Old Joy, Wendy and Lucy and Meek’s Cutoff, collectively titled the “Oregon trilogy” by the curators of the 2012 Whitney Biennial, will screen continuously throughout one week of the exhibit, which runs from March 1 to May 27, 2012.

All three films are collaborations between screenwriter Jon Raymond and director Kelly Reichardt. Reichardt did not conceive of them as an Oregon trilogy – she looked hard all over the country for the perfect location for Wendy and Lucy. When she found it, it happened to be right in Raymond’s North Portland neighborhood.

The other film artists included in the Biennial are Thom Andersen, Mike Kelley, Kevin Jerome Everson, Jerome Hiler, Nathaniel Dorksy, the late George Kuchar, Laura Poitras, Matt Porterfield, Michael Robinson, Frederick Wiseman, Luther Price, and Laida Lertxundi.

Timeout London has tallied up their favorite Westerns. A wonderful list filled with movies I never heard of, and a few I now want to see.

Readers of Oregon Movies, A to Z will recognize:

#45. Meek’s Cutoff (2010) Dir. Kelly Reichardt, written by Jon Raymond, shot in Harney County

# 44. Day of the Outlaw (1959) Dir. by Andre de Toth, shot on Mt. Bachelor

#23. Stagecoach (1939) Dir. by John Ford, based on a short story by Ernest Haycox

#11. My Darling Clementine (1946) Dir. by John Ford, with Walter Brennan

#6. Dead Man (1995) Dir. Jim Jarmusch, scenes shot in Grants Pass, Takilma, Rogue River, Applegate River & the Oregon Coast

When you watch movies for a living, you start to lost track of what you really like. Your job is to watch everything. You don’t have the luxury of following your nose, refining your own taste.

So it is rare to read a review which leaps with enthusiasm. But A. O. Scott just wrote one:

Gray H. Whaley’s brand new guide to the first five decades of European American presence in Oregon uses the Chinook concept of “Illahee” (homeland) as a counterbalance to the American concept of “Oregon”, the idea of an empty, fertile wilderness bequeathed directly to settlers by God. The title of the book,  Oregon and the Collapse of Illahee: U.S. Empire and the Transformation of an Indigenous World, 1792-1859, uses words which imply the erasure of Native American culture: “collapse” and “transformation”.

However, in real life, in the Oregon I live in, erasure is not the right word for what happened to the First Oregonians.

Testimony to that could be seen on stage and screen last month.

Matt McCormick originally imagined Carrie Brownstein in the role in Some Days Are Better Than Others which he eventually gave Renee Roman Nose. Roman Nose plays a woman who in the course of her work sorting donations to Goodwill discovers a funeral urn filled with the remains of a human being. McCormick didn’t write his screenplay with the goal of balancing his tiny cast racially, it just happened in the casting.

Umatilla musician and music historian Thomas Morning Owl, Jr co-wrote the stage musical The Ghosts Of Celilo with Marv Ross over a period of ten years. The Ghosts of Celilio is based on true events which occurred when The Dalles dam inundated a ten thousand year old fishing village in 1957. Morning Owl Jr has appeared in both Portland productions of The Ghosts Of Celilo, playing the heavy.

The ghosts of Celilo also haunt Chief Bromden, the character played by Tim Sampson in Portland Center Stage’s production of Dale Wasserman’s adaptation of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. Sampson is the son of Will Sampson, the actor who made his debut playing the same role in Milos Forman’s 1975 film. Wasserman’s stage treatment preserves the centrality Ken Kesey’s novel assigned to Bromden, a bi-racial, self elected mute whose stream of consciousness narrates the action.

In Meek’s Cutoff, Rod Rondeaux plays the Cayuse Indian who crosses paths with a hopelessly lost, and perilously thirsty, wagon train. Screenwriter Jon Raymond based his script on an actual event, recorded in an 1845 pioneer diary.

