【译】

更新时间：2025-10-13 04:03:19

Meek’s Cutoff

Essay by Brian Eggert | January 27, 2020

Kelly Reichardt’s films focus on the searching, inward experiences of her characters. But none more so than her first true Western, Meek’s Cutoff, whose theme is etched in the opening shots. One of seven settlers bound for the West carves “LOST” into a dried-out fallen tree, and therein, he engraves Reichardt’s subversion of the most American genre. The conventional Western reassures moral convictions against an untamable wilderness, whereas Reichardt concentrates on unromantic tasks, avoids defining her characters through easily recognizable tropes, and resists narrative closure. She embraces the rhythm of everyday activities, from the tedium of travel to simple, menial tasks and processes, and her approach forgoes Western standards, such as rowdy chases, heroes and villains, and shootouts.

Instead, Reichardt uses long takes and intentionally paced shots of a meandering voyage to Oregon, which replace the majesty and masculinity of the Western with something alternative. The film’s perspective is unquestionably feminist, though never polemical in how it depicts the lack of power among nineteenth-century frontier women. Drawing from an actual event, Meek’s Cutoff concerns itself with an austere and natural portrait of reality. Reichardt explores, through her exacted narrative and form, a feeling of emotional isolation that emerges when confronted by a patriarchal community’s false sense of security. Her willingness to question the certainty of masculine Westerns also supplies an investigation of reality, our incomplete view of it, and the limits of true knowledge, resulting in a haunting film about people finally resigning themselves to the chaos of the universe.

The film takes its name from the Oregon Trail shortcut, the Meek Cutoff, a route known primarily for the Lost Wagon Train of 1845. Histories and diaries from the time recount real-life fur trapper and frontiersman Stephen Meek, who led a party of over 1,000 settlers in some 200 covered wagons, driving several thousand head of cattle across a seemingly more direct route to the Promised Land. Meek claimed the alternate path, then untested by any wagon train, would save them 150 miles. From Fort Boise, Meek would take the party over the Blue Mountains and then deliver them straight into the Willamette Valley. The proposition sounded appealing since many feared the widespread reports of Cayuse tribe attacks on the main Oregon Trail. But after clearing the mountains, the train became aware that Meek did not recognize the territory, today known as the Oregon High Desert. Having trapped there a decade earlier, Meek remembered lakes; unbeknownst to him, they had since dried up in the droughts. Unsure where to go, he sent out scouts who came back with no clear direction to salvation. With grass and water in short supply, the emigrants and their livestock suffered. After some disputes in the camp, the group split into two parties, one following Meek, and the other taking an alternate route. Though the train eventually came back together farther down the trail, twenty-three people died along the way. Many blamed Meek for their losses. To paraphrase the diary of one survivor, it was a bad cutoff for all that took it.

Reichardt provides no exposition to establish the events in her film besides the immediate setting, Oregon in 1845, communicated by a single title card. Everything else must be gleaned through observation; even the dialogue is barely heard over the sounds of Conestoga wagons plodding along through barren country. Three couples head westward across punishing terrain, shepherded by their grizzled guide, Stephen Meek (Bruce Greenwood), an almost comical braggart wrapped in tasseled leather and chock full of tall tales about his adventures taming the Wild West. What we know about the families comes from their present journey; the film offers no backstories. Though each has their own wagon and livestock, the settlers support each other with food, water, and effort, toiling to cross rivers and carefully navigating their fragile wagons down steep hills. The God-fearing couple of William White (Neal Huff) and his pregnant wife Glory (Shirley Henderson) have brought along the only child on the journey, the adolescent Jimmy (Tommy Nelson). Thomas Gately (Paul Dano) and his fearful wife Millie (Zoe Kazan) worry about the dangers of continuing forward, despite their adrift guide. Reichardt aligns the film’s perspective with the group’s most sensible pair, Solomon Tetherow (Will Patton), a logical and well-reasoned man whose new young wife, Emily (Michelle Williams), is resourceful and, increasingly, outspoken. “We should never have left the main stem,” Emily says, regretting the decision to follow Meek’s shortcut.

If Meek’s Cutoff offers thin characterizations for its settlers, it could be that Meek, an excessive windbag, has consumed the air around them. Reichardt situates her characters in response to Meek. The settlers watch him from behind, leading the train, though he’s unsure of their exact location and does not know when they will find water again. Reichardt’s camera often adopts the women’s perspective, Emily above all, and observes Meek’s endless swagger with a critical eye. Meek is a monumental blowhard, a personality suited for Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, a larger-than-life figure desperate to validate himself by spinning yarns about his legendary heroism and experience. He might also be a symbol of John Ford’s Western—someone who wholeheartedly believes the maxim of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962): “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” Ever chattering about his exploits, he is committed to his own legend. He has invented it. His world is comprised of masculine heroism and a blustering ego, like one of John Wayne’s characters, or Wayne himself, in his arrogant self-certainty. He claims to be a gallant killer of Indians and boasts of his oneness with Nature (“I live with this world, not just in it”), and somehow, his confidence persists despite admitting he’s lost. By contrast, the other men in the party remain passive, following Meek on the train, unwilling to confront his authority as their guide or follow Emily’s growing dissent. Further down the line, Emily walks and listens to Meek telling his stories to Jimmy, stories only a child could believe.

