Kelly Reichardt’s Animal Kingdom | Little White Lies

Long Read

Kel­ly Reichardt’s Ani­mal Kingdom

01 Dec 2023

Words by Bota Koilybayeva

Monochrome image showing a woman cradling a baby, surrounded by silhouetted figures, against a pink circular backdrop.
Monochrome image showing a woman cradling a baby, surrounded by silhouetted figures, against a pink circular backdrop.
With­in the gen­tle, nat­u­ral­is­tic films of Kel­ly Reichardt, domes­tic ani­mals are grant­ed the space to exist as they are – not as per­form­ers, but as companions.

In Show­ing Up, the 2022 fea­ture from cel­e­brat­ed inde­pen­dent direc­tor Kel­ly Reichardt, a pecu­liar rela­tion­ship between a human and a non-human occurs. Lizzy, a 40-some­thing sculp­tor played by Michelle Williams, is a few days away from an impor­tant solo exhi­bi­tion. Tac­i­turn and tense, she divides her life between a full-time job as an admin assis­tant at a local art col­lege, metic­u­lous­ly fin­ish­ing her sculp­tures, and tak­ing care of her gin­ger tab­by cat Ricky. It’s the mis­chie­vous Ricky who brings a poor pigeon into her life, whom the dis­tressed sculp­tor saves from the jaws of death and sub­se­quent­ly fer­ries around in a card­board box for the major­i­ty of the film’s run­time while the pigeon recov­ers from its ordeal. When in doubt, shoot birds”, says Reichardt. On her sets, there is always a sec­ond cam­era assis­tant that shoots birds. This cin­e­mat­ic cre­do led Reichardt to make a short film called Owl (2019) which is essen­tial­ly com­prised of a medi­um close-up shot of an owl before it flits away.

Ani­mals have been con­sis­tent­ly fea­tured in Reichardt’s films. Dogs, cows and hors­es, each to a dif­fer­ent extent, inhab­it their own bioe­gal­i­tar­i­an spaces, pro­vid­ing a nec­es­sary nuance to the filmmaker’s revi­sion­ist agen­da. Their pres­ence high­lights the vital­i­ty of human exis­tence and the com­plex­i­ty of female expe­ri­ence, yet Reichardt tran­scends the seem­ing­ly anthro­pocen­tric con­straints that priv­i­lege the human over the non­hu­man protagonist.

As Lau­ra Staab deft­ly notices Reichardt’s cin­e­ma waver[s] in the in-betweens of not this, but that’”. Nev­er explic­it­ly feline, avian, canine, or equine, Reichardt’s cine sto­ries offer a vital ecofem­i­nist and bio­philic per­spec­tive on human and ani­mal becom­ing with” as Don­na Har­away puts it in her book The Com­pan­ion Species Man­i­festo: Dogs, Peo­ple, and Sig­nif­i­cant Oth­er­ness’. Ani­mals in her films undoubt­ed­ly serve a sym­bol­ic func­tion, yet Reichardt por­trays them as mate­r­i­al, tan­gi­ble, and agen­tial beings with­out impos­ing a sto­ry’ on them. This is the heart of Reichardt’s idio­syn­crat­ic style and spir­it – in its non-pos­ses­sion of the film­ing sub­ject, be it human or non-human.

Doreen St. Félix in her recent New York­er pro­file of Reichardt describes her as “[America’s] finest observ­er of ordi­nary grit”. Reichardt’s oeu­vre cen­tres on those who have been around though, at times, we don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly know – or come to know – what exact­ly they have been through. A Kel­ly Reichardt human pro­tag­o­nist usu­al­ly finds one­self in a pre­car­i­ous sit­u­a­tion, caught in the mid­dle of an ardu­ous jour­ney like the fron­tier pio­neers in Meek’s Cut­off and the young and job­less Wendy on her way to Alas­ka in Wendy and Lucy. They are often at odds with the world, being the female oth­er or the mar­gin­alised oth­er – they are out­casts, rene­gades and non­con­formists. My films are about peo­ple who don’t have a safe­ty net,” notes Reichardt. Reichardt her­self, after her first fea­ture Riv­er of Grass (1994), a Mal­ick­esque not-quite-roman­tic sto­ry of two dis­con­tent­ed out­laws try­ing to run away from their sub­ur­ban lives, could not make anoth­er film for more than 10 years. In the words of Todd Haynes, Reichardt’s men­tor and friend, Kel­ly was unfor­tu­nate not to have a film school back­ground, a call­ing-card short, some con­nec­tion to mon­ey, or a penis.”