All four stories – Meek’s Cutoff, Some Days Are Better Than Others, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, and The Ghosts Of Celilo – seamlessly incorporate  European American and Native American characters. Meek’s Cutoff and The Ghosts Of Celilo were based on historic events; Some Days and Cuckoo’s Nest based on imagined ones.

Whether the events were real or imagined, all four Oregon writers – Jon Raymond, Matt McCormick, Ken Kesey and Marv Ross –  told stories set in biracial worlds, possibly because that choice most faithfully reflects the world in which they live.

When did Oregon writers start exploring the bi-culturality of our state ?

1873: Joaquin Miller writes Life Amongst The Modocs: An Unwritten History

1883: Sarah Winnemucca writes Life Among The Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims

1890: Frederick Homer Balch writes The Bridge of the Gods: A Romance of Indian Oregon

1902: Eva Emery Dye writes The Conquest: The True Story of Lewis and Clark, with Sacajawea at the center of her narrative

1940: Yellow Wolf dictates Yellow Wolf: His Own Story to Lucullus Virgil McWhorter

1960: Don Berry writes Trask

1962: Ken Kesey writes One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest

1983: Ron Finne directs Tamanawis Illahee: Rituals and Acts In A Landscape

1987: William Kittredge writes Owning It All

1993: Elizabeth Woody writes Seven Hands, Seven Hearts

1995: Craig Lesley writes Winterkill

1998: Chris Eyre directs Sherman Alexie’s Smoke Signals

2000 Marv Ross and Thomas Morning Owl, Jr begin writing & composing The Ghosts Of Celilo

2010: Matt McCormick writes & directs Some Days Are Better Than Others

2010: Jon Raymond writes Meek’s Cutoff

In Meek’s Cutoff, the wagon train has to decide whether they want to kill the one human being they have found in the desert or entrust their lives to him. Oregon literature has been grappling with the repercussions of the decisions we made ever since.

Two of these four stories deal with the damming of Celilo Falls, an event which is pictured on the front of Whaley’s new book. So maybe we add Whaley as the fifth story teller.

The above book list is not comprehensive! I am not covering all related works of art, nor all artists. Please feel free to add names/titles I have omitted.

For people who would like to know more about the books on the list — several are on Walt Curtis Recommends: Top Nine For Oregon Bookworms. Another great list can be found on the Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission website.

An Indian came to us, pointed out the course to [The Dalles] to which he said it was 5 days journey, and so far from refusing to follow the advise of the Indian, at my request he was employed by Mr. Meek to pilot us to Crooked River, which he did for a blanket. Solomon Tetherow, 1845 pioneer

Kelly Reichardt, Jon Raymond and Neil Kopp tell the story of a wagon train which misplaced itself in Harney County. Paul Dano and Michelle Williams star.

Willamette Week let the cat out of the bag last year:

Meek’s Cutoff … is based on the true story of an ill-fated wagon train that attempted a shortcut on the Oregon Trail……the tale includes starvation, a legendary lost gold mine and a Native American scout who might or might not be inclined to save the day. Neil Kopp confirmed that the screenplay, written by Portland’s Jon Raymond, is “loosely based on Stephen Meek…who basically becomes lost.”

Adam Yauch, head of Oscilloscope, the distributor of Meek’s Cutoff has an interesting theory.

“As a side note,” Yauch continued. “‘Meek’s Cutoff’ is so real feeling and looking that I suspect Kelly may have completed work on a time-machine…. and ….‘Meek’s’ is actually a documentary that she went back and shot in 1845. If anyone has any evidence to that effect, please contact me directly ASAP.”

Faithful readers of Oregon Movies, A to Z recognize that the wagon train genre has intersected with the documentary genre at least once before.  James Cruze’s The Covered Wagon had meticulous art direction, far beyond the call of narrative duty, faithfully recreating the living conditions aboard the Oregon Trail prairie schooners. Cruze did this because it was 1923, and some of his audience had actually been in covered wagons, as children, themselves.

Kelly Reichardt was under no such pressure. Yet attention to historic accuracy seems to have been a source of artistic inspiration for herself and for Jonathan Raymond, the screenwriter.