Meek’s Cutoff is structured around the journey, a repetition that follows Meek’s lead by day and camps in the pitch-blackness at night. The dynamic changes when a Native American man (Rod Rondeaux) from the Cayuse tribe appears before Emily as she gathers firewood. The Indian, as he is credited, scatters, while Emily rushes back to signal the others, loading a musket and firing into the sky in a scene that shows she can handle a gun. Meek and Solomon resolve to track down the Indian and return him to camp as their prisoner, and his presence amplifies the personalities of everyone in the wagon train. Meek wants to kill him, arguing that other Cayuse will surely follow. Meanwhile, Millie’s crippling terror of his Otherness is doubtless magnified by Meek’s horror stories. “You know what I’ve seen this heathen’s brothers do? I’ve seen ‘em strip the flesh off a man while he’s still breathin’,” he warns in grandiose fashion. “I’ve seen ‘em cut a man’s eyelids off and bury him in the sand and leave him just starin’ at the sun.” Far more rational, Solomon and Emily want the Indian to lead them to water, as he must be familiar with the territory. Emily, in her prudence, recognizes that, even though they have taken him prisoner and he does not speak English, her kindness may be returned for their salvation. She fixes the Indian’s shoe and explains her shrewdness, “I want him to owe me something.” The Tetherows convince their fellow emigrants to let the Indian lead them to water, and Meek is outvoted. But will their new guide lead them to water or into a deadly trap? The film’s open-ended conclusion preserves that question.

Reichardt’s minimalism informs her narrative and visual style, from the equivocal last shot in Meek’s Cutoff to the protracted takes and even longer silences during the emigrants’ journey. In a relatively short period of time, Reichardt has made a name for herself in sparse cinema—microbudget independent productions whose subjects are resigned to mutable roles. Reichardt’s characters often subsist in a repressive environment, hesitant to speak or articulate their inner selves, prompting her audience to investigate her characters through their own projections. It’s tempting to call her perspective an exclusively feminist one, given that her protagonists are usually women, but she examines the same qualities among men as well. Her second film, Old Joy (2004), the story of two college friends on an overnight camping trip to a hot spring, their uneven impressions of their friendship, and their various insecurities, captures masculine relationships better than any picture of the twenty-first century. After her debut film, River of Grass (1994), which is set in her native Florida and follows an aimless couple on a crime spree, she shot experimental short films and attempted to develop another feature. But her breakthrough with Old Joy led to a wealth of output—Wendy and Lucy (2008), Night Moves (2013), Certain Women (2016), First Cow (2020). And with each new film, her cinema has defined her stripped-down and opaque aesthetic, leaving her audience to search for meaning.

凯莉·莱卡特（Kelly Reichardt）的电影始终关注人物内在、探索性的体验，而在她的第一部真正意义上的西部片《米克的捷径》中，这种主题得到了最充分的体现。影片开场便刻下了它的主题：七个向西迁徙的拓荒者之一在一根干枯的倒木上刻下“LOST（迷失）”一词。在这一动作中，莱卡特也刻下了她对“最美国式类型片”——西部片——的颠覆。传统的西部片通过征服荒野来巩固道德信念，而莱卡特则专注于不浪漫化的日常劳动，避免用可辨识的性格模板来定义人物，并拒绝叙事的收束。她拥抱生活节奏的平凡性——从旅途的单调乏味到日常琐碎的劳作——放弃了西部片的惯例：狂野的追逐、英雄与恶棍的对立、枪战的高潮。

相反，莱卡特以长镜头和刻意缓慢的节奏，记录一段通往俄勒冈的漂泊旅程，用女性化的、去雄性化的视角取代了西部片中那种雄壮的、男性化的宏伟。影片的立场无疑是女性主义的，然而它从不流于说教，而是通过描绘十九世纪边疆女性的无权状态，展现一种内敛的政治锋芒。影片取材于真实历史事件——“米克的捷径”——呈现出一种冷峻、朴素的现实主义。莱卡特以精准的叙事与形式，探索在父权共同体虚假的安全感中所滋生的情感孤立。她质疑男性西部片的确定性，也由此展开对“现实”、对我们视野局限与认知边界的反思。影片最终成为一部令人萦绕心头的作品：关于人类如何在宇宙的混沌中学会屈从。

影片标题源自“米克的捷径”（Meek Cutoff）——一条位于俄勒冈小径上的捷径路线。它因1845年的“迷失的移民车队”（Lost Wagon Train）而闻名。根据史料与当年移民日记记载，毛皮猎人兼拓荒者斯蒂芬·米克（Stephen Meek）带领着约1000名拓荒者、200多辆篷车和数千头牛羊，穿越一条看似更直通“应许之地”的新路线。米克宣称，这条未经任何车队尝试的路径能节省150英里。从博伊西堡出发，他要带领队伍翻越蓝山山脉，直接进入威拉米特谷。这一提议听起来颇具吸引力，因为许多移民担心主线道上有凯尤斯（Cayuse）部族袭击的传闻。

然而，穿过山脉后，移民们才发现米克根本不认识这片如今称作俄勒冈高原沙漠（Oregon High Desert）的地区。米克曾在十年前于此地捕猎，记得这里有湖泊；但他并不知道这些湖泊早已因干旱而干涸。迷失方向后，他派出侦查员寻找出路，却无人能带来明确的希望。牧草与水源短缺，人畜皆苦不堪言。营地内部发生争执，车队分裂为两支：一支仍跟随米克，另一支选择另一条路。尽管他们后来在更远的路段重新会合，但已有二十三人死于途中。幸存者在日记中写道，这是一条“对所有走上它的人来说都是坏的捷径”。

