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Photo courtesy of whatgeist.blogspot.com

BY ALEX HO

In print | Published January 22, 2009

It’s not too often that a movie receiving Oscar buzz is filmed in two weeks with a crew size in the twenties. This year, “Wendy and Lucy” just happens to be one of those anomalies. And it might turn out to be one of the Oscar lineup’s least disconnected with its fiscally hurting market. Played by Michelle Williams (likely the only reason this film is getting some mainstream coverage), Wendy is a twenty-something, dirt-broke after a natural disaster in her hometown, who has decided to shoot the moon and travel to Alaska to work in a fish cannery along with her only companion, Lucy, a Labrador Retriever. The film continues as a streak of bad luck strands the two in Oregon.

The film’s scope has the brevity and microscopic attention to detail of a short story, which is no wonder as it comes from the short story “Train Choir” by Jon Raymond ’94. Raymond first collaborated with director Kelly Reichardt on another short-story-turned-film “Old Joy,” which garnered similar critical appraisal two years ago. Raymond recently published “Livability,” a short story collection bookended by the two stories. On Friday, Jan. 23, Reichardt and Raymond will be visiting Swarthmore for a discussion of their work preceding the Philly premiere of “Wendy and Lucy.” The Phoenix was able to catch the Portland alumnus for a Q&A about “Wendy and Lucy” and “Livability.”

Alex Ho: With “Wendy and Lucy,” it seems like many in film critic circles now are jumping onto it, saying it’s the film that best describes the current moment of our country with the recession. I wanted to know, how did the story come about? Is this something that you had been seeing and felt needed to be given a voice to?

Jon Raymond: Yeah. I would say there was some kind of intentionality there. The story came about a couple of years ago. Kelly, the director, and I were talking about politics in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and just talking about the idea of a social safety net and what happens to people when they are displaced in that way. I think, even at the time, certainly myself and a lot of people were realizing that we were heading into more treacherous mutual waters, and that we were involved in an economy that wasn’t really sustainable. With those kinds of thoughts in mind, we wanted to do a kind of project that was very financial in some way — that was very economically based. I think we did feel like there was a political moment that this kind of story would be relevant [to]. I mean, this story is always relevant. People will always have to deal with money.

AH: At the same time, this story, as well as your other stories in “Livability,” aren’t exactly preachy. They seem to aim more for naturalism and realism, and are always from a single person’s vantage point. How important is that to your writing style?

JR: Certainly, for this batch of stories I wanted to keep very intimately focused on these specific characters. I wanted to have the backdrop of larger historical, cultural and social issues, but to really come out through the aperture of these individuals, and keep a really human pulse to all of them. With “Wendy and Lucy,” even—we do talk a lot about the economic, more materialist backdrop of the story and the film—but really it also is, I would hope, a story about a girl and a dog, and a kind of love story between these two creatures. To me, that was where the story really happened, in the emotions of the, in this case, human and animal. Whatever political points there are I hope are never foregrounded.

AH: I’m curious about your collaboration with Kelly. It must be an interesting process to write a short story, knowing that it will eventually become a film. What was the collaboration like?

JR: It’s a really, kind of, wonderful thing that has happened — that Kelly has taken me on this weird adventure. We had a good time working on “Old Joy,” which was the first one that she made based on a story of mine, and in that case a story already existed. But we had lots of conversation throughout the making of that one. So, as that one was going off on its life, we started talking about a new possible project and out of that conversation a few of these elements began swelling around, like talking about the [financial aspect], and Kelly likes a lot of road movies. Also, she has a dog, Lucy, and the dog kind of goes where she goes, and that was also in the mix.

AH: A little like a Hitchcock cameo.

JR: Yeah, except this time this sort of cameo [takes over]. But yeah, part of my wanting to write the story was selfish just in that I wanted to have a story that I could add into a batch of stories to fill out a collection. And also, no one ever really knows whether a movie is going to get made. I’m still sort of amazed that she’s been able to get these things all done. It’s nice just to know that you’re going to have a story at the end of the day. But I think, for her, it’s helpful to have more the psychology and mood fleshed out because scripts really are such skeletal sketches of what is eventually going to happen. So I think it’s just kind of useful for her to have it a little more fleshed out. So in this case, she was able to start adapting it really even before the story was fully complete and was also reading different drafts and sort of acting as a very active and helpful editor all throughout the writing process, and also the conceptualizing process. I think it is a sort of unique way working. I’ve just written a screenplay for her that she is now moving forward on, and this didn’t involve an intermediate story phase. And it will be interesting to see how it all works in this slightly more traditional way. But, yeah, it’s just great. I feel like she’s just a great person to get to do this with. It’s really kind of an amazing, wonderful, charmed thing as far as I can tell. But it also happens so naturally. It’s almost hard to notice at times. It’s like, oh, there’s Kelly. She’s a friend. You know, it just seems to happen pretty easily.

AH: It seemed like such a small, DIY production. It seems rather fitting considering the implications about economy that the story takes on. It’s fitting that it isn’t a studio film or anything.

JR: It’s actually kind of funny. In some ways, the making of this kind of low-budget film mimics the financial crisis of its character. The budgeting that [Wendy] does is almost identical to what they all have to do on set. It also is a movie about filmmaking. (laughs)

AH: Did you have a role on set?

JR: No, not at all. But the funny thing was, it did end up shooting just a block from my house, a lot of it. The story was kind of written with the geography of my neighborhood in mind. I have a Walgreens right down the street, and a mechanic and stuff like that. Kelly actually made a huge effort to find a different location. She literally drove around the country for months looking for the right corner to do it on. And in the end she just kind of came back to the spot that it was written for. There was two days to a week when they were shooting in the Walgreens parking lot, where I could just kind of take my coffee and go watch for a few minutes, which was kind of great. I could go get my beer and see my movie getting made.

AH: Were there any days that you were appalled at what they were doing? I’m sure there weren’t.

JR: Honestly, I was there so little. I don’t think I really saw them shoot anything. I mean, a film set, if you’ve ever been on one, is largely just waiting for something to happen. But it was also funny because the crew was so small. I mean, there were probably ten people or something. They didn’t have the money to rope off the parking lot or anything. So they were just kind of shooting as business was going on at Walgreens. Almost no one noticed that it was happening. It was that low impact. And then it’s kind of funny to go in there subsequently and see magazines of Michelle Williams. And they had no idea that she was in the parking lot for a few days.

AH: So, was that the impetus for her dying her hair black?

JR: Just to blend in? Yeah, I don’t know where her hairdo came from. I’m sure there’s some reason. That’s Kelly’s call.

AH: Can you tell me about the new project?

JR: The new script is actually a western. It’s again sort of a road movie. It’s like an Oregon Trail western about a lost wagon train, so it’s kind of fun. It kind of continues in some ways with some of the themes. These have all kind of been road movies. So, this is going to be more of a period thing. A few more characters. I kind of continue with American West landscapes, and I think even politically some of the themes end up being continuous. But it takes on a hope and a quite different direction. So, we shall see.

AH: Wow, that’s completely different from “Old Joy” and “Wendy and Lucy.”

JR: Yeah, we’re kind of moving away from the contemporary, naturalistic thing.

AH: How are you feeling about going back to Swarthmore?

JR: I’m super-excited and nervous too, in fact. We’ll see. Maybe I’ll see some old professors. I’ve been back once. I think I came back in 2000, and that was actually really fun. And…I don’t know. Gosh, I wish I had a pithy answer. I guess, just anxious and excited.

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