LWLies 89: The First Cow issue – On sale now!

Peo­ple often say they ​“grew up” with an artist’s work. Which can mean that this work became mean­ing­ful at a crit­i­cal time in life, or that the work became a trust­ed com­pan­ion, arriv­ing at handy inter­vals across a broad­er timescale. It’s com­ing up to 15 years since I first encoun­tered the work of Amer­i­can direc­tor Kel­ly Reichardt. It was a Lon­don Film Fes­ti­val screen­ing of 2006’s Old Joy. I watched it at the keen, slight­ly hec­tor­ing behest of an indus­try col­league and, from that moment, have nev­er looked back.

It’s mas­sive­ly sat­is­fy­ing to encounter each new work by this direc­tor of films which are per­haps a tad too sub­tle and del­i­cate to punc­ture the main­stream (and they are clear­ly not made with that func­tion in mind). Yet under these placid sur­faces lay great rich­es for those will­ing to plunge for them. Her lat­est, First Cow, is no dif­fer­ent, a minia­ture epic which chron­i­cles a fast male friend­ship, a bur­geon­ing bak­ing empire on the Amer­i­can fron­tier, and then takes a bit­ter­sweet turn into more meta­phys­i­cal climes.

In this issue, we cel­e­brate the world of Kel­ly Reichardt by embrac­ing her love of nat­ur­al land­scapes on screen, and also talk­ing to some of her long­time col­lab­o­ra­tors, includ­ing author Jon Ray­mond and alt rock icon, Will Old­ham. And as a spe­cial lit­tle side-project, we’ve includ­ed an alter­na­tive his­to­ry of the New Hol­ly­wood cin­e­ma of the late ​’60s and ​’70s as told through a vari­ety of won­drous baked goods cre­at­ed by some of our most gift­ed collaborators.

On the cover

The embroi­dered cov­er is by Steph Watts, inspired by the hand-wrought qual­i­ty of Reichardt’s films, but also intend­ed as a gor­geous piece of craft that might exist with­in the world of First Cow itself. From con­cep­tion to com­ple­tion, the piece took just under a month to cre­ate, and we sin­cere­ly hope that Steph was wear­ing a thim­ble to pre­vent any stitch­ing-based injury.

Illus­tra­tors fea­tured in this issue: Stéphanie Sergeant, Hazel Mason, Ruthie Gibbs, Ele­na Mom­pó, and Robin Good­win.

In this issue

Horizon’s West
Kel­ly Reichardt in con­ver­sa­tion with Christi­na New­land, as the pair dis­cuss mod­ern con­cep­tions of the west­ern and the endur­ing val­ue of old-fash­ioned craft.

Dear Jon
Caitlin Quin­lan speaks to Reichardt’s long­time screen­writ­ing col­lab­o­ra­tor who has pro­vid­ed the nar­ra­tive seed for the major­i­ty of her movies – includ­ing First Cow.

Will Pow­er
Adam Wood­ward meets the vaunt­ed song­smith to dis­cuss his ear­ly roles in Old Joy and Wendy and Lucy, and some of his oth­er brief incur­sions into the world of film – includ­ing a Kanye West music promo.

Chirp Thrills
Kel­ly Reichardt goes to great pains to make sure the bird­song in her movies is geo­graph­i­cal­ly and tem­po­ral­ly authen­tic. Jake Cun­ning­ham goes on a jour­ney to look at the cin­e­mat­ic uses of birdsong.

The Sky Is Not the Lim­it
A new book picks apart James Benning’s 2004 film Ten Skies – which is ten shots of sky­scapes. Matt Turn­er meets its author, Dr Eri­ka Bal­som, to dis­cuss the crossover between the nat­ur­al world and exper­i­men­tal film.

The New Hol­ly­wood Bake Off
Sev­en cher­ished LWLies col­lab­o­ra­tors cre­ate deli­cious and aes­thet­i­cal­ly-strik­ing baked comestibles in homage to the films of the New Hol­ly­wood era.

In the back section

Pra­no Bai­ley-Bond
The direc­tor of the bril­liant Cen­sor dis­cuss­es her for­ma­tive influ­ences, recre­at­ing the 1980s and her mor­tal fear of Simon Bates with Han­nah Strong.

Video Nas­ties – ranked
Can­ni­bals! Nazis! Can­ni­bal Nazis! Every sin­gle film banned under the 1984 Video Record­ing act ranked from worst to best.

Amir El-Mas­ry
Ele­na Laz­ic talks to the British-Egypt­ian star of Ben Sharrock’s refugee com­e­dy Lim­bo who reveals his amaz­ing entry into the world of acting.

Joan­na Scan­lan
The star of the mov­ing new British dra­ma After Love dis­cuss­es with David Jenk­ins why she loves straight dra­ma more than comedy.

Cathy Brady
The direc­tor of Wild­fire speaks to Ella Kemp about the tragedy of los­ing her lead­ing lady to ill­ness just after film­ing wrapped.

Ous­mane Sem­bène
As his fan­tas­tic 1968 film Mand­abi is re-released and restored, Leila Latif pens an intro­duc­tion to this Sene­galese film­mak­er whose work is still fair­ly hard to come by.

The Under­ground Rail­road
Rōgan Gra­ham reviews the new TV series direct­ed by Bar­ry Jenk­ins, adapt­ed from the Pulitzer prize-win­ning nov­el by Col­son Whitehead.

In review

Pra­no Bailey-Bond’s Cen­sor
Gorō Miyazaki’s Ear­wig and the Witch
Robert Altman’s Nashville
Ben Wheatley’s In the Earth
Anna Kerrigan’s Cow­boys
Lance Oppenheim’s Some Kind of Heav­en
Ben Sharrock’s Lim­bo
Vik­tor Kossakovsky’s Gun­da
Mark Isaacs’ The Filmmaker’s House
Aneil Karia’s Surge
Ira Sachs’ Frankie
Emma Seligman’s Shi­va Baby
Elia Suleiman’s It Must Be Heav­en
Aleem Khan’s After Love
Quentin Dupieux’s Deer­skin
Dror Moreh’s The Human Fac­tor
Ric­car­do Servi­ni and Nick Taussig’s A Space in Time
Zoe Wittock’s Jum­bo
Michel Franco’s New Order
Philippe Falardeau’s My New York Year
Cathy Brady’s Wild­fire
Mon­i­ca Zanetti’s Ellie and Abbie (& Ellie’s Dead Aunt)
Fil­ip­po Meneghetti’s Two of Us
Anders Ølholm and Fred­erik Louis Hviid’s Shorta

LWLies 89 is avail­able to order online now from our online shop. Become a Mem­ber or sub­scribe today to make sure you nev­er miss an issue.