First Cow

BAMPFA Student Committee Pick

In Conversation

  • Nicolás Pereda is a filmmaker and assistant professor of Film & Media at UC Berkeley.

featuring

John Magaro, Orion Lee, Toby Jones, Ewan Bremner,

  Closed captioned   Audio description

Reichardt’s tale of a frontier friendship is a nuanced and original contribution to the history of Westerns. Set in the Pacific Northwest in the mid-nineteenth century, it chronicles characters historically minimized by the genre, focusing on an itinerant cook for hire, Cookie , and a Chinese immigrant, King-Lu, whose chance meetings lead to cohabitation and ultimately a risky shared business venture. “Like many great westerns it critiques some of the genre’s foundational myths with bracing, beautiful rigor, including the myth of heroic individualism” (A. O. Scott, New York Times).

Kate MacKay
FILM DETAILS 
Screenwriter
  • Kelly Reichardt
  • Jon Raymond
Based On
  • The Half-Life by Jon Raymond

Cinematographer
  • Christopher Blauvelt
Print Info
  • Color
  • DCP
  • 121 mins
Source
  • A24