莱卡特在影片中几乎不提供任何叙事交代。除了一个“1845年俄勒冈”的字幕，观众必须通过观察来理解一切；连人物的对话都常被马车辘辘声与荒野的风声掩盖。三对夫妇向西跋涉，带领他们的是粗野的向导——斯蒂芬·米克（布鲁斯·格林伍德饰），一个满嘴夸张故事、披着流苏皮衣的老江湖。他自称驯服过荒原的英雄，但实际上只是个滑稽的吹牛者。影片没有提供人物背景，观众只能从他们此刻的旅程推断他们的关系与性格。

他们各自驾着马车、驱赶牲畜，却彼此依赖，共同分配食物与水源，协力涉水、谨慎地让脆弱的篷车滑下陡坡。其中，威廉·怀特（尼尔·赫夫）和他怀孕的妻子格洛丽（雪莉·亨德森）信仰虔诚，他们的儿子吉米是队伍中唯一的孩子。托马斯·盖特利（保罗·达诺）与胆怯的妻子米莉（佐伊·卡赞）担忧继续前行的危险，而他们的向导似乎早已迷失方向。莱卡特让观众的视角与队伍中最理智的一对夫妇——所罗门·特瑟罗（威尔·帕顿）和他机敏的新婚妻子艾米丽（米歇尔·威廉姆斯）——保持一致。艾米丽逐渐成为队伍中最清醒的声音：“我们当初就不该离开主路。”她这样说。

影片对这些拓荒者的刻画虽简约，却极为精准——因为米克的夸夸其谈几乎吞噬了所有空气。莱卡特让每个角色都成为米克的对照物：他们都在他身后望着他，他却始终不知道自己的位置，也不知道何时能找到水源。镜头常从女性视角出发，尤其是艾米丽的视线，以批判的方式注视米克那无止境的自负。米克是一个典型的“大话西部英雄”——仿佛出自巴法罗·比尔的狂野秀，一个急切地想通过编造英雄事迹来证明自己的夸张人物。他象征着约翰·福特（John Ford）式的西部神话，也许正对应《射杀自由·瓦伦斯的人》（1962）那句名言：“当传说成了事实，就印上传说。”他生活在一个由男性英雄主义和自我膨胀构成的世界里，像约翰·韦恩（John Wayne）或韦恩本人那样，以傲慢自信为荣。

他吹嘘自己是印第安人的屠杀者，夸耀自己与自然合一（“我与这个世界共生，而非仅仅活在其中”），即便承认迷路，他的自信仍未动摇。相比之下，队伍中的其他男人显得被动而怯懦——他们不敢质疑米克的权威，也不愿追随艾米丽逐渐增长的质疑之声。而艾米丽则走在队伍稍后的位置，静静听着米克对小男孩吉米讲述那些连孩子都难以置信的英雄故事。

《米克的捷径》的结构建立在旅程的重复性之上：白天跟随米克前进，夜晚在黑暗中扎营。剧情的转折发生在艾米丽捡柴时遇到了一名印第安男子（由凯尤斯部族的罗德·龙多饰演）。这个在片中仅被称为“印第安人”的角色一出现便逃走，艾米丽慌忙回到营地，装填火枪并向空中鸣枪示警——这一幕展示了她的果敢与冷静。米克与所罗门追踪并抓回了印第安人，将他作为俘虏带回营地。此人的到来激化了所有人的性格：米克主张立即杀掉他，声称凯尤斯人会随时来袭；而米莉则被恐惧所支配，被米克的恐怖故事所感染——“你知道这些野人会怎么干吗？他们会在一个人还活着的时候剥去他的皮……割掉眼皮，把他埋进沙子里，让他直勾勾地盯着太阳。”

与此相对，所罗门与艾米丽保持理性——他们认为印第安人熟悉地形，或许能带领他们找到水源。艾米丽在谨慎中展现出智慧：尽管他们抓了他、语言不通，但善意或许能换来救赎。她为印第安人修补鞋子，并冷静地说：“我希望他欠我一个人情。”最终，艾米丽与丈夫说服大家让印第安人带路，米克被投票否决。但这名印第安人将带他们走向水源，还是走向死亡陷阱？——影片开放式的结尾保留了这个悬念。

莱卡特的极简主义贯穿叙事与视觉风格：从那模棱两可的最后一幕，到漫长的静默与耐心的镜头。《米克的捷径》在相对短的时间内，确立了莱卡特“稀薄而深刻的电影语言”：低预算、独立制作、人物处于不稳定的社会角色之中。她的角色常被压抑的环境包围，犹豫着表达内心，使观众不得不通过投射去理解他们。称她的视角“女性主义”固然有理，但她对男性的观察同样锐利。她的第二部影片《昨日欢愉》（Old Joy, 2004）——两位老朋友前往温泉露营、在重逢中显露出友情的不均与不安——可谓二十一世纪最细腻的男性关系画像之一。

