Kelly Reichardt: I’m Kelly Reichardt, and I’m a filmmaker and a teacher.
Joe Skinner: If you’re sick of the discourse around superhero movies, tired of constantly swiping your phone through posts during your morning coffee, then the thoughtful, deliberate, patient films of Kelly Reichardt can serve as a helpful reset button.
Kelly Reichardt: I’ve been having, knock on wood, a good run of just being able to make work. And, you know, the less money you take, the more freedom you get.
Joe Skinner: With that ethos, for the past 20 plus years, Kelly Reichardt has built a vast catalog of independent films like “Certain Women,” “First Cow,” “Old Joy” and “Wendy and Lucy.” Films with minimal plot that build contemplative, meditative spaces about ordinary people living life on the margins. I don’t think it’s too far of a stretch to call her movies modern day westerns.
Kelly Reichardt: The stakes are high for the characters in the film, but the economy of what the characters are going through works with the economy of the filmmaking. Our last film was about a guy stealing milk. You know, we made a film here about some ceramicist.
Joe Skinner: “Showing Up” is Kelly’s newest film and having sat down with her for this interview, it feels to me like one of her most personal. It’s a story about a working class artist, played by Michelle Williams, in a daily battle for basics like hot running water and a decent wage. She remains dedicated to her craft with no discernible financial reward in sight.
Kelly Reichardt: You know, during these dark Trump years, where everything, just like, the focus on money, money, money, money… Thinking about life on the level outside of commerce just seemed completely, just of no value or not even part of the conversation. But meanwhile, it was a part of the conversation because I don’t know, I saw a lot of great art during those years. Looking at people who make things with their hands and by themselves in a studio in a more immediate way. I mean, filmmaking is nothing like that. You know, it’s easy to be envious of that experience. I guess, you know, we’re politically-minded people, but it goes by the wayside. And if anything, it’s just like wanting a place to… “Wow it’d be nice to focus on this for a while, that’d be cool.”
Joe Skinner: I’m Joe Skinner and this is American Masters: Creative Spark. In each episode we bring you the story of how artists bring their creative work to life. Today, filmmaker Kelly Reichardt talks about her process behind “Showing Up,” a film that relishes the process of an artist at work.
Kelly Reichardt: So you’re going to edit this?
Joe Skinner: Absolutely.
Kelly Reichardt: Good. Yeah.
Joe Skinner: Yeah.
Kelly Reichardt: Good luck. All right, let’s dive in.
Joe Skinner: Cool. Cool. So in the case of “Showing Up,” what was the first seed for that idea?
Kelly Reichardt: I’ve been working on these, a lot of films with the writer Jonathan Raymond and Jonathan Raymond and I thought about making a biopic of the very obscure painter Emily Carr. We wanted to make a film about the period in her life that was sort of ten years where she wasn’t getting a lot of work done. She had become a landlord and thought that taking in renters would allow her more time to paint. But in fact they were needy and it ended up being a full time job. And there’s like a decade where she didn’t get work done. And so we set out to Vancouver, and then, you know, there’s Emily Carr schools and statues and Emily Carr hotels. And Emily Car is like hugely famous in Canada. Who knew?
Joe Skinner: There are echoes of Emily Carr in “Showing Up.” The main character, Lizzy, lives in an apartment rented to her by a fellow artist named Jo, who serves as her landlord.
Kelly Reichardt: We didn’t really want to make a film about a really famous artist. Things took a different track, and things became more focused on the world of making that was closer to home for us. It was a lot of curvy roads, during which time I made two short films.
Joe Skinner: Both of these short documentaries are around 10 minutes long. They were commissioned by the Pompidou Museum in Paris. The pieces track the everyday life of artists Michelle Segre and Jessica Jackson Hutchins as they prepare their work for exhibition. It’s a plot point that mirrors “Showing Up,” and the shorts were commissioned by the museum as a way to showcase records thought process towards making it, so it’s easy to see the DNA for “Showing Up” in these docs.
Kelly Reichardt: I didn’t know the spaces I’d be going into, what their studios were like, so it was kind of just finding it while we were there and what the next task is. And then you start to realize, Oh, you know, I’ve been filming you for 5 minutes sewing this piece of yarn or running this piece of yarn through a piece of plastic or something. You’re like, okay… And so it turned out that I, I ended up sort of directing them a bit like, okay, can we, you know, move you over here? Do you have any work you could do up on that lot or…?
Joe Skinner: Jessica Jackson Hutchins’ practice consists mainly of large scale ceramics, and Michelle Segre creates sculptures from mixed media like yarn, metal and paint. Segre’s work ultimately found its way into “Showing Up.”
