[Translation]: A peep from the cow, in conversation with director Kelly Rechard

Monica 2022-01-20 08:01:15

In this article by MUBI, American director Kelly will talk about her new film "The First Cow". She will talk about finding locations, directing animal actors, and American capitalism.

Original title: The Cow's Gaze: A Conversation with Kelly Reichardt

Original Author: Pedro Emilio Segura Bernal

Original URL: https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/the-cow-s-gaze-a-conversation-with-kelly-reichardt

Starting with her debut work "Weeds Overgrown" (1994), Kelly Rechard used her unique and special style of patience to successfully capture the potential problems of American identity, and explored it with a secular narrative that was not gorgeous. In the long and exhausting history called capitalism, the journey of the little people's body and mind.

Her latest film "The First Cow" is a slow-paced anti-western film focused on male partners. In this film, two lonely outcasts (John Magaro and Orion Lee) Interlaced with a cow (Eve), in the 18th century in Oregon, through stealing milk and starting a business to find a better life. This simple plot conception is Richard’s starting point. She uses her powerful abilities-such as the subtle handling of absurd comedies, her special and sympathetic sensibility, and her simplest narrative, camera sense or acting posture. Transformed into the ability to express straightforwardly-turning this almost anecdotal story about two fairly innocent and clumsy businessmen/criminals into a profound and transcendent understanding of friendship, nature, ambition, and all the concepts on which America is based Of exploration.

MUBI: I want to ask you one thing first. It may sound trivial, but I'm sure it may not be what I thought. It's about the process of finding your shooting location. I found that, especially in "The First Cow", you managed to make the scenery an element of surprise. When you are transforming nature, you are not trying to make people stunning, but on the contrary, using your unique and simple style. I guess this search process takes time, contemplation, and patience, so I am really curious.

Kelly Rechard: First of all, thank you very much for asking this question, because in all my films, the hardest job is definitely the investigation of the shooting location [laughs]. The location is related to the shooting scene manager Janet Weiss. She is an amazing person. We started working together very early, it is a long process, and can even be carried out during the shooting process. Sometimes, you will think of a scene, and then when you get there, you find that it is raining there, the whole place is flooded, the shallows you want to use are no longer there, and you need to have some spare places in your mind. But yes, my movies usually start with reconnaissance. I went to find these places with my producer or photographer. Other times I will go with my associate director or production designer. For a period of time, everyone will spy on their own, and then we take others to learn about these places. In the past, I would spend more time doing it myself. But this project plan is more concentrated, it needs more energy. Especially now, one of the biggest difficulties is to find some places where you can actually shoot, because there are many airplanes now. You can hardly take a shot while the plane is passing by. I noticed a big difference from when I was shooting "Mick's Shortcut" (2010) to the time of this movie. This movie is more difficult to deal with the existence of airplanes. So this makes it difficult to find the right place. The search process does not always allow us to find the most beautiful places or the most luxurious places. Sometimes I have to hold back, which is why I think sometimes the most incredible scene is behind us, behind us, not where the camera is pointing. I believe that these works must focus on the coordination of natural landscapes and scenes, as well as what they want to express, rather than trying to make a story about beauty.

MUBI: How long is the scene search process?

Kelly Reichard: The production of this movie is fast. The venue has been searched for almost a year. I studied another film in Slovakia for a year, but that film was not made, and then this film was made. It took me three months to prepare, and of course many other planning things are also being done. I have to take the unemployed designer Antoni Gasparo to these places. It is important for him to understand these places. But this means we have to go many times. Because I have worked with the same associate director Chris Carroll for a long time, we often go to these places, but you also have to go with other people, so you will spend more time there.

MUBI: Do you like finding venues for this job?

Kelly Reichard: I find it really difficult. But during this process, I was very pleased that I was able to work with two capable fighters Chris (associate director Carroll and photographer Christopher) in these places we already know. I also like to go somewhere alone, think about many things, or go by car with all the teams, and we share our research together. When things get more and more, it makes sense. This is very helpful.

MUBI: By the way, in your screenwriting process, when you take the specific space into consideration, will you also include the scene?

Kelly Reichard: Yes, of course. Sometimes, in the process of writing the screenplay, I also think about the location of the venue. Usually, I think of some places at the beginning, or what they will look like in the movie. Jon and I (co-writer Jonathan Raymond) sometimes think of a place, but this is not our final filming location, but we use it to create some new ideas.

