After watching the trailer youd get the sense that while this will be a dramatic western and one with a journey but itd be more uptempo. Also sign me up for fanmail to get updates on all things movies. In genre called western which is also history in america, women is depicted as small supporting role or object through male gaze. The year is 1845, the earliest days of the oregon trail, and a wagon train of three families has hired mountain man stephen meek to guide them over the cascade. Last year, jonathan demme presented her debut feature, river of grass as part of his rarely seen. Enter your location to see which movie theaters are playing meeks cutoff near you. Its both the scariest and most poetic film of the year. The narrative of meek s cutoff is very simple, and as the tension gradually builds to an inevitable, presumably climatic, conclusion, i was thinking to myself.
In a film such as this, where in spite of composer jeff graces elegant score, dialogue is spare and the most. A wagon train of three families including twotime academy award nominee michelle williams has hired mountain man stephen meek to guide them over the cascade mountains. Meeks cutoff follows a couple of families as they follow a man named meek who promised them he could get them to the mountains quicker then the trail. Kelly reichardts frontier drama meeks cutoff opens in the year 1845, on the wideopen plains of oregon, where a wagon team of three families has set out on a journey along the oregon trail. Were sorry but jwapp doesnt work properly without javascript enabled. Like the feminist westerns i mentioned earlier, it is closely based on.
Kelly reichardt is an awardwinning filmmaker and screenwriter, and widely hailed as one of our most important contemporary filmmakers. Apr 15, 2014 the year is 1845 and a wagon team of three families is setting off across the oregon desert. A new trailer for director kelly reichardt s western meek s cutoff has arrived. They are lost, food and water are running out, and the surrounding desert threatens to. Meeks cutoff, from acclaimed director kelly reichardt wendy and lucy, old joy, is a stark and poetic drama set in 1845, the earliest days of the treacherous oregon trail. The story is loosely based on a historical incident on the oregon trail in 1845, in which frontier guide stephen meek led a wagon train on an illfated journey through the oregon desert along the route later known as the meek cutoff in the. Maybe because of this, reichardt becomes one of most important director in the world. If meeks cutoff is every inch a western, its an artfilm mutant of the genre, inching along with intensely naturalistic obsession for detail that courts tedium even as it dares us not to pay. The travelers keep moving, and they keep searching for water, but the ultimate point of the movie isnt about finding water its about the different sides of any story and how nothing is fixed or definite.
Reichardts previous films were smallscale indie doodles slight exercises in atmosphere and introspection. Feb 25, 2011 the year is 1845, the earliest days of the oregon trail, and a wagon team of three families has hired the mountain man stephen meek to guide them over the cascade mountains. Interview with meeks cutoff writer jon raymond trespass. It certainly revises and challenges traditional elements of the western genre accentuating the females perspective, avoiding an actioncentric narrative for something more explorative but meeks cutoff is the type. Meeks cutoff did that, and on balance, i think i liked it, but what it lacked was an overwhelming reason to be. Jun 15, 2011 meeks cutoff is a historic horror film wild wild west by felicia feaster. Apr 08, 2011 the first thing you see in meeks cutoff, after a handscrawled title card placing the action in the oregon territory in 1845, is a small group of settlers fording a river. The journey was a particularly hard one, and many of the pioneers lost their lives. Meeks cutoff director kelly reichardt says filming took.
Kelly reichardts last feature, 2008s wendy and lucy, simply and methodically follows a young woman whose life is dangling on a precipice. Read the meeks cutoff movie synopsis, view the movie trailer, get cast and crew information, see movie photos, and more on. This is an ambitious period piece that nonetheless retains reichardts talent for capturing human. Meeks cutoff 2011 during the 1840s, six settlers and their guide are caught in a dangerous situation. The films refusal to spectacularize the emigrants hardships, as well as the storys lack of a clear beginning or end, signal major difficulties driving this. Meek s cutoff is a 2010 american western film directed by kelly reichardt. Even a low budget film could show the accurate history. Meeks cutoff plunges you into a reality not your own but so tactile and vivid you begin to feel its sensations. Over the coming days, the emigrants must face the scourges of hunger.
Both movies have many long stretches in which seemingly nothing happens, and thats also the case with meeks cutoff. In old joy 2006, wendy and lucy 2008, and now in meeks cutoff, she portrays a nation full of quiet, almost traumatised seekers after a. A new trailer for director kelly reichardts western meeks cutoff has arrived. Yes, it raised all sorts of issues from racism to cultural ignorance to a blind faith in the destiny of anything western, and by extension, christian, and certainly gave you much to think about, but it did suffer from a lack of any. Meeks cutoff is so real feeling and looking that i suspect kelly may have stolen our plans and completed work on a time machine that we had been putting finishing touches on, and that meeks is actually a documentary she went back and shot in 1845. It s both the scariest and most poetic film of the year. I published a novel in about 2004 that kelly liked, and she was looking to make a film soon thereafter, around 2005 or so. Meek s cutoff could be the most understated, and historically accurate, horror film in history.
