has continually depended on the domination of Aboriginal communities and the exploitation of natural resources, trends that have only transformed rather than substantially changed across centuries.
The Calculated Pace of Opposition
Reichardt’s approach to cinematic rhythm embodies far more than aesthetic preference; it operates as a deliberate act of resistance against the accelerated purchasing habits that shape contemporary media culture. By eschewing conventional pacing, she creates space for viewers to examine the granular details of power’s operation, the understated mechanisms in which hierarchies establish themselves through routine and repetition. Her films call for 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 institutional domination and environmental destruction, forcing audiences to sit with discomfort rather than escape into narrative catharsis.
When confronted with portrayals of her work as “slow cinema,” Reichardt objected to the terminology, recalling a particularly memorable broadcast debate with NPR’s Terry Gross about “Meek’s Cutoff.” Her objection to this label reflects a broader philosophical position: that her films progress at the pace required to truly investigate their narrative focus rather than adhering to market-driven norms of entertainment consumption. The deliberate unfolding of story functions as a formal choice that reflects her conceptual preoccupations, establishing a cohesive creative statement where technique and meaning complement each other. By championing this method, Reichardt pushes spectators and commercial cinema to reassess what film can achieve when freed from industry expectations to amuse rather than challenge.
Countering Corporate Deception
Reichardt’s refusal to accept accelerated pacing operates as implicit criticism of how capitalism structures not merely economic relations but temporal experience itself. Commercial cinema, shaped by studio interests and advertising logic, prepares viewers to expect quick cuts, mounting tension, and instant story resolution. By declining these norms, Reichardt’s films expose how standards of the entertainment industry serve to normalise consumption patterns that advantage corporate interests. Her deliberate pacing becomes a form of formal resistance, maintaining that substantive engagement with complex social and historical questions cannot be forced into standardised structures created 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 educate audiences in different ways of seeing, encouraging them to observe power’s operations 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 capitalist reinforcement.
- Extended sequences demonstrate power’s everyday, routine operations within systems
- Slow pacing resists entertainment industry’s acceleration of consumption and attention
- Temporal resistance enables viewers to develop critical consciousness and historical understanding
Reality, Storytelling and the Documentary Drive
Reichardt’s method of filmmaking blurs traditional distinctions between documentary and narrative fiction, a separation she regards as increasingly artificial. Her films function through documentary’s adherence to observational truth whilst utilising fiction’s structural possibilities, developing a combined method that questions how stories get told and whose perspectives dominate historical narratives. This methodological approach demonstrates her conviction that cinema’s power lies not in spectacular revelation but in sustained scrutiny of marginal elements and peripheral perspectives. By resisting overstate or theatricalise her material, Reichardt insists that real comprehension arises from prolonged focus rather than contrived affective moments, encouraging viewers to recognise documentary value in what might initially seem ordinary or undramatic.
This commitment to truthfulness extends to her treatment of historical material, especially within 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 by focusing on those typically rendered invisible in conventional histories. Her documentary impulse thus functions as a form of ethical practice, demanding that cinema bear witness to suppressed stories and alternative perspectives. By maintaining formal restraint and refusing to impose predetermined meanings, she allows viewers space to develop their own analytical perspective of how American power structures have historically operated and continue to shape contemporary reality.