在（River of Grass, 1994）之后，她拍摄了几部实验短片，并一度停滞于新项目开发中。直至《old joy》的成功，她迎来了创作的丰收期：《温蒂和露西》（Wendy and Lucy, 2008）、《夜行者》（Night Moves, 2013）、《某种女人》（Certain Women, 2016）与《第一头牛》（First Cow, 2020）。每一部新作都在强化她那简约而暧昧的电影美学，迫使观众在空白与沉默之间寻找意义。

Writer Jonathan Raymond supplied the short stories on which Old Joyand Wendy and Lucy were based; he also wrote the screenplays for those films, as well as Meek’s Cutoff and other, later films directed by Reichardt. The two were introduced in the early 2000s by their mutual friend, director Todd Haynes, who not only connected fellow Portland native Raymond with his first literary agent but executive produced nearly all of Reichardt’s films. Both Reichardt and Raymond find value in silences, where nonverbal emotional and psychological cues intensify and grow more complex from their wordless expression. This similarity in their approach enriches their collaboration, as Reichardt complements the implied feelings in Raymond’s writing through ruminative imagery. The idea for Meek’s Cutoff came when the two explored the Oregon High Desert while location scouting during the production of Wendy and Lucy. They were both drawn to the terrain, and Raymond later learned of Stephen Meek’s story. They began a research process that entailed visiting the many museum exhibits about the Meek expedition, reading the actual diaries of settlers that survive from the period, and books about the subject, such as Keith Clark and Lowell Tiller’s book Terrible Trail: The Meek Cutoff, 1845. Many of the events that occur in the film—such as the emigrants finding a nugget of gold that suggests a larger mine in the area, the location of which is lost to time—happened in real life. Although, Raymond’s screenplay scales down the actual event to three families under Meek’s guidance, partly out of necessity due to the film’s $2 million budget, but also because Reichardt gravitates toward intimate stories about a select few characters.

Reichardt gives Meek’s Cutoff a distinct shape by experimenting with the 1.33:1 aspect ratio, the standard Academy ratio widely used in Hollywood until the emergence of widescreen formats in the 1950s. In recent decades, narrower ratios have made a comeback among many independent filmmakers such as Andrea Arnold (Fish Tank, 2009; Wuthering Heights, 2011; American Honey, 2016), Robert Eggers (The Witch, 2015; The Lighthouse, 2019), and Paul Schrader (First Reformed, 2018). These directors seem to use the ratio, or something close to it, as though today’s standard wide formats were a platform to work against, using the audience’s awareness of an older method and the unused option of widescreen to extratextual effect. Modern uses of this format often reflect the story’s period by adopting an outmoded look, represent a theme of confinement, or focus the viewer’s attention on characters within the prescribed frame. Reichardt’s work with the boxy frame in Meek’s Cutoff conveys several reactions at the same time. Cinematographer Chris Blauvelt, who has shot each of her films since Meek’s Cutoff, captures a scopic terrain despite the comparative lack of screen space by isolating characters or the entire wagon train within the frame, allowing the sky and rolling hills to drown out the settlers. Blauvelt echoes how the Academy ratio was used in Hollywood Westerns by John Ford, George Stevens, and Anthony Mann, filmmakers who captured unforgettable images from Monument Valley to the mountainous frontier of the Pacific Northwest, yet their work never felt circumscribed for lack of a panoramic view. At the same time, this visual seclusion in the never-ending landscape of Reichardt’s film intensifies the journey at hand, as if the characters proceed through a squarish tunnel. The ratio is at once immense and confining.

Reichardt’s use of the image reinforces the theme that the emigrants are prisoners in an open country. Many of her shots are stationary, as if mounted on a tripod and limited to panning right or left. When the camera moves, it does so to follow the steady progress of the wagon train. Never does she employ outwardly expressive angles or whooshing crane movements. Reichardt, serving as editor, also finds a transfixing quality in ultra-slow fade transitions between images that seem to blend together, as the figures in the forthcoming image look like ghosts passing through the previous scene. Elsewhere, Blauvelt shoots scenes in natural light, with night sequences lit only by campfires and lanterns, illuminating just a small portion of the frame. Reichardt emphasizes the use of light in several stark cuts from the pitch blackness of night to the penetrating daylight, causing the viewer to reflexively wince from the sudden switch. Behind every scene is a heightened ambient noise of the emigrants and livestock trudging along, and the persistent sound of a single squeaky wagon wheel. And though Jeff Grace has been credited with a score, only a few aching notes stretched along the last desperate minutes of the film break its many silences. Both visually and aurally, Reichardt adopts the transcendental quality of slow cinema, whose austerity forces its audience to think about the film while it unfolds, resulting in an alertness to every detail within the frame.

Reichardt told interviewer Leonard Quart that her focus was the “unheightened moment”—a stark and decidedly feminist contrast to the traditional Western’s expression of masculinity through its concentration on violence, victory, and moral certainty. Meek’s Cutoff certainty operates in a mode different than that of Ford’s similarly plotted Wagon Master (1950), another tale of settlers in a wagon train that, conversely, entails a romantic subplot, a shootout at the climax, and a finale in which the party arrives at their destination. Reichardt creates an alternative to her predecessors by limiting the first half of her film to the journey’s minutiae, drawing our attention to characters who would not usually have power or occupy the center of a traditional Western. She follows as Emily gathers firewood or prepares dinner; she sits with the women as they knit and hang laundry. Her gaze is feminine, watching from a distance as the menfolk stand in a circle, their voices overheard just enough to catch their deliberation about which way to go, none of them with an ounce of certainty. Reichardt’s initial interest in process, in the work of her women characters as the men make decisions about their route, occupies the feminine perspective, and through it, the viewer recognizes how the conventional Western, and to a greater extent nineteenth-century society, excludes women.