MUBI: You have a long-term working collaboration with Jonathan Raymond. You usually co-create your movie script with him, but this time you start to adapt the novel based on the published novel, which was written by him. I want to know, in this case, since there is the previous script as a starting point, is there any change in this process?

Kelly Reichard: Yes, I think John’s story is very good, that is, there is a lot of space to extend, and to create new space in the narrative space. This time, we only used some important parts of the novel. The novel tells a story of twenty years, and it takes place on two different continents. So we found another way, so that we can deal with the themes in the novel. Of course, we still want to keep all the characters John set in the novel. The role of King Lu is actually a fusion of two roles. But after we had the "bull narrative mechanism", we built everything from there. But we did not intend to enlarge the contemporary part of the story, the story of the 1820s, in order to cut out all the minutiae. It took us more than ten years before we decided to make a movie for this novel. Normally, the stories I tell only happen within two weeks. This movie is very different in processing time. In this story, the years are really long, so. . .

MUBI: How did you deal with time in this movie?

Kelly Reichard: To be honest, it's hard to handle [laughs]

MUBI: In the process of writing, editing and filming, did you manage to solve this problem?

Kelly Reichard: This was completely figured out at the screenwriting stage. Yes, um, I mean, of course it is "to a great extent". Then, things were handled very well afterwards.

MUBI: I want to know more about editing. I know that you are usually involved in the editing process in the movie.

Kelly Reichard: Originally, becoming an editor was largely a practical economic consideration, because at the beginning I couldn't afford to hire an editor. But this helped me discover something new. I feel that when you are doing this, everyone can find some new places that need to be designed, to discover the exact moment you want to edit, or how to make a new combination of pictures, and so on. But each of these movies I made was handled in a different way. Every time, there will be many new discoveries in the editing room. Creating a movie requires social interaction. In the early and late stages, you need to cooperate with many people. So sometimes, it is comforting to be alone with your own movie. You start to get rid of those idealized ideas, and you really have I like the process of shooting the scenes, or the movies being filmed together. Also because I am a teacher, I feel that I need my hands to deal with some things directly, without others, without any middleman. So editing, I like it very much.

MUBI: In this process, will you isolate yourself?

Kelly Reichard: Editing is naturally a matter of isolating oneself. I have a great assistant, very smart and observant. Usually after I have done some editing, I will bring some people to watch it, which can bring some fresh perspectives. But usually this is a process of one person, alone. It's good [laughs].

MUBI: As far as I know, "The First Cow" requires a lot of research to get an accurate description of the social environment at that time, because you can't count on the photos at that time. I think this has a great influence on your creative process in the film. Can you tell me something?

Kelly Reichard: Well, for this specific thing, nothing can be done quickly. As you said, there are no photos, so it's not that simple. We have a researcher in London and he is really helpful, because at the time, everything came from the UK, so he sent us a lot of things. We also read a lot of things. People who study props are also doing their research, and people who design costumes are also doing research, focusing on fabrics and materials and so on. Then we got acquainted with the tribal alliance of the Greater Rand community in Oregon. They are very generous and allow us to use their library. They helped us contact a person who helped us learn the Native American language used in the movie. They also helped us make canoes. . . But on the road, all the people we met have their own stories and all kinds of valuable information. That’s why, the many minivan trips we just talked about are so meaningful, because they are like At the meeting, everyone is sharing what they know.

MUBI: You work with animals many times in the movie. From Lucy in "Wendy and Lucy" (2008), to the horse in "A Woman" (2016), to the cow in this movie now, I want to know how it feels to work with them, or How do they affect your production process?

Kelly Reichard: Well, as far as this matter is concerned, it's really difficult [laughs].

MUBI: But in the movie, everything seems to be going well!

Kelly Reichard: I'm glad it looks good [laughs]. Every frame that can be used is in the movie. Eve is cute, but it's really hard to cooperate. She is trained and we have to do many things, such as to make her comfortable, for example, on the ferry, because the cows can’t swim, the staff move fast, and the number of people is large, so any animal will be right. This makes an uncomfortable response. Working with animals forces you to slow everyone down and slow down. We learned about these work experiences with Mustang in "Some Women". But we all forgot [laughs]. Now we have to re-understand and work at the speed of animals. But the photographer, he is a very positive person, but still, the only time I see him lose his positive temperament and lose his temper is when working with animals! [laugh]. In the end, the work went smoothly.

MUBI: So the presence of cows can be regarded as the foundation of the shooting. In addition, you have already told me that the cow is a narrative mechanism, a narrative method. From this point, I can even boldly say that it might act as a McGuffin. But I have another question about her. I think the narrative perspective of the film comes from cattle. I know this can also be the perspective of Cookie played by John Magaro, but I think this is because there is a completely naive look in the whole film. This is a non-judgmental perspective. I think this is the perspective we are closest to observing still life in the natural world: just like people looking at natural scenery.