Brown dog behind wire fence, person's face visible through the fence.

A Kel­ly Reichardt non-human pro­tag­o­nist typ­i­cal­ly serves as a com­pan­ion, like mixed breed Lucy in Wendy and Lucy, or, more emblem­at­i­cal­ly, as a mark­er of hope and root­ed­ness like the epony­mous cow in First Cow. Unde­ni­ably Reichardt’s favourite non­hu­man sub­ject is her own dog Lucy who made her screen debut in her sec­ond fea­ture Old Joy (2006). Promi­nent for its sub­tle decon­struc­tion of mas­culin­i­ty, Old Joy is a tale of impos­si­ble friend­ship between two old friends, Mark and Kurt, who reunite for a camp­ing trip in the Cas­cade moun­tain range, yet are unable to restore their con­nec­tion. The film’s non-human pro­tag­o­nist is Mark’s dog, Lucy. In Old Joy, Lucy is an indi­ca­tor of Mark’s set­tled­ness: his first child on the way, he has a house and a job, where­as Kurt appears to be an unsteady hip­py-like char­ac­ter. Lucy is Mark’s pet – sym­bol­i­cal­ly the first step peo­ple take to cre­at­ing a nice nuclear family.

In the spir­it of non-pos­ses­sion, evoca­tive­ly and empa­thet­i­cal­ly, Reichardt films Lucy’s pres­ence with gen­tle atten­tive­ness and respect. Cin­e­matog­ra­phy Peter Sillen’s cam­era observes the dog run­ning up, down and around the human pro­tag­o­nists, explor­ing the trails of Ore­gon, and Lucy, seem­ing­ly, does not have a plot func­tion’. She is there on her own terms, not as a puz­zle in the sto­ry. Old Joy con­ve­nient­ly fits in what Anat Pick calls the cin­e­ma of let­ting be”. In one scene, Mark and Kurt, worn out and vexed about not find­ing Bag­by Hot Springs, make a fire on the side of the road where some­one has dumped a couch. Mark and Lucy are sit­ting on the couch illu­mi­nat­ed by the warm light of the fire; Lucy, sit­ting on the left side of the couch, is prac­ti­cal­ly invis­i­ble, yet is ful­ly in the frame. She is just there shar­ing the space with the human characters.

The cre­ation of Old Joy sheds even more light on Reichardt’s sen­si­bil­i­ties of non-pos­ses­sion of the sub­ject. In an inter­view with NYFF Direc­tor Kent Jones, she recounts how she had approached her long­time col­lab­o­ra­tor, writer Johnathan Ray­mond, to lend” her a sto­ry which takes place out­side and where she could write a dog into”. This is how Lucy end­ed up in the film. Jok­ing­ly, Reichardt admits that for her a film has to have three ele­ments: a road, ani­mals, and nature.

Two years lat­er Lucy stars in Wendy and Lucy, along­side Michelle Williams as Wendy. The female and the canine come togeth­er to tell a sto­ry of loss and sac­ri­fice. Decep­tive­ly sim­ple, Wendy and Lucy is already ambigu­ous in its title. Who is Wendy and who is Lucy? Both could be either, and both equal­ly mat­ter. The film revolves around Wendy as she makes her way to Alas­ka to be employed at a fish can­nery. We find Wendy and Lucy in a Wal­greens park­ing lot short of mon­ey and prospects. After Wendy’s failed attempt to shoplift some dog food for Lucy, she gets arrest­ed, and upon release, Wendy realis­es that her beloved dog is gone. Even­tu­al­ly, Wendy finds that Lucy has been tak­en in and rehomed, but in the end, she does not claim the dog back. With tears in her eyes, she promis­es to come back to Lucy. But will she?