Shot in Oregon, based on real life Oregonians, written by an Oregonian, produced by an Oregonian – not hard to preemptively declare Meek’s Cutoff as an Oregon film.

Vince Porter announced a March 15 screening of Meek’s Cutoff, presented by the Oregon Film Commission. Tickets go on sale Feb. 9. The screening will be in Salem’s historic Elsinore Theater. All proceeds go to the Oregon Cultural Trust.

Michelle Williams (above), the star of Meek’s Cutoff, will be there in spirit, dressed exactly as she was for the Venice Film Festival last fall (below).

That’s director Kelly Reichardt conferring with her leading lady at the festival. I hope they’re talking about where they’re going to go for cannellloni after they’re through shaking everyone’s hands. Co-star Bruce Greenwood, behind them, is hungry too.

]]> http://www.talltalestruetales.com/2011/01/meeks-cut-off-elsinore-theater-in-salem-march-15-2011/feed/ 0 http://www.talltalestruetales.com/2010/12/robert-altmanoregon-filmmaker/ http://www.talltalestruetales.com/2010/12/robert-altmanoregon-filmmaker/#comments Mon, 13 Dec 2010 07:00:32 +0000 Anne Richardson http://www.talltalestruetales.com/?p=11070

Born: Kansas City, Missouri, 20 February 1925.

Education: Attended University of Missouri, Columbia (three years).

Military Service: Bomber pilot, U.S. Air Force, 1943–47.

Career: Directed industrial films for Calvin Company, Kansas City, 1947; wrote, produced, and directed first feature, The Delinquents , 1955; TV director, 1957–63; co-founder of TV production company, 1963; founder, Lion’s Gate production company (named after his own 8-track sound system), 1970, Westwood Editorial Services, 1974, and Sandcastle 5 Productions; made Tanner ‘88 for TV during American presidential campaign, 1988; directed McTeague for Chicago Lyric Opera.

Awards: Palme d’Or, Cannes Festival, and Academy Award nominations for Best Film and Best Director for M*A*S*H , 1970; New York Film Critics’ Circle Award, D.W. Griffith Award (National Board of Review), and National Society of Film Critics Award, all for Best Director, for Nashville , 1975; Golden Bear, Berlin Festival, for Buffalo Bill and the Indians , 1976; Academy Award nomination for Best Director, New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Film and Best Director, for The Player , 1992; Academy Award nomination for Best Director, for Short Cuts, 1993. more

Mayor Sam Adams sees potential for economic growth in Portland in four areas: software, sportswear, clean tech and advanced manufacturing.  He doesn’t include filmmaking, perhaps because this industry seems to be growing by leaps and bounds without his help.

Shawn Levy reports a preponderance of Oregon films at Sundance this year. He found three Oregon docs in competition, and admits there very well may be more. Over here at Oregon Movies, A to Z, we were happy to help out by taking a closer look. We found a fourth documentary film which qualifies under our expanded definition: although the filmmakers are not Oregonians, they took as their subject Oregon events. A fifth film was just added today, when Shawn Levy identified the film which was Karen Schmeer’s last project – by the ever elastic rules of Oregon Movies, A to Z, it qualifies as an Oregon film, because a) Karen was a Oregonian and b) documentary editors play a very key creative role.

The descriptions of the films below come from Sundance.

Shawn’s List:

Hot Coffee Directed by Susan Saladoff (Ashland) – Following subjects whose lives have been devastated by an inability to access the courts, this film shows that many long-held beliefs about our civil justice system have been paid for by corporate America.

How To Die In Oregon Directed by Peter D. Richardson (Portland)– In 1994 Oregon became the first state to legalize physician-assisted suicide. How to Die in Oregon gently enters the lives of terminally ill Oregonians to illuminate the power of death with dignity.

We Were Here Directed by: David Weissman (Portland)– A deep and reflective look at the arrival and impact of AIDS in San Francisco and how individuals rose to the occasion during the first years of this unimaginable crisis.

