THINGS YOU CAN PICK UP READING THE NY TIMES...

From an interview with Kelly Reichardt:

Is it fair to call your new film, “Wendy and Lucy” — which tracks a young woman’s dissolution after her beloved mutt goes missing from a supermarket parking lot in suburban Oregon — the anti-“Lassie”?

Well, Lucy doesn’t rescue anyone from a fire or keep a kid from drowning..

Where are you from?

I grew up in north Miami. My father was a crime-scene investigator, and my mother was an undercover narcotics agent. I got into photography in sixth grade. My father let me use his camera and then got me my first Pentax K1000...

Stephen Shore, Robert Adams and Joe Deal’s photography are big influences and part of that school of “man-altered landscapes.” For me a landscape that’s completely free of man-made stuff is not that interesting.

I like a little bit of a footprint.

Where do you and Lucy stay when you are scouting for locations?

We stay in a lot of cruddy motels, the kind where you drive right up to the door. I may be getting too old for it, I realize.

Why not stay in B&B’s?

I can’t stand bed and breakfasts. I don’t want to have to have breakfast with people. I just stayed in a B&B in North Carolina, and I felt like I offended the owners because I went out and got my own coffee in the morning.

Well, that is a violation of B&B etiquette.

I didn’t know. I saw this diner I wanted to try. They said to the other people at the table: “Say goodbye to Kelly. She won’t be joining us. She’s going to the diner. She’s from New York!”

That’s a funny story, but doesn’t it suggest you tend to perpetuate the human separateness you bemoan in your new film?

I enjoy people most when I’m away from them.

Now there's someone I can relate to.
I hope it isn't too obvious...
C