📅 Tuesday, Jan. 13-Saturday, Feb. 28
📍 SIFF Film Center: 167 Republican St., Seattle
🎟️ Tickets here
Put on your wide-brim hat and slap on those spurs, because we’re headed west. The Pacific Northwest, that is. SIFF presents the Pacific Northwestern, a seven-film series depicting the rugged history of that place we call home, covering everything from Anthony Mann barnburners to Jim Jarmusch freakouts.
“Dead Man” (1995)
Tuesday, Jan. 13, 6:30 p.m.
Kick off the series with Jim Jarmusch’s characteristically odd approach to genre, as accountant William Blake (Johnny Depp) and a Native American outcast (Gary Farmer, “Powwow Highway”) embark on a journey through a surreal and hostile frontier.
“Canyon Passage” (1946)
Tuesday, Jan. 20, 6:30 p.m.
Dana Andrews stars as a general store owner in 1856 Oregon caught not just between two women, but also the push-pull of human morality itself in this sumptuously shot melodrama that challenges the myths of the Old West. Presented in a new 4k restoration.
“Pale Rider” (1985)
Tuesday, Jan. 27, 6:30 p.m.
It’s preacher Clint Eastwood (“You’ve got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do you feel holy?’ Well, do you, punk?”) versus a vicious mining tycoon and his gang in this graphically violent 1985 western filmed in the Idaho Sawtooths. Presented on 35mm.
“Bend of the River” (1952)
Tuesday, Feb. 3, 6:30 p.m.
Director Anthony Mann and actor Jimmy Stewart collaborated on eight films during their fruitful partnership. This, their second of five westerns together, finds Stewart as the haunted leader of a wagon train traveling along the wild Columbia River in 1866. Presented in a new 4k restoration based on the original three-strip Technicolor separations.
“The Hanging Tree” (1959)
Tuesday, Feb. 10, 6:30 p.m.
Gary Cooper, Karl Malden, George C. Scott and Maria Schell star in this soulful, Naches- and Yakima-shot drama about a gold rush camp shaken in the aftermath of a brutal stagecoach robbery.
“First Cow” (2019)
Tuesday, Feb. 17, 6:30 p.m.
Portland-based filmmaker Kelly Reichardt spins this shaggy, working-class tale of friendship between a chef and a Chinese immigrant in 1820s Oregon as they create delicious confections using stolen milk from the territory’s (you guessed it) first cow.
“McCabe & Mrs. Miller” (1971)
Tuesday, Feb. 24, 6:30 p.m.
Robert Altman’s naturalistic “anti-western” pits gambler Warren Beatty and madam Julie Christie against the harsh elements of turn-of-the-century Washington and the greed of capitalist expansion. Presented on 35mm courtesy of the Chicago Film Society.
