Kelly Reichardt discusses her close collaboration with Michelle Williams
The films of Kelly Reichardt are known for their minimalist approach to storytelling with a close kinship to the slow cinema movement. Slow cinema is typically defined by its apparent lack of narrative and its use of long takes, with the genre sometimes being referred to as “contemplative cinema”.
Reichardt arrived on the film scene in 1994 with her debut feature film Rivers of Grass, which exemplified the kinds of films that the American director would continue to make for the rest of her career: those that explore the inner workings of working-class communities in rural settings.
One of Reichardt’s frequent collaborators is Michelle Williams. The American actor has starred in four of Reichardt’s films, Meek’s Cutoff, Certain Women, Wendy and Lucy and Showing Up, the latter of which competed for the Palme d’Or prize at last year’s Cannes film festival.
Discussing her collaboration with Williams, Reichardt noted how every actor is different, but some lend themselves to a particular director’s works more than others. “I actually find acting a really mysterious thing, and how you work with each actor is so individual,” she said. “Everybody is so different. You try to find what actors need and get what you want at the same time.”
However, Williams is one of those actors that Reichardt just seems to trust. “With Michelle, because I’ve worked with her so often, it’s just a sort of shortcut,” she noted. “She’s very trusting of me, which is the biggest gift you can get from an actor.”
This does not mean that Williams doesn’t have to work hard on set, though, or as Reichardt puts it, it “doesn’t mean she’s not thinking and making decisions, but I don’t have to elaborate so much. .. I’ll just be, ‘What don’t you like?’ We can just cut to it. So there’s that, the familiarity. She’s just easy. She’s an undemanding person, and she’s game for this kind of filmmaking – which not everybody is.”
Reichardt is evidently indebted to the fact that Williams is always so willing to join the cast of her films and offer her talents to the productions. “I’ve been really lucky with actors,” Reichardt said. “They’re kind of an extension of the crew. They’re not off waiting to be called on set; they’re in it. Some actors really enjoy that, and Michelle is one of those actors.” So don’t be surprised if we see the Williams and Reichardt collaboration continue long into the future.