Kelly Reichardt: Those films happened, and they ended up being really informative, like how people, you know, where they nap in their studio or what they’re doing with their hands or what tools they use, this sort of thing. I like process and I like thinking about process. Whatever that is. You know, in “Meek’s Cutoff” there was, how do you make a loaf of bread without an oven? And starting a fire without matches, and the routines that you go through every day, and how do those chores change throughout the day? A lot of it’s chores in a way, and that’s true in the studios, also. Just the forensic of things is interesting to me for whatever reason.
I mean, tonight, out at Light Industry in Williamsburg, I’m going to be presenting a film by Jeff Kreines’ called “The Plaint of Steve Kreines,” which is a film he made in the seventies about his brother moving out of his parents house. And I’ve been watching that film for 20 years and showing that film for 20 years in classes and stuff. And there are images from that film of his brother combing his really thick, curly hair with a comb before his first day at a job and trying to get the comb through his hair, that stick with me forever and really end up saying something so much more. I like looking for places where that can happen, you know? Also, it keeps the actors working and having to be present with something that they’re doing, and it gives an order of things. It gives you a lot of boundaries and usually it’s accessible kind of stuff. You can film, you know, the small details of things.
Joe Skinner: But then, so what drives you so hard back to fiction?
Kelly Reichardt: I would like to sometimes get away from story, but I’m very story-oriented, as we all are. Whenever I start out, I always think I’m going to do this big break away from this formal narrative storytelling, and it’s going to be really different this time, and it’s going to involve like essay work or documentary. It’s going to be like nothing I’ve done before. And then, you know, it’s time we get through the script. And shot-listing and all. I could see where it’s going. It’s like, okay, it’s really… My brain doesn’t work in a different kind of way.
Joe Skinner: Despite her natural inclination towards narrative, Kelly Reichardt still struggled to shape her early exploration of ceramics and the art making process into a story. It wasn’t until her collaboration with co-writer Jonathan Raymond that things really began to click.
Kelly Reichardt: I was kind of giving up on us being able to work it into a narrative. I was like, “well, maybe I’ll just go spend a year or two filming people working in their studios.” It’s really gratifying. Not that I can really afford to do it. And then Jon just kept molding it, molding it, and worked out something that was really good that I really liked that was really satisfying and exciting. And then he kind of kicks it over to me and then I take it all apart and rebuild it so that I can see how I could make it, you know, how it would physically work. And then that’s kind of the process.
I think that’s the process of filmmaking all the way through: building things and taking it apart and building it, and, you know, you go back to the notecards and breaking it down and going back, and I like build how I want to shoot it in my image books. And then I get with Christopher Blauvelt, the cinematographer I work with, and we break all that down again and build it back up. You know, after you decide what lenses you are using and that sort of thing. You start working with the costume designer and the production designer and you start breaking it down again.
And I have an idea of how I want everything to go. And then the actors are there, but I want to see what they would bring. So it’s this idea of having a plan, but also being open to what might happen and what could be made that you hadn’t thought of yet when these people weren’t there. Because they each have their own voices and gestures and dynamics with each other. And it’s always a surprise how the thing that’s in your head, you can keep changing every day and then all of a sudden there’s these people there and their voices aren’t what you thought and they’re bringing their life baggage with them. And so it just keeps changing. And then you get in the editing room, you’re like, “all right, what did we do?” Let me look at this all and you’re starting at the beginning again.
Joe Skinner: After she worked on a couple commissioned shorts and then crafted the story with her co-writer Jonathan Raymond, Kelly Reichardt was ready to make her story more real through location scouting and the casting process. And while you might think a film about a ceramicist wearing Crocs and prepping for a local art gallery show might seem intentionally small and specific, Reichardt centered the story around an iconic art school, which carries with it some broader cultural implications.
Kelly Reichardt: You know, the Pacific Northwest had a big ceramic pottery life in the sixties and seventies, and the Oregon College of Arts and Crafts was an important institution in that world. And like a lot of art schools, it wasn’t able to support itself and closed – as many art schools are. And so, that school was very important to people. In fact, so many people that worked on the film had some relation to that place. It was like, has been around for 112 years, different locations. So to have it go under is a really, for a lot of people, a big loss, especially during COVID… This whole like online teaching, you know, of just the tactile-ness of touching things and standing back and looking at them and thinking about shapes and colors and developing your skills as a critical thinker. And, you know, as our corporate world expands and our places like art schools closing, it’s problematic in a democracy, I think.
