The author and screenplay writer says the film is a comment on the genre and Western values such as individualism, vigilante justice and extreme masculine energy
The Western genre is the basis for national mythology, according to author Jonathan Raymond, whose novel, The Half Life has been made into the critically acclaimed film, First Cow. “For better or worse, Hollywood depictions are how we understand ourselves,” says Raymond over a video call from Portland, Oregon. “First Cow is a Western in that it takes place in the west. It is a comment on the genre and values such as individualism, vigilante justice and extreme masculine energy.”
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It is a conscious revival, says Raymond who has collaborated on the screenplay with director Kelly Reichardt. “This is not to say that Kelly and I hate Westerns, but they have a limited, imaginary world. The idea even to call it a Western is to suggest that it is the story of the region travelling from the east to west. It is like we are oriented towards a European endpoint. And as we realize, increasingly, that it is actually a south-to-north kind of traffic that is creating this region or Asian-to- American traffic, even the term Western becomes open to interpretation.”
Jonathan Raymond
Fur trappers and friendship
First Cow is set in 1820 and tells the story of the bond between Cookie (John Magaro) a chef travelling with fur trappers, and King-Lu (Orion Lee), a Chinese immigrant on the run. Voted one of the best films of 2020, by the National Board of Review, the film marks the sixth collaboration between Reichardt and Raymond.
“Working with Kelly is special. We share a depth of experience. I have enjoyed doing collaborative stuff with other people as well, including with my friend, Todd Haynes. You get deep fast with these collaborations. It is a shortcut to intimacy because you are walking around in each other’s imaginations. It is, however, definitely a more profound relationship with Kelly. It is hard for me to even think about stuff without having Kelly in my mind. Her tastes and attitudes are permanently wired into my brain.”
Long and short of it
Old Joy and Wendy and Lucy (both directed by Reichardt) are films based on Raymond’s short stories, while First Cow is based on his novel. Raymond believes a short story is the template for a feature film. “The short story has about as much stuff as a feature film can and should contain, whereas you cannot cram all of a novel into a film. There are novels that lend themselves to good adaptations. In some ways, it is easier to put novels into television.”
The 50-year-old writer says, while there are some works that easily translate to film, there are others which require radical revisions, like First Cow. “There was no cow in the book. In The Half Life, Cookie actually travelled to China on a trade ship, was imprisoned and travelled back to the Oregon territory with this kingly character. There is a whole other plotline in the novel about a contemporary friendship between two young girls who are making a film together.”
Raymond says they did not have the resources to do the entirety of the novel. “We chose to concentrate on the Cookie character. We still did not have enough resources to portray a ship that sailed to 19th century Canton. So, rather than having Cookie travel the world, the idea came to have something travel to Cookie and that was where the cow came in. By having that cow arrive in Cookie’s world, the themes of friendship and commerce were introduced into the film in a new way but still with some fidelity to the book.”
Regionalist mode
The author, who grew up in the Pacific Northwest, decided to write in a regionalist mode. “It is a long-standing way of defining a person’s fictional realm. You use all the knowledge that you have soaked up about your neighbours, friends and landscape.”
The history that you learn as a child is about the settlement by white, colonial forces, Raymond says. “It is about people coming on wagon trains. That is the narrative that we received. Even as an elementary school student, that always struck me as wrong. The culture that I have seen here comes from many different directions and involves different stories, besides that westward expansion story. The fur trade in the 1820s was an interesting time with a lot of different people kicking around in the Lower Columbia River area.”
Magpie art
Writing novels is sort of a magpie art where one collects a little bit here, a little bit there and try and find a shape for it all, says Raymond. “I could go on for days about where all the different pieces came from but they kind of cohered into this story of Cookie and alongside that, I wanted to do something about friendship.”
Rather than the research being easy or difficult, Raymond says it was practical. “It was interesting to make the movie because I got re-research it. I had done a fair amount of research for the novel in a pragmatic way. For instance, I needed to learn something about the kind of ship that was used and I found that out. Re-researching for the film was great because there are a lot more hands and eyes involved.”
Orion Lee (left) as King-Lu and John Magaro (right) as Cookie in director Kelly Reichardt’s ‘First Cow’
| Photo Credit: Allyson Riggs
Form to fill
The novel is set in two timelines. “I was interested in the passage of time on a particular place. The idea of telling the history of a place was interesting to me and having these two different periods allowed that. As a young writer I found that structure helpful as it give me a form, a vessel to fill.”
Raymond has written novels, short stories and also screenplays for movies and television — he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy for Mildred Pierce. Each form has its pleasure, Raymond comments but writing fiction is the most demanding. “I feel happy when it is done, like I have accomplished something. Doing film is fun because it is a collaboration. You are part of a team and there is a group energy that is wonderful. It is not as hard because other people are doing some bits of it. That camaraderie is great. The different writing satisfies different urges and I would be sad to lose either of those things at this point.”
First Cow is streaming on MUBI
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