Kelly Reichardt, the darling filmmaker of French film buffs, returns with Showing Up, her new film after the success First Cow. This feature film about an artist puts Michelle Williams in the foreground, as you’ve never seen her before!
What is it about ?
Before the opening of her exhibition, the daily life of an artist and her relationship with others, the chaos of her life will become her source of inspiration…
Barely two years after the release in France of First Cow, Kelly Reichardt is already back with Showing Up, her 8th feature, in competition at the Cannes Film Festival last year. The filmmaker, particularly appreciated by French film buffs, finds one of her favorite actresses, Michelle Williams.
After Wendy and Lucy, The Last Track and Certain Women, Showing Up marks the 4th collaboration of this duo. Once again, Michelle Williams surprises and impresses in this new composition, far from the roles that revealed her, starting with the Dawson series.
Here she plays an artist, quite lonely and anxious, accompanied by a cat and a pigeon that she has agreed to take care of and take under her wing. The film is the portrait of this artist, at a precise moment in her life, namely the day before an opening which causes her a lot of worry.
At the Cannes Film Festival, last May, AlloCiné was able to speak with the tandem.
“The starting point was to talk about a regional artist, in the United States, working in community, with her family and friends around her.explains Kelly Reichardt, who was specifically inspired by the work of artist Cynthia Lahti.
She has her job at the art school next door. But she has this need, every day, to sit at her table to create. It’s something that feeds her. She’s preparing for a vernissage, but we know that’s not what’s going to change her life, make her really emerge.”
“We always feel close in one way or another to the characters we playadds Michelle Williams, to our microphone. You identify with them and see the world as they see it. You try to understand how you feel close to it, and the same for the differences.
All the characters I’ve played are characters that I drew to me. And after a while, you let these characters go.”
Check out our video interview above.
Find all the cinema releases of the week
Showing Up, co-written by Kelly Reichardt and Jonathan Raymond, directed by Kelly Reichardt, starring Michelle Williams, Hong Chau, André Benjamin, is in theaters this Wednesday.