In considering Reichardt’s feminist perspective one cannot ignore the catalyst of Emily’s emergence as the protagonist, the character of Meek. Indeed, Meek’s Cutoff might be the ultimate film about a woman rallying against one man’s refusal to admit he needs directions. Their guide rationalizes, “We’re not lost; we’re just finding our way”—a statement that recalls Kurt (Will Oldham) in Old Joy, and his insistence that he knows just how to get to the hot springs, despite being lost. Reichardt’s films often feature lost characters, from the friends in Old Joyto the titular characters of Wendy and Lucy, who are not so much lost as sidelined in their journey. The state of being lost, either geographically or existentially, allows Reichardt’s minimalism to confront her characters in their ambiguous, unreliable, and amorphous worlds. It also allows each of her films to be interpreted as a kind of Western, as each explores unknown territory. Still, though Emily is resigned to a passive role in the train, she will not be led by a fool. “I don’t blame him for not knowing,” she whispers to Solomon. “I blame him for saying he did.” Emily’s growing frustration with Meek’s apparent ignorance and arrogance distinguishes her from the typical passivity of women in Westerns. She will not listen to Meek’s yarns about the dangerous Cayuse tribe; while others are rapt by his stories, she is unimpressed. “This meant to bring me over to somethin’?” she asks him flatly. Emily is too practical and resourceful to suffer Meek’s braggadocio, and she is also determined to prevent Meek’s execution of the Indian, the party’s one hope for salvation in her mind. In the climactic scene, when Meek draws his pistol with the intent to kill the Indian, Emily points the musket at him until he concedes and lowers his weapon, shifting the power dynamic of the train. By that time, though, Meek’s fearmongering has done its work.

The film transforms into a study of humanity’s reaction to fear and uncertainty, how for some even unlikely assurances are preferable to the terrifying emptiness of the unknown. Moreover, it contains a political undercurrent that reflects how certain figures retain their power. Meek tells dubious stories about his encounters with violent Native American tribes and warns of an imminent attack, stoking paranoia while building his own mythology as a survivor and authority. His methods recall political dictators who ensure devotion by spreading panic and then supplying themselves as the solution. Though, his idiocy prompts Emily to ask, in a question asked by millions living under a similar leader, “Is he ignorant or just plain evil?” In any case, Meek has successfully convinced Millie and others of their fate. “They’re almost here!” Millie cries out with terrible certainty—in a Chicken Little type Kazan would repeat in Joel and Ethan Coen’s Western anthology The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018), though her fate is more certain in that film. And while most of the others agree that Meek’s stories have questionable merit, Reichardt nonetheless implants seeds of doubt in the viewer. Note how Millie keeps a bird in a cage for the journey that, like a canary in a gaseous coal mine, gradually dies over the course of the film, as if the settlers have entered poisonous territory. Millie also sees a conspiracy in rocks as the Indian leaves indecipherable symbols on a possible breadcrumb trail of stones, perhaps as part of his religion, perhaps as Reichardt resolves to end Meek’s Cutoff with the inconclusiveness she sustains through the entire picture. She does not justify or disprove Meek’s prejudices, nor does she vindicate or condemn Emily’s decision to trust the Indian, and therein, she avoids the moral certainty associated with traditional Westerns. At the base of a hill, the wagon train arrives at a tree, indicating the presence of water nearby. Once the group follows the Indian over the hill, there’s a chance of finding water; there’s also the chance of an ambush waiting for them. The Pacific Northwest saw many deadly encounters with the Cayuse, including the Whitman Massacre of 1847 that left thirteen settlers dead. Meek resigns himself to Emily and Solomon’s lead. “I’m taking my orders from you now,” he tells them. “This was written long before we got here,” he adds, ever the believer in myth, especially his own, even if it means he is led to his death. But Reichardt refuses to give credence to his fateful last words in the film. It’s a structure that brings to mind the way humanity puts its faith in desperate ideas in Stephen King’s novella The Mist, where an isolated group of Maine townsfolk hole-up to avoid a monster-laden fog; some blindly follow an alarmist’s prophecy, others resolve to face the unknown’s infinite haze. A persistent theme of Meek’s Cutoff, then, questions where one places their trust and why. That Reichardt and Raymond chose to end their story on an open-ended note is a stark but telling contrast to the actual incident, where the wagon train splits into two parties and both find their way.