In Wendy and Lucy, Lucy’s role is more potent than in Old Joy and as if to assert Lucy’s vis­i­bil­i­ty and agency, Reichardt includes her name in the title. Hav­ing said that, Reichardt approach­es film­ing her in a sim­i­lar non-pos­ses­sive man­ner. Sen­ti­men­tal­i­ty is anath­e­ma to the filmmaker’s por­tray­al of ani­mals. After all, it’s not a Lassie Come Home or Mar­ley and Me kind of film. Reichardt’s cam­era lets Lucy be. When Wendy tries to sell some cans at a recy­cling facil­i­ty, Lucy, on the leash, leaves the frame and re-enters it when Wendy pulls her back. Be it bioe­gal­i­tar­i­an ethics or transspecies sol­i­dar­i­ty, con­scious­ly or instinc­tu­al­ly, Reichardt allows Lucy to leave the frame and appear again not as a trained cin­e­mat­ic per­former but as a dog – because that is how and who she is. Whether a dog or an actor, Reichardt wants them to attune to each other’s becom­ing or way of being. To be one is always to become with many” Har­away reminds us, point­ing out the fol­ly of human excep­tion­al­ism. So becom­ing one is always becom­ing with.

Cluttered cardboard box containing various soft toys, including two dark-coloured pigeons, amongst other unidentifiable items.

Speak­ing of trained ani­mals, Reichardt straight-up hates work­ing with trained ani­mals. Treat nar­cis­sists” she calls them for not being able to estab­lish a rela­tion­ship with an actor since what they are trained to have is a rela­tion­ship with treats. Sim­i­lar­ly, work­ing with actors, Reichardt tries to lim­it the ele­ment of arti­fice. She does not run lines but rather asks her actors to learn to live, to be, like their char­ac­ters. For Meek’s Cut­off, the actors learned how to pitch a tent and make fire with­out match­es. For Cer­tain Women, Lily Glad­stone learnt how to tend hors­es and do the ranch chores. For First Cow, the actors went camp­ing for three days and learned how to skin a squir­rel. Film­ing chores, rou­tines, and non-event­ful’ episodes, the film­mak­er ulti­mate­ly trades the arti­fi­cial­i­ty of the care­ful­ly con­struct­ed gen­res for the inter­stices, in-betweens, and thresh­olds where some­thing close to the mys­tery of life materialises.

While film­ing dogs in all their canine way of being, Reichardt por­trays her bovine and equine pro­tag­o­nists in a more sym­bol­ic way. First Cow, her sev­enth fea­ture, is a com­plex sto­ry of two way­far­ers on the mar­gins try­ing to make it. Like typ­i­cal Reichardt pro­tag­o­nists, Cook­ie and King Lu are obstruct­ed by social and eco­nom­ic hur­dles of the 1820s Ore­gon and in order to increase their chances for upward social mobil­i­ty, they steal milk from the only cow in the vicin­i­ty which belongs to a wealthy British trad­er to make oily cakes.

First Cow’s pro­logue alone – tak­en from William Blake’s Proverbs of Hell – hints at the neces­si­ty of con­nec­tion with anoth­er being so as to secure pro­tec­tion and even­tu­al­ly solace. The bird a nest, the spi­der a web, the man friend­ship”, the Eng­lish mys­tic wrote in 1793. As the nest and the web are exten­sions of a bird’s and a spider’s way of being, so is friend­ship for a man. There­fore, the role of the cow in First Cow is rather symp­to­matic of one’s striv­ing for secu­ri­ty and peace. A cow – a much-desired com­mod­i­ty in the 1820s – could pro­vide Cook­ie and King Lu with a way out of Ore­gon to their big­ger dream – a hotel in San Francisco.

