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The Mastermind director Kelly Reichardt on the importance of art that represents home
Season 20, Ep. 12
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If there's one filmmaker who has left a mark more than any other on my life, it's been Kelly Reichardt. Through her work, I've gleaned an understanding of what American life through the ages is like. From the pioneer days captured with a desolate despair in Meek's Cutoff, to the heart shattering singularity of Wendy and Lucy, to the manner that taste and fortune appear in opportunistic ways in First Cow, and now, with her latest film The Mastermind, we see a nation at another nexus point, pushed by the Vietnam War and a changing society to be something different, something possibly more equal.
The Mastermind is a bit of a heist film, but it's a heist film in the way that First Cow was a heist film, meaning, the nature of the heist is almost perfunctory in that while it's the instigating action for the film, it's the outcomes of the heist that throws Josh O'Connor's James Blaine Mooney life into disarray. Not that his life wasn't in some level of disarray with the feckless out of work father mooching off his parents, all the while his loving wife Terri (another great turn from Alana Haim) has to look after their kids while also working a full time job.
James comes up with the idea to steal four abstract paintings from the local art gallery. What he intends to do with the paintings once he has them, we never find out. But it's also quite likely he has no idea too. Josh O'Connor is easy to watch here, so captivating as someone who thinks he's smarter than he is, but really just needs to be nudged along to make something of his life.
Yet, for me, he's not the interesting part of The Mastermind. Instead, I found Kelly Reichardt's interest in the bystanders of the 1972 Worcester Art Museum robbery to be more fascinating. Kelly has talked in the past about her fascination with people stealing art, but what drew her to this robbery in particular was the schoolgirls who were bystanders and observed it happen. She plants similar girls as observers of James Blaine Mooney's heist, and it's through their brief perspective that we're also invited to see the film from the viewpoint of the women of the story.
It's an idea which I asked Kelly about in the following interview, which talks about the viewpoints of The Mastermind, while also discussing how Kelly's films view the changing state of America. We close by talking about the importance of accessible art, and what it means to be able to see art in rural or remote areas.
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