Quotes

[on the potential parallels of 'Meek's Cutoff' with current times ] Here was the story of this braggart leading a bunch of people into the desert without a plan and becoming completely reliant on the locals who are socially different from him and who he is suspicious of. All of which seemed relevant to the moment.

[on the title character in 'Meek's Cutoff'] He's so compelling, and what was really interesting is how everyone experiences him differently. If you read the journals of those who were there, it's clear that some see him as a loudmouth and a bit of a buffoon, and some felt he was just a trapper who had misread his maps. Others felt he was just full of it. The only thing all the journals agree on is he was a showman.

[observation, 2014, on her seemingly minimalist form of storytelling] A movie is a series of reveals, essentially, and then you're supposed to sit in a room and tell someone what it all means. That goes against everything that I just worked for. So I have no interest in summing it all up. It's all out there.

I recognize that there are themes I repeat, and ways of shooting that I repeat. My movies end up being about the moments of getting from here to there, but not in a grand way. Getting from the hutch to town, from the parking lot to the gas station. But this isn't a grand plan - I am just a practical person.

I'm a pretty boring person. Life can be pretty small in Oregon. Knitting, reading, meals with friends, shooting non-narrative 16mm films just to shake it up. But I can also enjoy an episode of Project Runway (2004).

I want a project to work on that will lead me to travel places and get to know places that I wouldn't otherwise know. It'll send you in the direction of finding, studying painters that you didn't know as deeply before, or reading stuff for inspiration or research and it turns you on to literature you might not have otherwise known, or photography. It gives you a path.

I'm getting better at learning how to have time off, but I would rather know that I'm working on something, but maybe not feel like I have to move it along.

[press conference for The Mastermind (2025) at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival] I'd been reading, collecting, looking up art heists for a long time and actually when Christopher Blauvelt and I were Antibes before Showing Up (2022), I was scouting around for art heist stories and it happened to be the 50th anniversary of an art heist in Worcester, Massachusetts where these teenagers got caught up in this heist and so that was the beginning, the little seed of it.

[Cannes press conference for The Mastermind (2025)] Thank you to MUBI to be able to make a film where they gave us the resources to do it and then said, "We're standing here if you need any help", and then didn't impose in any way. It's a very fortunate thing. But I think all the arts in America, like science and education, are in a very precarious situation right now. When we were here three years ago I said, "America's in such a dark place" - ha! If we come back, let's hope....