Kelly Reichard: Yes, yes, I agree. The perspective of the movie is like this. Of course, there is also Lu's perspective here, besides, he is a liar.

MUBI: But even Lu or Chief are characters built on a simple foundation. I think this requires your perspective to be very naive.

Kelly Reichard: Yeah, yeah, totally. They are very naive about everything, especially Chief, completely unaware that they are consuming the entire race. The tribe was wiped out by disease in almost 5 years. So his existence there is completely crushing. But I think Lu is somewhat optimistic. He is truly aware of his existence on the social ladder. He knew he needed cookies, but he still couldn't keep an idea of ​​breaking through social barriers--yes, it was too naive.

MUBI: Since the chief suddenly appeared in the discussion, I would like to ask you a question about a conversation that took place in his house in the movie, which is a conversation about a necklace between two women without a man present. After the screening, I discussed the film with another MUBI contributor, Flavia Dima, and she brought this to my attention. I’m curious, did you create this special scene for the Bakerdel test (Note: The Bakerdel test is a short test dedicated to making gender inequality a cause for concern. The test is derived from a newspaper cartoon by Bakerdel. The Rule, in which an unnamed female character said that she only watches movies that meet the following three conditions: there are at least two female characters in the film; they have talked to each other; the content of the conversation has nothing to do with men. The test is one A simple method of judging the degree of representation of female characters in movies, and assessing whether these characters have been fully developed.)

Kelly Reichard: Yeah [laughs]. But it is also a narrative mechanism that allows us to see that other people's lives are in our heart, and other stories are happening at the same time. On the periphery of the story. But other than that, at that time, they couldn't be real women there. I mean, Lily’s character should be a Chinook woman, she married Chief, and Chief may have another white wife in the UK. In the beginning, except for this particular situation, at that time, they would not find a woman there. You may have to find someone to do translation work, but in fact there will be no women in them. So, what happens to a society without women, except... But at the moment you are talking about these married women, one of them is married to an outstanding man, the leader of her tribe. Another naive view is that at that time there was trade going on, bargaining was going on....

MUBI: The innocence of capitalism.

Kelly Reichard: Yes

MUBI: Do you think this movie is about the innocence of capitalism or the innocence of brotherhood?

Kelly Rechard: There are both [laughs] It’s really interesting to say that, but yes, this is a movie about them...

MUBI: Capitalism believes that it will succeed.

Kelly Rechard: Well, capitalism works for some people. It has no effect on nature. It won't. . . .

MUBI: All humanity.

Kelly Rechard: Hmm... Yes, but... The Chief Factor will be fine, you know? His life will be very good. He just lost a little milk, but that's it.

MUBI: Now that capitalism is on the table, is there any special reason for telling this story?

Kelly Reichard: Actually, I have wondered what this story can bring us for a long time. But first, this seems to be a good time to tell the story of the United States as a place of immigrants. In addition, to talk about the power structure that has always existed in capitalism from beginning to end. Of course, there is also the depletion of natural resources. How can we ignore all these signs of nature. Of course, we have to talk about the importance of resourcefulness, you need this thing, so that you can always achieve a higher standard of living in the long time. Of course, it can happen only when your life is a little out of touch. This movie is about these things. But as you said, it is also about friendship. All kinds of different things about friendship, about intimacy. For me, this is also a love story. Cookies and Lu are two people who want to live a family life, but can only wander outside the family.

MUBI: A love story defeated by capitalism.

Kelly Reichard: Yeah, yeah. It would be great if they could be together.

MUBI: Yes, if they can continue to live steadily in this kind of restlessness, they will live a happy life...

Kelly Reichard: Yeah, but if they don't have some ambitions...

MUBI: You wouldn't be able to make this movie.

Kelly Reichard: Yes.

View more about First Cow reviews

Extended Reading
  • Rosella 2022-04-21 09:03:09

    Gentle brush strokes, relish

  • Deshaun 2022-04-24 07:01:22

    [4.0/5.0] "Ah, how delicious is it to fry the twins."

First Cow quotes

  • Fort Trapper: She's a very fine cow.

  • King-Lu: I think we should test the waters. Next batch, Cookie, we'll take to market. I've heard a fortune is made on this.

    Cookie: That seems dangerous.

    King-Lu: So is anything worth doing.