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Start Date
25-6-2022 12:00 AM
End Date
25-6-2022 12:00 AM
Abstract
Writer-director Kelly Reichardt was concerned that the release of her latest film, First Cow (2019), would be compromised by the COVID-19 pandemic. “It’s hard to complain during a pandemic,” she said at the time, “but it’d be a lie to say it wasn’t a disappointment that [the film] wasn’t in theaters.”[1] In this paper I suggest that Reichardt needn’t have worried. First Cow, a film set in the 1820s Oregon Territory that takes place almost entirely outdoors, seems designed to be streamed by viewers in lockdown. In addition to this unexpected benefit of the pandemic, First Cow gained exposure from the universal pause in film distribution. Indeed, Reichardt can be counted among a group of independent female filmmakers, including Chloé Zhao and Eliza Hittman, that released works at the height of the pandemic and effectively reshaped the 2020 film canon. In this paper, which is organized around the reinventive gesture of expansion, I suggest that First Cow opens up a number of spaces. Beyond providing spectators with a view outside, the film reconfigures domestic and cinematic spaces through its queer sense of temporality and restrictive aspect ratio. Moreover, the release of First Cow represents an expansion of the cinematic landscape, with women filmmakers who had heretofore been working at the margins of Hollywood newly placed at its centre.
[1] Kelly Reichardt quoted in Margy Rochlin, “Director Kelly Reichardt Writes While She Scouts — as with ‘First Cow,’” Los Angeles Times, February 16, 2021, https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/awards/story/2021-02-16/kelly-reichardt-first-cow.
Expanded Spaces: Streaming Kelly Reichardt’s First Cow During the Pandemic
Writer-director Kelly Reichardt was concerned that the release of her latest film, First Cow (2019), would be compromised by the COVID-19 pandemic. “It’s hard to complain during a pandemic,” she said at the time, “but it’d be a lie to say it wasn’t a disappointment that [the film] wasn’t in theaters.”[1] In this paper I suggest that Reichardt needn’t have worried. First Cow, a film set in the 1820s Oregon Territory that takes place almost entirely outdoors, seems designed to be streamed by viewers in lockdown. In addition to this unexpected benefit of the pandemic, First Cow gained exposure from the universal pause in film distribution. Indeed, Reichardt can be counted among a group of independent female filmmakers, including Chloé Zhao and Eliza Hittman, that released works at the height of the pandemic and effectively reshaped the 2020 film canon. In this paper, which is organized around the reinventive gesture of expansion, I suggest that First Cow opens up a number of spaces. Beyond providing spectators with a view outside, the film reconfigures domestic and cinematic spaces through its queer sense of temporality and restrictive aspect ratio. Moreover, the release of First Cow represents an expansion of the cinematic landscape, with women filmmakers who had heretofore been working at the margins of Hollywood newly placed at its centre.
[1] Kelly Reichardt quoted in Margy Rochlin, “Director Kelly Reichardt Writes While She Scouts — as with ‘First Cow,’” Los Angeles Times, February 16, 2021, https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/awards/story/2021-02-16/kelly-reichardt-first-cow.
Bio
Alicia Byrnes is an early career researcher working at the intersection of feminist film theory, film technology, and film aesthetics. She is an adjunct teacher and lecturer at the University of Melbourne. Her work has appeared in Deletion, Science Fiction Film and Television, and the forthcoming edited volume, World Cinema Through a Noir Lens (Edinburgh University Press).