As scholars Katherine Fusco and Nicole Seymour have noted, the ambiguous ending also demonstrates how Meek’s Cutoff deviates from traditional and even revisionist Westerns in its withholding of Manifest Destiny. The white expansion and settlement of North America signals progress in classical Westerns from John Ford (Stagecoach, 1939), George Stevens (Shane, 1953), and William Wyler (The Big Country, 1958)—a bringing of order to the frontier’s untamed chaos. Revisionist Westerns from Sam Peckinpah (The Wild Bunch, 1968), Clint Eastwood (Unforgiven, 1992), Jim Jarmusch (Dead Man, 1995), and Quentin Tarantino (The Hateful Eight, 2015) have questioned and portrayed the corrupting nature of white expansion, but they acknowledge its inevitability. Reichardt prefers to leave that destiny in question. It’s an idea symbolized when Meek argues that “women are created on the principle of chaos” in their ability to bring new life into the world, whereas men represent “cleansing, ordering, destruction.” Meek has firmly implanted himself in the ideals of Manifest Destiny, with its obliteration of Native American tribes and assimilation of the unknown into the familiar. In part, he sees the Indian, and all Native Americans, as chaos, given the man’s inability to speak English or submit to white rule; and it’s a significant detail that Reichardt does not supply the viewer with subtitles to translate the Indian’s native dialogue. Emily and Solomon have chosen a path that deviates from Westward expansionism; they resolve not to kill the Indian and choose to embrace the unknown rather than break it.

Meek’s Cutoff is unique in its revisionism for its essential ambiguity toward Manifest Destiny. Will Meek’s masculine order through destruction overcome Emily’s feminine chaos? Or does Meek’s theory represent an attempt at bringing order to the structureless world that Reichardt implies with her final shots? Emily watches as their Native American guide walks toward the horizon, and Reichardt fades to black before disclosing the party’s fate. Will the Indian find water or will he signal other Cayuse to attack? Is the answer right over the hill, or the hill after that? Considering how Meek’s Cutoff is put together, it becomes clear that Reichardt elicits internal responses that require the viewer to contemplate uncertainty itself. By refusing to answer questions about where the settlers’ journey ends, the film investigates what drives our fear of the unknown, as well as the costs of so-called civilization. Her method is elusive, contained in long silences, a lumbering journey, and spare, if beautiful, cinematography, along with a host of natural performances. But the approach is, in Meek’s terms, also unquestionably feminist in its willingness to embrace the chaos of ambiguity. In a film that places equal value on its omissions of sight and sound as the details it brings into sharp focus, it is unshakable in its demand to be revisited and reconsidered, but never resolved.

a message or signal to his tribe. Or notice the way the Indian subtly smiles when a wagon topples over, as if he’s pleased the emigrants have met with disaster. Are these true warning signs or coincidences that aid Meek’s role as a doomsayer?

⸻

作家乔纳森·雷蒙德（Jonathan Raymond）为(Old Joy）和《温蒂和露西》（Wendy and Lucy）提供了改编所依据的短篇小说；他也为这两部影片以及《米克的捷径》（Meek’s Cutoff）和此后由莱卡特执导的其他影片撰写了剧本。两人于2000年代初在共同好友、导演托德·海因斯（Todd Haynes）的引介下相识。海因斯不仅为同样来自波特兰的雷蒙德牵线找到了第一位文学经纪人，也几乎为莱卡特的所有影片担任了执行制片人。莱卡特与雷蒙德都看重沉默的价值：在无言之处，情感与心理线索会因无声的表达而被放大并变得更为复杂。正因这一方法论上的相似，他们的合作更显丰厚——莱卡特以凝思的影像来补足雷蒙德写作中那些隐而未明的情绪。拍摄《温蒂和露西》时，两人赴俄勒冈高原沙漠（Oregon High Desert）勘景，由此生出《米克的捷径》的念头。他们都被那片地貌所吸引，雷蒙德随后得知斯蒂芬·米克（Stephen Meek）的故事。二人开始了扎实的研究：走访关于“米克远征”的众多博物馆展览，研读幸存下来的拓荒者日记，以及诸如基思·克拉克与洛厄尔·蒂勒合著的《可怖之径：米克的捷径，1845》（Terrible Trail: The Meek Cutoff, 1845）等书籍。片中许多情节——例如移民发现一枚金块，由此暗示附近可能存在更大的矿脉，却因久远而失其所在——都在现实中确曾发生。尽管如此，雷蒙德的剧本将真实事件缩减为在米克指引下的三户人家，一方面出于两百万美元制作成本的限制，另一方面也因为莱卡特一向偏好围绕少数人物展开的亲密型叙事。

莱卡特通过尝试采用1.33:1的画幅比（昔日好莱坞在宽银幕兴起前所广泛使用的学院比例），为《米克的捷径》确立了独特的造型。近几十年来，较窄的画幅在独立电影人中回潮，如安德里亚·阿诺德（《鱼缸》Fish Tank, 2009；《呼啸山庄》Wuthering Heights, 2011；《美国甜心》American Honey, 2016）、罗伯特·艾格斯（《女巫》The Witch, 2015；《灯塔》The Lighthouse, 2019）与保罗·施拉德（《第一归正会》First Reformed, 2018）。这些导演似乎将该比例（或相近比例）当作对当今宽画幅规范的一种“对位”，借由观众对旧式方法的意识，以及对宽银幕这一天然可用却被“弃置”的选项的感知，制造文本之外的效果。现代对这一比例的使用，往往或是以“过时”的视觉风貌来呼应故事的时代背景，或是呈现受限/幽闭的主题，或是迫使观众在方整的框架内专注于人物。莱卡特在《米克的捷径》中运用这种“盒状”画幅，同时唤起多重感受。自本片起便成为她御用摄影师的克里斯·布劳韦尔特（Chris Blauvelt）在相对狭小的画面里，依然拍出了具有远眺尺度的地景：他将角色或整列篷车编队隔离于画框之中，让天空与起伏的丘陵仿佛将移民吞没。布劳韦尔特由此呼应了学院比例在约翰·福特、乔治·史蒂文斯与安东尼·曼等人之西部片中的用法——这些导演自纪念碑谷到太平洋西北的群山边境，留下了难忘的影像，却从不因欠缺全景式的宽银幕而显得局促。与此同时，在莱卡特影片那片无尽的景观中，这种视觉上的封闭感反而强化了旅程的切身性，仿佛人物正穿越一条方形的隧道。此比例既宏阔，又桎梏。

