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| Shirley Henderson, Zoe Kazan, and Michelle Williams star in Meek’s Cutoff |
I’ve never really talked about my love for Westerns here, or all of my jumbled ideas about the genre and feminism (someday I’ll write a long post about it, or an essay, or a book). But, let me try to (briefly) sum up my interest here, and express how excited I am about Meek’s Cutoff.
The Western genre is traditionally tied up in all kinds of rugged masculinity, and of all film genres, maybe best exemplifies the dominant way the United States collectively imagines itself: sturdy, adventurous, self sufficient, brave, and, well, pretty butch. The problem is, however, that this narrative leaves out a significant number of people, and a significant portion of the story. The Western (and the story of the U.S. West) tries to be the story of the United States itself, and reveals ideology so clearly where it fails–namely, in its depiction of women, indigenous peoples, immigrants, and African-Americans. The genre is, in other words, ripe for retellings and allegory.
Directed by Kelly Reichardt (who also directed Wendy and Lucy
and Old Joy
), Meek’s Cutoff opens this weekend in New York, followed by a limited-release roll out. The critical consensus is positive, and Reichardt is already being praised for making an artistic and accessible film. Not-so-subtle connections are also being made between the film’s title character and a certain former U.S. president who may have also been overconfident in his ability to lead.
and Old Joy), Meek’s Cutoff opens this weekend in New York, followed by a limited-release roll out. The critical consensus is positive, and Reichardt is already being praised for making an artistic and accessible film. Not-so-subtle connections are also being made between the film’s title character and a certain former U.S. president who may have also been overconfident in his ability to lead.
Mahohla Dargis has called the film “unabashedly political,” and J. Hoberman of The Village Voice, writes
Having split off from a larger wagon train, the party elected to follow Stephen Meek (Bruce Greenwood), an extravagantly hirsute, self-regardingly loquacious guide who, in his most obvious misjudgment, brings them not to the foothills of the Cascade Mountains but the shores of a great saline lake. Is he “ignorant or just plain evil?” the Williams character asks her husband (Will Patton). “We can’t know. . . . We made our decision,” he tells her. “I don’t blame him for not knowing—I blame him for saying he did,” she replies, establishing herself as the party’s moral compass.
In a NYT piece, “Oregon Frontier, from Under a Bonnet,” Nicolas Rapold writes
“There was a quote I remembered that I had liked when I was 18 or something, that popped into my head: ‘I’ll go where my own nature would be leading,’ ” Ms. Williams said of her character, Emily Tetherow. The verse, by Emily Brontë, which continues, “It vexes me to choose another guide,” proves peculiarly apt for Mrs. Tetherow, who emerges as Meek’s prime skeptic and becomes an unusually vocal opponent. The actual diaries of women migrating West were also a source of inspiration for Ms. Williams. She said she marveled at the effort spent on writing at “the end of the longest day you could imagine.”
The forbearance and point of view in the journals comes out in Ms. Reichardt’s shading of events through the women’s perspective. Besides the constant visual metaphor of the obscuring bonnets, there are the intervening moments devoted to their chores (laundry, grinding coffee) and wide shots from their point of view that suggest their exclusion from major decision making, like when Meek and the men consult upon arriving at a lake that proves unpotable. But it’s also Mrs. Tetherow who first spies an Indian (Rod Rondeaux) who becomes another competing voice of authority as they drift along in increasing distress and disagreement.
Watch the official preview:
This is a great paragraph:
“
The Western genre is traditionally tied up in all kinds of rugged masculinity, and of all film genres, maybe best exemplifies the dominant way the United States collectively imagines itself: sturdy, adventurous, self sufficient, brave, and, well, pretty butch. The problem is, however, that this narrative leaves out a significant number of people, and a significant portion of the story. The Western (and the story of the U.S. West) tries to be the story of the United States itself, and reveals ideology so clearly where it fails–namely, in its depiction of women, indigenous peoples, immigrants, and African-Americans. The genre is, in other words, ripe for retellings and allegory.”
You so need to write a book on the subject of feminist Westerns, or perhaps even counter-cultural Westerns.
To anyone who gets the opportunity to screen this film, please tell if it lives up to expectations. Thanks.
Probably a little late to the party here but I think your assertion is a small bit ill informed, The western is a Genre (with a capital G) that’s pretty much always been far more self aware than most others, While the golden age westerns, probably typified by the great John Ford established the simple monocultural (but deceptively so) Western aesthetic, its since been subverted a hundred times over by the various waves of his successors. If you’re looking for Feminist westerns, you could find them as early as the 60s with Linda Cardinelli’s character in once upon a time in the west, who’s own feminine courage is presented as transitioning a people from destructive masculine conflict to a constructive work building of a frontier community, or Robert Altman’s McCabe & Mrs. Miller, which is probably a feminist allegory first and a western second, the same is probably true of HBO’s deadwood, The struggle for women to find agency in the hyper-patriarchal west is actually a pretty common trope of the Western, which has never been as dumb or as two dimensional as people make it out to be!
Anyhow Meeks cutoff was great and I totally agree with your assessment, but I love westerns and couldn’t not jump to their defense!