They were grueling, dirty, thirsty, burning and freezing ordeals. I have not seen, in quite some time, a movie that has messed with my head as thoroughly as meeks cutoff has these past couple of days. Settlers traveling through the oregon desert in 1845 find themselves stranded in harsh conditions. She asked if i had any smaller stories to potentially adapt, because the novel was beyond her resources at that time. Claiming to know a short cut, meek leads the group on an unmarked path across the high plain desert, only to become lost in the dry rock and sage. Meeks cutoff director kelly reichardt says filming took place in remote locations. Meeks cutoff 2010 letterboxd social film discovery. The production ran out of money and completed the controversial ending on a shoestring. Over the years from watching movie westerns, ive developed a composite. Apr 14, 2011 kelly reichardt is a poet of american solitude. Meeks cutoff represents a significant step forward for director kelly reichardt, a critical darling whose work to this point old joy, wendy and lucy ive faintly admired. The civil war was yet to take place and much of the land was unexplored and unclaimed. Meeks cutoff was the recent subject of a think piece in the new york times called in defense of the slow and the. Reviews meeks cutoff does not dwell upon the failings of the men as much as it champions the virtues of the women, so often forgotten or reduced to less flattering archetypes in the western.
Apr 16, 2011 meek s cutoff is, by her standards, far more eventful and covers a more hazardous journey that begins and ends in medias res. Meeks cutoff is a 2010 american western film directed by kelly reichardt. To set aside its many other accomplishments, meek s cutoff is the first film ive seen that evokes what must have been the reality of wagon trains to the west. But for many viewers, here lies the problem, for at its heart meeks cutoff doesnt function like a genre film.
Directed by kelly reichardt 2011 michelle williams family and two others toil across the 1840s west is their guide totally lost. The year is 1845, the earliest days of the oregon trail, and a wagon train of three families has hired mountain man stephen meek to guide. Everything you need to know about meeks cutoff movie 2011. Meek cutoff was a covered wagon road that branched off the oregon trail in northeastern oregon and was used as an alternate emigrant route to the willamette valley in the mid19th century. A simple wikipedia search will show how inaccurate this movie is.
The road was named for frontiersman stephen meek, who was hired to lead the first wagon train along it in 1845. The film stars michelle williams and paul dano in a story about three families who. Meeks cutoff could be the most understated, and historically accurate, horror film in history. Its 1845, and stephen meek bruce greenwood is a boastful, roughhewn wilderness guide who has been hired by three families who want to start new lives on the other side of oregons cascade mountains. Meek constantly tells his charges that he knows the. The first film ive seen that evokes what must have been the reality of wagon trains to the west. Apr 14, 2011 kelly reichardt s frontier drama meek s cutoff opens in the year 1845, on the wideopen plains of oregon, where a wagon team of three families has set out on a journey along the oregon trail.
Meeks cutoff is a historic horror film wild wild west. The year is 1845 and a wagon team of three families is setting off across the oregon desert. Over the years from watching movie westerns, ive developed a composite image of wagon. Michelle williams stars in a bleak, enigmatic and masterful western about families on the oregon trail. It certainly revises and challenges traditional elements of the western genre accentuating the females perspective, avoiding an actioncentric narrative for something more explorative but meeks cutoff is the type of film that shows a weakness in words like subversive. I find it difficult to watch a film portraying something historical, and completely destroying history in the process. The year is 1845, the earliest days of the oregon trail, and a wagon team of three families has hired the mountain man stephen meek to guide them over the cascade mountains.
Meeks cutoff programs its responses under the apparent guise of an objective depiction. Guided by mountain man stephen meek, they become lost and their faith in their guide, and in each other. Perhaps the most powerful moment in the film is when she. Reichardts astonishing new film, meeks cutoff, broadens the scope and raises the stakes tenfold, expanding beautifully on. The thirsty settlers in meek s cutoff take a long walk to nowhere, and so will any viewer with the constitution to stay awake through director kelly reichardt s plodding, punishingly deliberate meditation on decisions and the weight of their consequences. A braggart meets his match in a courageous woman in this period drama from independent filmmaker kelly reichardt. With michelle williams, bruce greenwood, paul dano, will patton. It s 1845, and stephen meek bruce greenwood is a boastful, roughhewn wilderness guide who has been hired by three families who want to start new lives on the other side of oregon s cascade mountains. One film that does a great job of revealing the mighty span of history thats implicit in a small groups westward voyage is terrence malicks the new. If anyone has any evidence to that effect, please contact me directly asap. Also, focus on kelly reichardt is screening at acmi in melbourne from june 219th and includes her rarely seen debut river of grass 1993 plus ode 1999.
The film was shown in competition at the 67th venice international film festival. Aided by a guide bruce greenwood, three families travel west by covered wagon. To set aside its many other accomplishments, meeks cutoff is the first film ive seen that evokes what must have been the reality of wagon trains to the west. The narrative of meeks cutoff is very simple, and as the tension gradually builds to an inevitable, presumably climatic, conclusion, i was thinking to myself. Jun 11, 2011 meeks cutoff is screening at the sydney film festival. Meeks cutoff is, by her standards, far more eventful and covers a more hazardous journey that begins and ends in medias res. Meek s cutoff on dvd september, 2011 starring paul dano, bruce greenwood, shirley henderson, zoe kazan. The film stars michelle williams and paul dano in a story about three families who become lost on the oregon trailer. Meeks cutoff on dvd september, 2011 starring paul dano, bruce greenwood, shirley henderson, zoe kazan. Michelle williams portrays a member of a pioneer family crossing oregon territory in meeks cutoff, directed by kelly reichardt. The year is 1845, the earliest days of the oregon trail, and a wagon train of three families has hired mountain man stephen meek to guide them over the cascade mountains. The first thing that bears mentioning with regards to meeks cutoff is the trailer and it does connect to the film in a very real way. Reichardts astonishing new film, meeks cutoff, broadens the scope and raises the stakes tenfold, expanding beautifully on the.
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