Podcast

Kelly Reichardt’s First Cow

Best buds: Phoebe Chen and Clinton Krute join to discuss Reichardt’s deceptively modest epic of the American frontier

In the cover story of our March-April issue, out now, Film Comment Digital Editor Clinton Krute writes “Kelly Reichardt’s deceptively modest epic First Cow opens with a wide, static shot of a barge, heavy with consumer goods, pushing down the Columbia River … Like the story that follows, this shot is sneakily straightforward, gesturing toward one of the themes—nature vs. society, with the human being somewhere in-between—that the filmmaker has been worrying since her 1994 debut, River of Grass. With First Cow, Reichardt has managed to weave together the various concerns—social, philosophical, economic, and cinematic—that have haunted her films to date, producing a work of remarkable beauty and startling complexity.” Film Comment Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold sat down with Krute and FC contributor Phoebe Chen, to talk about Reichardt’s career and First Cow, in theaters this week.

This story is part of the March-April 2020 issue of Film Comment.

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