莱卡特的影像运用进一步强化了一个主题：移民们是在“开放之地”里的囚徒。她的大量镜头是静置的，仿佛架在三脚架上，仅以左右摇移完成运动；当镜头移动时，也只是为了跟随篷车队稳步前行。她从不采用外显的造作机位或呼啸而过的摇臂运动。身兼剪辑的莱卡特，还在极慢的淡入淡出中捕捉到一种催眠般的质感：画面彼此融接，使得后一幅中的人物恍若幽灵般穿越前一个场景。其他地方，布劳韦尔特以自然光拍摄；夜戏只以营火与灯笼照明，画面仅有一小块区域被点亮。莱卡特通过几次从黑夜的漆黑骤然切到日光的刺眼，强调光的效果，迫使观众本能地因突变而眯眼。每个场景背后，都有被放大的环境声：移民与牲畜艰难跋涉的杂音，以及一只吱嘎作响的车轮的持续声。尽管杰夫·格雷斯（Jeff Grace）署名了配乐，影片的大部分时段都由沉默统治，直到最后那些绝望的分钟里，才响起几记拉长的、隐痛般的音符。无论在视觉或听觉层面，莱卡特都接近于**“缓慢电影”的超验气质**：其简约迫使观者在影片展开之时就开始思索，从而对画面内的每一处细节保持高度敏感。

莱卡特对采访者伦纳德·夸特（Leonard Quart）表示，她关注的是“未被拔高的瞬间”（unheightened moment）——这与传统西部片通过强调暴力、胜利与道德确定性而建构男性气概的方式，形成了鲜明且明确的女性主义对照。《米克的捷径》显然与福特那部情节相似的《驿马车队长》（Wagon Master, 1950）不同：后者有浪漫支线、高潮枪战，以及队伍抵达终点的尾声。莱卡特为其前辈提供了另一条路径：她把影片前半段交给旅程的细枝末节，将注意力引向那些在传统西部片中通常无权、也不居于叙事中心的人物。她跟随艾米丽拾柴、做饭；她坐在女人们身边，看她们织毛活、晾衣物。她的凝视是女性化的：在远处观看男人们围成一圈，只让观众听见他们关于该往何处的讨论的只言片语——却没有一个人握有确定答案。莱卡特最初对“流程”的兴趣——当男人们决定路线时，女人们在劳作——确立了女性视角；透过这一视角，观者得以识辨：传统西部片，乃至更广义上的十九世纪社会，是如何排斥女性的。

若谈莱卡特的女性主义视角，就不能忽略促成艾米丽成为主角的催化剂——米克这一角色。事实上，《米克的捷径》或许可被视为一部关于女性如何与一个拒绝承认自己需要问路的男人相抗衡的终极之作。向导米克狡辩说：“我们不是迷路了；我们只是在找路。”这句话令人想起《旧欢如梦》中的库尔特（Kurt，威尔·奥德汉饰），他同样在迷路的情况下坚持自己知道去温泉的路。莱卡特的电影常有“迷失”的角色：从《旧欢如梦》里的朋友二人，到《温蒂和露西》的同名人物；他们与其说迷失，不如说在旅途中被边缘化。无论是地理意义还是存在层面上的“迷失”，都使莱卡特得以以极简手法，去直面角色所处的模糊、不可靠、无定形的世界。这也使她的每部影片都可被视作某种“西部片”——都在探索未知的疆域。尽管艾米丽在车队中被动，但她绝不会被愚人牵着走。“我不怪他不知道路，”她低声对所罗门说，“我怪他明明不知道，还要说自己知道。”艾米丽对米克显而易见的无知与傲慢愈发恼怒，这使她不同于传统西部片里典型的女性被动形象。她不会被米克关于危险的凯尤斯部族的夸张故事所左右；当他人被他的叙述所吸引时，她不为所动。“你说这些，是想把我带到某个结论上吗？”她平静问道。艾米丽过于务实、过于能干，不会容忍米克的吹嘘；她也坚决阻止米克处决那位印第安人——在她看来，那是队伍唯一的希望。在高潮段落，当米克拔枪欲杀印第安人时，艾米丽举起火枪对准他，直到他让步放下武器，车队内部的权力结构由此发生转移。只是到那时，米克的恐吓叙事早已发挥了效力。

