First Cow
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Milk Money: Director Kelly Reichardt on the New World and Nascent Capitalism of First Cow
First Cow marks the fifth film in 14 years on which director Kelly Reichardt has collaborated with screenwriter–novelist Jon Raymond. I can’t think of a director–writer team in America that has produced so much superior work during this time period—Reichardt is one of the talents on whom hope for the creative possibilities of American filmmaking now rests. Like Reichardt and Raymond’s first partnership, the critically lauded, microbudgeted Old Joy (2005), First Cow is a lyrical tragicomic story of male friendship, emerging against the background of the almost intoxicating beauty of the Oregon woods. But this time, Reichardt’s telling a more […]
by Larry Gross on Mar 17, 2020 -
“A Cow At 8:00 AM is Different Than A Cow At 2:00 AM”: Animal Trainer Lauren Henry on First Cow
Kelly Reichardt peppers her 19th Century Oregon Territory with warm cakes and endearing fauna. Eve, the “first cow” in the territory, is a symbol of opportunity to everyone but its natives, the hinge of the film’s plot, a romantic proxy to its protagonist, “Cookie,” and one of animal trainer Lauren Henry’s best behaved cows. The secret to contriving “wild” and natural animal behavior in the preposterous habitat of the movie set? Patience. Putting the time in to normalize the set for the animal and any action he or she might have to perform in it. But Henry’s work goes beyond […]
by A.E. Hunt on Mar 15, 2020 -
Day for Night for Day for Night: DP Christopher Blauvelt on First Cow
Kelly Reichardt describes her films as being “open.” She does not necessarily mean they are open to your interpretation. She means they are open or not to your engagement. First Cow co-star Orion Lee compared it to public speaking: If you yell at your audience they have no choice but to listen; if you project your voice midway to them they do, which is possibly more effective. In First Cow, Reichardt relays, delicately, the antics of a clumsy cook, Cookie Figowitz (John Magaro), and his friend King Lu (Lee). Cookie finds Lu squat-naked in brush eluding vengeance from a gang […]
by A.E. Hunt on Mar 5, 2020