Bobby Fischer Against the World / U.S.A. (Director: Liz Garbus) – The drama of late chess-master Bobby Fischer’s career was undeniable,as he careened from troubled childhood, to World Champion and Cold War icon, to a fugitive on the run. Edited by the late Karen Schmeer (Portland).

Anne’s addition to Shawn’s List:

If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front Directed by Marshall Curry (Brooklyn) – The Earth Liberation Front is a radical environmental group that the FBI calls America’s ‘number one domestic terrorist threat.’ Daniel McGowan, an ELF member, faces life in prison for two multi-million dollar arsons against Oregon timber companies. But who is really to blame?

Moving to non documentaries. Four Oregon feature films at Sundance, all in sidebars. Again, one is an Oregon film only by the most elastic use of the definition.

Letters From the Big Man / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Christopher Munch) – An artist and government hydrologist surveying a remote part of southwestern Oregon befriends a sasquatch man and must take bold steps to protect his privacy, as well as her own. Cast: Lily Rabe, Jason Butler Harner, Isaac C. Singleton Jr., Jim Cody Williams, Fiona Dourif. World Premiere

Meek’s Cutoff / U.S.A. (Director: Kelly Reichardt; Screenwriter: Jon Raymond (Portland)) – In 1845, three families who have hired mountaineer Stephen Meek to guide their wagons over the Cascade Mountains get lost and face hunger, thirst and a lack of faith in their instincts for survival. Cast: Michelle Williams, Paul Dano, Zoe Kazan, Bruce Greenwood, Shirley Henderson.

The Woods / U.S.A. (Director and Screenwriter: Matthew Lessner (Roseburg)) – A satirical nod to ethnographic film fashions a critique on media technology dependence, when eight young Americans move deep into to the woods to start their own utopia. Cast: Justin Phillips, Toby David, Adam Mortemore, Nicola Persky, Chris Edley. World Premiere.

And bringing up the rear:

The Oregonian / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Calvin Lee Reeder (Seattle)) – After surviving a brutal car accident, a simple farm woman limps down the road into the nightmarish unknown. Cast: Lindsay Pulsipher, Robert Longstreet, Matt Olsen, Lynne Compton, Barlow Jacobs, Chadwick Brown, Jed Maheu, Roger M. Mayer. World Premiere. Shot in California and Washington.

Number of documentaries by Oregon filmmakers at Sundance: 3

Number of documentaries edited by an Oregonian: 1

Number of documentaries about Oregon events at Sundance: 2

Number of feature films shot in Oregon: 3

Number of feature films written by an Oregonian: 1

Number of feature films with no Oregon connection whatsoever except the use of the word “Oregonian” in the title: 1

Second generation Hollywood  in the above Oregon films: 2.  Elia Kazan’s grandaughter, Zoe Kazan, in Meek’s Cutoff, and Brad  Dourif’s daughter Fiona Dourif in Letters From The Big Man

Good luck, everybody!

THIS JUST IN!!!!! Dec. 8, 2010: Shawn Levy’s follow up story.

There seems to be this ambiguity [in Portland]. Director Kelly Reichardt, in a Filmmaker magazine interview about her first Oregon film, Old Joy.

Wonderful extended comparison of Old Joy and My Dinner With Andre, at Reverse Shot.

Kelly Reichardt became an Oregon filmmaker when she made Old Joy in 2006. She repeated the feat in 2008 with Wendy and Lucy, her second project with writer Jonathan Raymond, producer Neil Kopp, and executive producer (and newly minted Oregonian) Todd Haynes.

Wendy and Lucy was the result of a close back and forth collaboration between Raymond, who moonlights as an editor at Plazm, and Reichardt.

From an in depth interview with Reichardt at indiewire:

Reichardt and Raymond decided that they were going to have a character “with some ambition to better herself and enough spirit that we could play on the mythology of going West.”

This puts Reichardt’s tale of a single woman traveling with her dog squarely within the filmmaking tradition started by James Cruz and a cast of hundreds in  The Covered Wagon (1923).