“I don’t blame him for not knowing. I blame him for saying he did.”
“You Have Died of Dysentery” became a popular catchphrase due to how often the string of text informed players of The Oregon Trail that their game had once again come to its fateful end. The educational game was culturally ubiquitous as it was used in public school systems to enhance history lessons and aid in the development of rudimentary resource management skills. It was also notoriously difficult, especially for the ten year olds who primarily played it. If it wasn’t dysentery that brought the player to death’s door, it was typhoid, exhaustion, drowning, snakebites, cholera, or a thousand other things that might be out to get the rugged 8-bit emigrant. The cruel randomness with which death would come upon the player was intended to teach the harsh realities of frontier life—and life in general. You could do everything with textbook precision and still meet an unexpected end. And even if you managed to survive to see Willamette Valley, you’d arrive there half-starved with a broken arm and measles, your wife and children buried in shallow graves along the trail.
When you boot up a fresh copy of The Oregon Trail, the top ten scores list is pre-populated with various names. At the top of this list sits Stephen Meek, the ostensible subject of Kelly Reichardt’s slow-burning Western, Meek’s Cutoff. A grizzled fur trapper and wilderness guide, Meek was contracted to guide several hundred families across the Oregon desert along a meandering side trail that was supposed to lead them to the promised land. Instead, the trail petered out, the group split in two, the ranks were further combed by death, disease and famine, and only a scant few managed to limp their way to Willamette, Meek among them.
Like The Oregon Trail, Reichardt’s film is less concerned with forming a grand narrative around its cadre of wagoners than conveying the general hardship that they faced daily on their journey; sketching out the daunting situation that these pioneers endured for the promise of a new life. Each day is a brutal slog of monotonous but critical tasks as the expanse of barren desert terrain is crossed no faster than a pair of malnourished oxen can pull an overlaiden wagon. Washing dishes, mending clothing, fixing broken axles, preparing hot meals, tending to the animals, keeping alert for the looming threat of Native Americans—it seems like every activity required to sustain a family on the trail is an impossibly long and involved ordeal. But neglecting one’s duties would prove fatal. This time-intensive element is exemplified when Emily Tetherow (Michelle Williams) fires two musket shots into the air as a warning signal to the men who are out searching for signs of water. She is startled when she stumbles upon an Indian while gathering firewood and in a long, static, unbroken shot she loads, shoots, reloads, and shoots. The entire loading process from powder to cloth to ramrod is shown in all its cumbersome totality. Many will find this boring, but the commitment to authenticity is one of the calling cards of Meek’s Cutoff.
The wagon train that Meek (Bruce Greenwood) chaperones is filled out by William (Neal Huff) and Glory White (Shirley Henderson), their son Jimmy (Tommy Nelson), Thomas (Paul Dano) and Millie Gately (Zoe Kazan), and Emily’s husband Solomon (Will Patton). Reichardt and frequent collaborator Jonathan Raymond don’t bother to explain the circumstances of the journey. There is little exposition other than a brief shot of the film’s title and the year (1845) stitched into a piece of cloth. Instead, Reichardt uses visual and aural textures to make an impression—long shots of pilgrims wandering the dusty plains and laboring through their monotonous chores, minimal dialogue, an ambient desert soundscape supplemented with the compelling textures of Jeff Grace’s modest experimental score.
Reichardt’s patience as an editor coupled with the creative lensing from Chris Blauvelt leads to some truly beautiful moments. The long takes and oft-static frame give the feel of a documentary and the characters are frequently captured in long shots with bushes or dead tree branches blurred in the foreground. This commitment to realism is matched by the naturalistic performances but it is occasionally (and pleasantly) undercut by excursions into a more artistic visual style, such as when the rolling clouds are held in frame for poetic effect or the three women walk in unison in a neatly composed shot. It is clear that Reichardt is a student of several masters of the earlier years of cinema and she’s learned all the right lessons from them.
Meek’s Cutoff has some of the look of a classic Hollywood Western but it defies the genre’s conventions at every turn. This is not an epic adventure and the swaggering Meek doesn’t even qualify as a rascally but endearing antihero. As portrayed here—dressed in tassled leather, with a ratty beard and shoulder length hair, brimming with tall tales—he’s little more than a reckless and clueless fool. And so Reichardt justifiably turns her attention to other characters, specifically the women and the Indian (Rod Rondeaux). Many claim that the film is “feminist” but I did not find it to be so. It’s certainly conveyed from the perspective of feminine characters and Emily in particular has a very strong personality. Its most transgressive moment occurs when Emily raises her musket against Meek to keep him from killing the Indian who is either guiding them to water or leading them to slaughter. But her own husband prevailed in arguing for trusting the Indian in the first place and he likely would have done the same as Emily if he were in proximity to Meek at the time. And so even if she was burning with hatred for Meek, she was still acting in subservience to her husband’s will. If the argument is that women used to be allowed to be tough, well, most men can’t do what is depicted in this film either. That’s a problem with modernity, not masculinity. But that’s a can of worms that someone with more passion for politics can unpack. What actually unfolds on screen works regardless of modern politics and provides one of the few moments of heightened tension in a film that doesn’t have much drama.
Meek’s Cutoff moves at a glacial pace, ensuring that anyone without some amount of tolerance will be put off immediately (probably before the first word of dialogue is uttered). But for those with the correct temperament, Reichardt has crafted a sparse and haunting depiction of life on the frontier that ruminates in the sun-bleached landscape and dusty silence, provoking the viewer’s thoughts about trust and uncertainty and allowing them the freedom to wander. The meager offerings of drama and conflict take a backseat to the mesmerizing blend of austere realism and poetic beauty. A bold offering with great rewards for the patient viewer.