In Cer­tain Women, hors­es per­form a sim­i­lar sym­bol­ic func­tion. The film weaves togeth­er three sto­ries of three women in small-town Mon­tana, each of whom has her own tri­als and tribu­la­tions. Jamie (Lily Glad­stone), the hero­ine of the last sto­ry, is a ranch­er who spends her days on the farm tend­ing to hors­es. Long repet­i­tive win­ter days are inter­rupt­ed by the appear­ance of strug­gling grad­u­ate law stu­dent Beth played by Kris­ten Stew­art with whom Jamie falls in love, albeit unrequitedly.

The hors­es that Jamie tends to – rou­tine­ly and respect­ful­ly – empha­sise Jamie’s con­nec­tion with the land and her scant prospects in urban Amer­i­ca. More­over, they high­light Jamie’s queer sub­jec­tiv­i­ty. Con­fi­dent and skil­ful with hors­es, Jamie is shy and terse with Beth. She seems more com­fort­able with ani­mals than peo­ple. In the film’s most mov­ing scene – when Jamie comes to see Beth on a horse and offers her a ride to the din­er – the horse for Jamie becomes almost a destri­er (a medi­ae­val knight’s horse) sig­ni­fy­ing courage and devo­tion. Quite trans­gres­sive­ly, with a sub­tle sex­u­al under­tone, the horse rid­ing scene emu­lates a moment of inti­ma­cy and desire between the women as they are rid­ing through the night.

Show­ing Up expands Reichardt’s ani­mal menagerie to include two new ani­mal pro­tag­o­nists – the tom­cat Ricky and the injured pigeon. Ricky (in fact played by two feline actors) is akin to Lucy the dog – a loy­al com­pan­ion of a lone artist (a trope long noticed in pop­u­lar cul­ture). The avian char­ac­ter, on the oth­er hand, omnipresent in Reichardt’s oth­er films, moves from the periph­ery to the cen­tre for the first time. There is a potent sense of par­i­ty between the wound­ed pigeon and the sculp­tor; the par­i­ty between non­hu­man and human lives.

Of all birds, Reichardt choos­es a pigeon – a bird that does not have a roman­tic pub­lic image. To most pigeons are an annoy­ing token of mod­ern city life, a nui­sance that is dirty and abun­dant. It is not a colour-splashed song­bird Rein­hardt is after, but an ordi­nary bird that is anony­mous, com­mon­place, periph­er­al just like Lizzy – an artist on the mar­gins, far from a bour­geois lifestyle; the artist with a day job, a mal­func­tion­ing boil­er and at times an unsym­pa­thet­ic land­lord. The wound­ed pigeon is yet anoth­er bur­den on Lizzy’s shoul­ders (“Go die some­where else!”). How­ev­er, it is an aver­age pigeon and not some extra­or­di­nary event that requires Lizzy to show up: for her work, for her fam­i­ly and for life. Lizzy’s exis­tence is a repet­i­tive cycle of pen­cil push­ing and sculpt­ing and it is the bird that brings some chaos to her rou­tine. As cheesy as it sounds the pigeon sym­bol­is­es free­dom and the dis­or­der of which cre­ative life is made. Hav­ing recov­ered his wing, the pigeon sets itself free in the film’s clos­ing mise-en-scène. I guess it’s ready to go”, remarks Lizzy.

From Old Joy to Show­ing Up, Kel­ly Reichardt’s cam­era reg­is­ters ani­mals non-pos­ses­sive­ly, as bod­ies, forces and inten­si­ties. Her non-human pro­tag­o­nists are left to their own devices embody­ing life and nature. Like Agnès Varda’s glean­ers, Kel­ly Reichardt gleans episodes, ordi­nary moments, chores, and rou­tines that reveal the every­day pol­i­tics of her human and ani­mal pro­tag­o­nists, their onto­log­i­cal co-exis­tence and atten­tive­ness that one must attune to see beyond the gaze of her camera.

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