影片遂转而成为一部关于人类如何面对恐惧与不确定的研究：对于某些人来说，即便不可能的保证也胜过未知的虚空所带来的惊惧。此外，影片潜藏的政治脉络，揭示了某些人物如何得以维系权力。米克讲述他与暴力的印第安部族相遇的可疑故事，不断警告即将到来的袭击，在煽动偏执的同时，建构自己作为幸存者与权威的神话。他的方法令人联想到某些政治独裁者：先传播恐慌，再把自己作为解决方案提出。艾米丽因此发出了一个生活在类似体制下的无数人都问过的问题：“他是无知，还是作恶？”无论如何，米克已成功让米莉与他人相信他们的命运。“他们快到了！”米莉以可怕的笃定喊道——这让人想到后来佐伊·卡赞在科恩兄弟《巴斯特·斯克鲁格斯的歌谣》（The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, 2018）中演绎的“杞人忧天”式人物，尽管在那部片中她的命运更为确定。尽管大多数人都承认米克的故事言之乏据，莱卡特仍在观者心中种下怀疑的种子。注意：米莉带着一只笼中鸟同行，像瓦斯矿井里的金丝雀那般，随着影片推进逐渐死去，仿佛暗示移民们已进入有毒之地。又如，当印第安人留下难以辨识的石头符号时，米莉在岩石中看见了阴谋；这或许是那人的宗教惯习，也或许仅是莱卡特决意以未定之论收束影片的又一象征。她既不为米克的偏见背书，也不判定艾米丽信任印第安人的选择为对或错，由此避开了传统西部片所偏好的道德确定性。在山脚下，篷车队来到一棵树旁，这预示近处可能有水。若循印第安人越过山梁，或许就能找到水；也有可能是伏击在前。太平洋西北确曾多次发生与凯尤斯的致命冲突，包括1847年的惠特曼惨案（Whitman Massacre），造成十三名移民死亡。米克不得不听命于艾米丽与所罗门：“我现在听你们的。”他说。接着他仍不忘神话口吻：“这一切在我们来之前就写好了。”他始终笃信神话，尤其是自己的神话——即便这意味着他将被引向死亡。然而，莱卡特拒绝为他的“临终遗言”背书。这样的结构，也让人想到斯蒂芬·金中篇小说《迷雾》（The Mist）：缅因州一群镇民为了躲避迷雾中的怪物而困守室内；有人盲目追随恐慌者的预言，有人则选择直面未知的无垠。由此，《米克的捷径》的一个持续主题便在于：人把信任放在何处，为什么？雷蒙德与莱卡特选择以开放式结尾收束故事，这与真实事件——车队分为两支、最终都走出困境——形成了鲜明而意味深长的对照。

正如学者凯瑟琳·富斯科（Katherine Fusco）与妮可·西摩（Nicole Seymour）所指出的，影片的模棱两可的结尾也显示出《米克的捷径》与传统乃至修正主义西部片的差异：它扣留了“天定命运”（Manifest Destiny）。在约翰·福特（《驿马车》Stagecoach, 1939）、乔治·史蒂文斯（《原野奇侠》Shane, 1953）与威廉·惠勒（《大地惊雷》The Big Country, 1958）等人的经典西部片中，白人的扩张与定居象征着进步——是将秩序带入未被驯服的混沌前线。修正主义西部片——如山姆·佩金帕（《日落黄沙》The Wild Bunch, 1968）、克林特·伊斯特伍德（《不可饶恕》Unforgiven, 1992）、吉姆·贾木许（《死无葬身之地》Dead Man, 1995）与昆汀·塔伦蒂诺（《八恶人》The Hateful Eight, 2015）——虽质疑并呈现白人扩张的腐蚀性，但仍或多或少承认其不可避免。莱卡特则宁愿让这种“命运”悬而未决。这一观念在米克的言论中得到象征化：“女人是在混沌原则上被创造的”，因为她们能孕育新生命；而“男人则代表清洗、秩序与毁灭”。米克将自己牢牢镶嵌在“天定命运”的理想中——消灭原住民部族、把未知同化为熟悉。在他看来，印第安人乃至所有原住民都是混沌，因为他们既不会说英语，也不服从白人统治；而莱卡特刻意不为印第安人的母语对白提供字幕，这一点意义尤为重大。艾米丽与所罗门选择了一条偏离“向西扩张主义”的道路：他们决定不杀印第安人，选择拥抱未知，而非将其摧毁。

《米克的捷径》之所以在其修正主义立场上独树一帜，正是因其对“天定命运”的根本性含混。米克所代表的通过毁灭来建立的男性秩序，会否最终战胜艾米丽所代表的女性混沌？抑或米克的理论不过是试图为莱卡特最终镜头所暗示的那无结构的世界强行安上秩序？艾米丽注视着他们的原住民向导走向地平线，而莱卡特在透露车队命运之前便渐黑收尾。那位印第安人会找到水吗？抑或他正要向凯尤斯人发出攻击的信号？答案是在山后，还是在再后面的一道山梁？综合影片的建构方式可见，莱卡特意在激发观众对不确定性本身的内在思索。通过拒绝回答移民旅程的终点究竟何在，影片追问驱动我们惧怕未知的是什么，以及所谓“文明”的代价何在。莱卡特的方法是飘忽的：长久的沉默、蹒跚的旅程、简省而优美的摄影，再加上一众自然的表演。但正如米克所言（如果借用他的对立），这种方法在本质上也无可置疑地女性主义——因为它敢于拥抱暧昧的混沌。这是一部在“看与不看”“听与不听”的缺省与显现之间赋予同等价值的电影：它要求被反复回看与重新思考，但从不导向终极的解决。

免责声明：以上内容源自网络，版权归原作者所有，如有侵犯您的原创版权请告知，我们将尽快删除相关内容。

上一篇：【彩云自译】最好的朋友 巴区BD网源 独家中字

下一篇：后期剧情全面崩盘