Kelly Reichardt’s much anticipated follow up to 2008’s “Wendy And Lucy” with the period-road-film “Meek’s Cutoff” has been very low key — its production started and finished last fall in Oregon under everyone’s noses and should be in post-production as we speak. One of the film’s stars Zoe Kazan recently took to discussing the film during press rounds for “The Exploding Girl.”
“Meek’s Cutoff is a movie that Kelly Reichardt made in the desert of Oregon this past fall,” Kazan explained to Tribeca Film. “It’s me, Paul Dano, Michelle Williams, Shirley Henderson, Neal Huff, Will Patton, and a bunch of really good actors… It [takes place in] 1845, crossing the country in covered wagons, and that’s been my favorite historical era for a long time, so when I found out it was about pioneers, I just said, ‘Yeah, I’ll do it,’ without even really reading the script. And then I also am a huge fan of Kelly’s work, so I just wanted a chance to work with her. It was a really grueling shoot but definitely worth it, and I’m really excited to see it when she finishes cutting it.”
The cast and crew seemed to have a hell of a time in the harsh and desolate Oregon desert as Kazan recounts that they “were in the middle of nowhere with no cell service and on these enormous salt flats with all this alkaline dust. Everyone got ill, and it was really hot when we got there, and then it got very, very bitterly cold and we were in these thin cotton calico dresses, and it was just grueling. We were working long hours every day. The physical conditions were really difficult. I think it will all be great for the movie because they’re supposed to be under extreme duress, but you know, it’s real.”
The film also stars Bruce Greenwood and Tommy Nelson and teams Reichardt with cinematographer Chris Blauvelt, a frequent collaborator with Gus Van Sant and Noam Baumbach who also worked on Tom Ford’s “A Single Man.” Here’s the film’s synopsis:
The year is 1845, the earliest days of the Oregon Trail, and a wagon team of three families has hired the mountain man Stephen Meek to guide them over the Cascade Mountains. Claiming to know a short cut, Meek leads the group on an unmarked path across the high plain desert, only to become lost in the dry rock and sage. Over the coming days, the emigrants must face the scourges of hunger, thirst, and their own lack of faith in each other’s instincts for survival. When a Native American wanderer crosses their path, the emigrants are torn between their trust in a guide who has proven himself unreliable and a man who has always been seen as the natural enemy.
The film was such an exciting prospect for Kazan, she ended up bringing boyfriend Dano on board as a last minute replacement for an unnamed actor who experienced “a visa issue. Literally two days before we were going to shoot, Paul came in. He was more nervous about it than I was.” That actor in question we suspect is Brit Luke Treadaway who had revealed he was doing the film but is absent from any of the film’s admittedly thin revealed details.
So, when will “Meek’s Cutoff” be coming out? Kazan unfortunately notes that it “should come out next year.” Despite completing lensing last fall, Reichardt is busy fulfilling her role as a visiting professor at Bard College and also prefers to edit all her films herself in her own apartment (“Wendy And Lucy” took six months to edit). The film had even been touted to possibly feature at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival but that may have to wait until next year.