Joe Skinner: “Showing Up” became a way to document the Oregon College of Arts and Crafts, one of the nation’s last remaining craft-focused degree programs. The college first opened in 1907 as part of a movement reacting against changes brought on by the Industrial Revolution. It’s a history that seems to harmonize with Reichardt’s own interest in the location.
Kelly Reichardt: Because of COVID, we got to shoot in this school and create an entire art school. We had access. Sometimes you don’t have all that access to a place, but I could spend a lot of time there and figure things out. Just be there with a lens and figure out how things are going to go together.
Joe Skinner: I can’t help but wonder, is your teaching practice playing into the story development for this project?
Kelly Reichardt: Yeah, This was the first time that filmmaking and all my years of teaching have come together and that was really great. We got to shoot in this school and had all these 20 year old kids come who were so-called extras. They all had to learn how to make the things that they were making in the classrooms. So we had art students there and local artisans and people around and people that taught at the school, coming in and teaching various kinds of tactile, whether it was ceramics or textiles, various glass-weaving, various elements were in all the rooms. And so everyone had to learn this stuff. And so they were learning it. And they’re the age of my students at Bard, and then they were teaching it to each other and teaching it to me. So it became a school of sorts, and it was really great. But filmmaking always kind of influences my teaching, and teaching, I think, comes back into filmmaking in certain ways.
Joe Skinner: Alongside her ensemble of art students, Kelly’s main cast has some returning regulars like Michelle Williams and John Magaro, as well as some new faces like Judd Hirsch and André 3000. It’s a truly eclectic group, and something I’m always interested in is: how does a director navigate these different types of relationships and performance styles?
Kelly Reichardt: It’s not like a big decision or anything. It’s just talking to people. There’s no magic going on. Sometimes people, you don’t connect at all, and then they do their part and they’re great and you’re like, “oh, okay, they don’t need me.” And then other people, you’re steeped in it. And, you know, like I’ve worked with Michelle Williams a lot and it feels really collaborative, but she has, still, there’s mysteries to acting you’d have to talk to an actor about, and it would be different with every actor, I think. And Hong Chau’s in this film, and she is a really self-sufficient person. She spends a lot of time figuring out the physical-ness of what the task is.
Heather Lawless and Hong and Michelle all worked with the artist whose work we wrote around. There was art we wanted for the film and we wrote hoping that we would get that art. And we did get that art, which is pretty amazing. And so the actors spent time with each of the artists. And I kept saying, you know, “but that’s not your character, you know, this is just the art we’re using,” which is really incredibly hard because the art is all really personal and they’re going to spend time with that artist and learn how that person works. And there’s certainly a lot of bleeding-in of things, and it’s impossible to keep those things separate. And I don’t know what I was thinking that I could completely keep them separate. You know, it’s a process.
Joe Skinner: And kind of different each time it sounds like.
Kelly Reichardt: Always is really different if you’re working with the same actor and you have a relationship with them – you don’t see someone for a long time, you’re like, “oh, wow, okay.” Like Michelle, she’s done a lot since I last worked with her. And she has like all these other muscles she’s going to work now that I’ve never really taken advantage of before.
Joe Skinner: Then conversely, there is always going to be some new people in the fold, too, and I think of, you know, André 3000. It’s a very interesting casting decision. Obviously, Judd Hirsch, too.
Kelly Reichardt: Judd and André, they’re the exact same. Those two people are the exact same. (Laughs) No… Judd would come to set and be like, “Kelly, you’re still here?” Yes, Judd. He… Every take he did was so fun to watch. Yeah, he’s an amazing actor. He really is. And he seems like he’s never concentrating and he makes it hard to concentrate. And then the cameras are rolling and he is great in a different way every time.
And I had this picture of André for a long time just in a collection of photos, and he really became, in my mind, sort of a kiln guru. And yeah, he went out to California and worked with one of the ceramicist there to learn the kilns. And then on the way home, he was so excited, he was just like, “oh, ceramics. I knew there was something else I wanted to do!” And he just got really into it and then just kept going back on his own to make stuff. And so by time he came to the school he had familiarized himself with the kilns and stuff. He just got really into it. So that was so fun, you know? And he’s just all good vibrations, right? So he’s just a very positive presence, even in the 115 degrees, COVID, people dropping like flies, and André’s just out playing his flute. Yeah, he’s just a big wave of positiveness.
Joe Skinner: Over the past few years, André 3000 of Outkast fame has been found around town playing the flute. Interestingly enough, the sounds found their way into the score for “Showing Up.”
