Meek's Cutoff, dir. Kelly Reichardt: I first became interested in Meek's Cutoff when my friend and colleague Brian Welk told me he didn't care for it. That isn't to say our tastes are typically so divergent that I check stuff out just because he doesn't like it, but he dropped a word that no one should drop around me: Western. I went through a solid year earlier in my college career where I watched a couple new Westerns a week, constantly trying to expand my repertoire, if only so I could understand all the callbacks in Once Upon a Time in the West. The Coen Brothers' True Grit remake was one of my favorite films of last year, so a critically acclaimed 2011 Western was just what I wanted to watch tonight, and after the A.V. Club named in the 5th-best movie of the year, I had the impetus to hit play. It might go without saying, but I absolutely loved the film.
If John Ford made the Old West into a playground for Oddysean hero's journeys, Leone and Peckinpah complicated things with their uncomplicated violence, and Eastwood buried all legends with Unforgiven, the most uncompromising portrait of the American frontier yet may be Kelly Reichardt's. No one is killed in Meek's Cutoff. Horses never move any faster than a trot. There isn't a lawman or an outlaw or even a town. In this film, the West is a place without border or definition, where would-be settlers wander without water or a map, looking for their place in a virgin land. Some writers have argued that nothing happens in Meek's Cutoff, and while that's a weak criticism because things totally do happen, it's also irrelevant, because the typical experience of the Old West (the Oregon Trail in particular, here) wasn't the world of Stagecoach or The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Those are fantastic films, but Reichardt sets out to do something entirely different, and she succeeds.
Even so, there is homage to both Ford and Leone in the visual language that Reichardt employs. There are infinite, gorgeous long shots that shine in spite of the bizarre 4:3 aspect ratio, and close-ups show hardened expressions on people who deserve to look hardened. Great performances from Michelle Williams, Paul Dano and especially a hirsute Bruce Greenwood brilliantly fill out Reichardt's world, and Rod Rondeaux is terrific as an subtitles-free Native American whose life hangs in the balance as the caravan decides whether to kill him or ask him to help them find water.
Meek's Cutoff isn't entertaining like the True Grit remake was, and the stakes aren't high enough to call it this year's There Will Be Blood or No Country for Old Men. But it is nonetheless a fantastic, harrowing motion picture that looks to do quite well when I get around to making a final year-end list.
EMA, Past Life Martyred Saints: It's difficult for me to picture Erika M. Anderson in a punk band, but a (very cursory) skimming of the background of her solo project EMA seems to suggest that she very recently was, as a part of Gowns. Past Life Martyred Saints is sometimes aggressive and noisy, but it never crosses into any territory that I'd feel comfortable tagging as punk. It's an interesting album that's driven by a couple really strong single-like cuts in "California" and "Butterfly Knife," and its high placement on the year-end lists for both SPIN (more on that later) and The Quietus, not to mention its Pitchfork Best New Music back in May, had me curious enough to check it out after months of neglect.
It won't have me reconsidering my top albums list for the year. I have no doubts that this is one of those "reveals its greatness on further listens" records, but this blog only really works with snap reactions. Mine with this album isn't nearly complicated or interesting enough for me to be proud of it, but I essentially found Past Life Martyred Saints to be an indie folk album dolled up with some swear words and electronics. It isn't consistently noisy enough to sell me on its strengths as a noise album, but it uses noise as an excuse to cut tracks that don't stand alone as great works of songwriting, which is all folk really has going for it at the end of the day. Pretty big disappointment.
I also revisited Touché Amoré's Parting the Sea Between Brightness and Me today, and that went considerably better. Great record.
SPIN's 50 Best Albums of 2011: I know I said this would usually be about essays and thinkpieces, but hey, it's list season and this was my favorite one I've seen yet, so I wanted to give it a shout out. It's the first list besides my own that I've seen place Fucked Up's David Comes to Life at #1, and PJ Harvey's Let England Shake coming in a #2 (it was my #4) is similarly inspiring. Issues include Girls and The Rapture both inside the top 10 (yikes) and the inclusion of Liturgy over Wolves in the Throne Room as an indie-safe black metal choice, as good as that Liturgy album is. Great list overall, though, and I can't wait to pick up the issue next Tuesday.
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