A while back, I released this short film-criticism documentary on the work of one of my favorite directors, Kelly Reichardt. The doc was featured by Sight & Sound Magazine in a year end poll of the best video essays of the year and was featured by Criterion.
Kelly Reichardt is one of the contemporary cinema’s greatest poets. Her films are contemplative, observational, and deeply empathetic.
In 2011, she gave an interview discussing her film Meek’s Cutoff. She described her approach as seeking an “elaborated time.” Her remarks could well apply to her whole body of work.
In this video essay, I try to let her comments and films speak for themselves in articulating their almost neorealist exploration of time and emotion.
I have also included some samples from work that is connected to or in thematic dialogue with the films of Kelly Reichardt.
Referenced Films: Umberto D, Meek’s Cutoff, Old Joy, Night Moves, Vagabond, Wagon Master, Wendy and Lucy, River of Grass, Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai Du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles