Female Filmmakers in Focus: Kelly Reichardt on Showing Up

Since her debut film “River of Grass” in 1994, writer/director Kelly Reichardt has crafted a singular body of work that proves her to be one of the most distinct voices in American cinema. Reichardt’s films have been described as “minimalist” and tend to explore rural areas and people on society's margins. She has described her films as “glimpses of people passing through.” Born in Miami, Florida, Reichardt studied photography, receiving an MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Although her first feature debuted at the Sundance Film Festival and received three Independent Spirit Awards nominations, it would be another five years before she could finance another feature film. After Reichardt met writer Jon Raymond through a mutual friend, she adapted one of his short stories into her breakout film “Old Joy.” Her next film, “Wendy and Lucy” was also based on a story by Raymond, who co-wrote the screenplay. This would mark her first time working with actress Michelle Williams, a partnership that has become a fruitful and much beloved actor-director pairing. “Showing Up” is Reichardt's sixth collaboration with Raymond and her fourth collaboration with Williams.  Yet, although “Showing Up” is set in Portland, where many of her previous films have taken place, the film has a distinct comical flair as she paints a loving portrait of the city’s art world. Williams plays Lizzy, a sculptor preparing for an upcoming show. Unfortunately, her chaotic personal life often impedes her ability to concentrate on her work. Her menial administrative job at her old art college offers little artistic satisfaction. Her friend, landlord, and fellow artist Jo (Hong Chau) is also preparing for two shows and thus is neglecting her broken hot water. Her very divorced parents (Maryann Plunkett, Judd Hirsh) – also artists – can’t be in a room together without bickering. And her brother Sean (John Magaro) is either having a breakdown or getting into “earthwork.”  “Showing Up” is a wry character study full of Reichardt's trademark attention to detail and brought to life by exquisitely lived-in performances from the entire cast, but primarily through the complicated relationship between Lizzy and Jo as portrayed by Williams and Chau.  For this month’s Female Filmmakers in Focus column, RogerEbert.com spoke to Reichardt about capturing the authentic feel of Portland, her long-time collaborators Jon Raymond and Michelle Williams, working with Hong Chau for the first time, and the art of filming artists at work.  I read that Janet Weiss [from Sleater-Kinney] did the location scouting. Yes, she did.  I loved how it felt very realistically about Portland. But also you had this beautiful soundscape. What was your process in capturing this authentic feeling of Portland? We wrote the script around the school, which is the Oregon College of Arts and Crafts, which got shuttered right before we filmed in it. It's a beloved institution. Over 110 years old. It had some different locations. But it's been at this location since maybe the late '70s, early '80s. Great spot, really sad that it was leaving. It was a big deal for the ceramics community for decades. It was an empty school, and we wrote the script for it hoping somehow we'd be able to use it. When the pandemic shut it down they let us use the school, basically. And the apartments where Lizzy and Jo live, those are our friends. We know everybody that lives on that street and our friends built those apartments for their artists friends at a time. Everyone's lived in those apartments at some moment. Janet is not only a brilliant drummer, but she's an amazing locations person. And I love that if you write that because locations people get no credit.t And locations are so important. And she killed it. She's great. A highway loops around the school, so it's not great for sound. It was like the downside of the location was the sound. And I guess, [cinematographer] Christopher Blauvelt would say, it has these great tin roofs, which I loved. But I didn't think about how in July, the sun would just bounce off them and reflect back at you. So he really hated those roofs. Sound had to be built later. I live in Portland, so it's easy to know what the soundscape is there. Which is basically like skateboards and crows, skateboards and crows. Those are the main things you hear in the world. In the film, when we're there in the backyard hanging the tire, that is on a corner and it's just so loud. It was killing us. So you clean all of that out and then you recreate and go “make it on a loud corner.” That's how filmmaking goes.  Part of the soundscape when we were shooting was André Benjamin just walking around playing his flute whenever he wasn't on camera, which became sort of the background, the distant background sound. On our last day at the school, he allowed us to record him and that was great. So we just stood out in the field, and we recorded him. So all the bird sounds, it all was o