Part of Milestones of the Last Quarter Century and Music City Mondays
Mon, Jun 1 at 8:00pm: Introduction from William Tyler, who composed the FIRST COW score | BUY TICKETS
The one that got away. Nearly. Kind of. On Sunday, March 15, 2020 — an otherwise gorgeous spring day as we recall — the emergence of a worldwide pandemic forced the long-term closure of the Belcourt (and pretty much everything else) for the foreseeable future. The rest, of course, is history. But during that period, we tried our level best to stay engaged: we held Zoom screenings, we started a streaming channel, and late in the summer of 2020 we resurrected the Belcourt Drive-In, a digital upgrade from our pre-renovation parking lot 16mm movie nights of yore (a story for another time). With this iteration, we acquired a blowup movie screen, dusted off the shortwave transmitter, designed a semi-circular drive-in for exactly 34 cars, and got to work programming it.
Back to March 15, 2020 for a moment, the film that we were scheduled to open on the following Friday was Kelly Reichardt’s FIRST COW, notable not only for its director whose work we’ve followed (and screened) since OLD JOY (2006) — but also for the composer of its score, local guitarist and Belcourt regular William Tyler. Bummer! Once we had the Drive-In assembled and programmed, we made sure to include FIRST COW in our lineup. As we’d soon find out, inflatable screens and 22-mile-per-hour wind make for a wavy and pretty much unwatchable image. Bummer again! So, here’s the “third time’s a charm” — delayed as it might have been until now. Fingers crossed.
In FIRST COW, Kelly Reichardt once again trains her perceptive and patient eye on the Pacific Northwest, evoking an authentically hardscrabble early 19th century way of life. A taciturn loner and cook (John Magaro) has traveled west and joined a group of fur trappers in Oregon Territory. He collaborates with a Chinese immigrant (Orion Lee) on a successful business, although its longevity is reliant upon the clandestine participation of a nearby wealthy landowner’s prized milking cow. From this simple premise, Reichardt constructs an interrogation of foundational Americana that recalls her earlier triumph OLD JOY in its sensitive depiction of male friendship, yet is driven by a mounting suspense all its own. Reichardt again shows her distinct talent for depicting the peculiar rhythms of daily living — along with the ability to capture the immense, unsettling quietude of rural America.
“A picture that’s both tranquil and dazzling, two qualities that should be at odds with one another yet somehow bloom in tandem under Reichardt’s gentle touch.” —Stephanie Zacharek, TIME (Mar 5, 2020) “The pleasures of FIRST COW are deep and substantial. Reichardt’s style is direct and restrained, sometimes to the point of austerity, but at her best — in OLD JOY, WENDY AND LUCY and in this, perhaps her finest feature so far — she finds a rich poetic resonance in plain, unshowy images and words.” —A.O. Scott, NYT Critic’s Pick, New York Times (Mar 3, 2020) "FIRST COW…is many things. A simultaneously gentle and unsparing dissection of the formative flaws of capitalism, and thus of the ‘American dream’; a frontier story which captures the harsh realities and simple pleasures of a life built painstakingly from rock, wood, and soil; a heist movie; an argument for the power of baked goods. It is somehow both brutal and pastoral, peaceful and laced through with the inevitability of disaster and death.” —Allison Shoemaker, rogerebert.com (Mar 6, 2020)