Kelly Reichardt: As soon as he’s not on set, that’s just what he does. And so when we’d be rehearsing other scenes and all, there’s always this flute music waving through the window. I heard it in a lot of different environments when we were shooting. Three blocks away, through the wall, wherever, you know. On the last day, I asked him if we could record some of it. It was our last day at the school and we went out into a field and he just played in the field and let us record it. It was a really lovely moment of everyone stopping work and just getting this extra treat on a windy day, just listening to this beautiful flute out with the sounds of nature. So then I had that in the editing room to mess around with.
Joe Skinner: Kelly Reichardt has long been associated with a genre of film called Slow Cinema. It emphasizes long, unbroken takes, minimal dialogue. It’s contemplative filmmaking, so sound can play an outsized role in this type of cinematic experience. You just have more space to sit with it.
Kelly Reichardt: Each place has its soundscape, and so my editing assistant Ben Mercer, dives really deep into sound with me, and it’s another super fun part about filmmaking. And Portland, where the film takes place, is, you almost can always hear a train somewhere in Portland. And also you can always, almost always hear that very familiar skateboard sound, someone like rolling by trying to land that thing that clickity clack. And there’s traffic, obviously, and there’s crows, so many crows in Portland. You know?
Joe Skinner: Why Portland? Why do you keep returning to Portland?
Kelly Reichardt: I’m really. I’m done. I’ve done it. I’ve done it. I’m from Miami, and the Pacific Northwest is just, the visualness of it, was so extremely different than Miami, where I came from… Flat white sidewalks, black asphalt, spots of swimming pools. And then I lived in New York for, have lived in New York, for 30 years. And so the Pacific Northwest just, you know, looked so different. And then I ended up – through Todd Haynes – meeting Jon Raymond because Todd moved out. Jonathan Raymond, who, you know, writes about what’s out his window a lot and writes about Oregon and is very tuned into it, just knowing regional artists there.
Joe Skinner: I felt personally in this film like so much about the character’s story is about community and community-building.
Kelly Reichardt: Yeah, I would say that’s a shared interest with Jon Raymond, community, and I’ve actually learned a lot about the idea of community, through teaching and through filmmaking, and also through knowing Jon and his partner and how involved they remain in just community efforts. Communities of friends, communities of colleagues. The politics of the small community. A school is a very political place. Anybody who works in academia can tell you that. What does it give and what are you giving back to it? Yeah, you can’t take on like the big community of, you know, the world community. So we are kind of focused on the smaller community.
Joe Skinner: Most of Kelly Reichardt’s films from the past 20 years have taken place in Oregon. Seen together, it’s a mosaic of Pacific Northwest communities and rural life. But “Showing Up” might be her last trip out west, at least for a little while.
Kelly Reichardt: My shifting of time has changed from New York, where I’m out in Oregon more. Now I really see the light. I can see what the Hudson River painters were looking at. The light is so gorgeous to me there now upstate and I can, you know, see the things you can’t see if you’re looking at them every day. And so I really feel like we did the desert, we did Southern Oregon, we’ve done Portland. We just, we never really did the coast, I will say, but we did the forest. We really have kind of worn it out a bit. Not worn it out. But, you know, I mean, like we’ve taken all the love and given all the love. Just visually, for me, it’d be interesting to look somewhere else for a little bit.
You know, I used to love going away to locations so much. Such a great thing. Leave everything you know behind and go. But there’s also something to be said to shooting and going home and sleeping in your own bed that has a lot of positive, really positive things about it, too. So.
Joe Skinner: Well, it’s just interesting. You mentioned upstate getting more kind of more beautiful when you got a little distance from it. So interesting to think that the thing that’s far away is what you’re drawn to.
Kelly Reichardt: Sure. Well, yeah, The thing I mean, Oregon is still very beautiful to me. It’s just the… Yeah, I didn’t really… I’m taken aback by the light when I go up to Bard now, the upstate in a way that I don’t think I was completely tuned into when I was around it so frequently. Joe Skinner: A big thank you to Kelly Reichardt for the conversation about her creative process. I, for one, am really interested in seeing if one of her next films jumps coast to take on the rolling hills and winding river of the picturesque Hudson Valley. “Showing Up” is in limited theatrical release starting this Friday, April 7th.
American Masters: Creative Spark is a production of The WNET Group, media made possible by all of you. This episode was produced by me, Joe Skinner. Our executive producer is Michael Kantor. Original music is composed by Hannis Brown.
Funding for American Masters: Creative Spark was provided by the Rosalind P. Walter Foundation, Thea Petschek Iervolino Foundation, the Anderson Family Fund, Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III, and the Philip & Janice Levin Foundation.
