#jon raymond

I’ve tried starting with dialogue, with the weather, and with quotations, but everything was too tight, or too ponderous, or too forced. All those beginnings felt like they were coming from up in my throat, not down in my body, where the better writing is born. Maybe in another writer’s hands they could have become something, but for me, they all felt like carving into petrified wood. Most writers would have given up by now, but I’ve kept on seeking. As a writer, I think that’s what you do. You keep peeling back, you keep whittling. Eventually, maybe, you find the right phrasing. And then you move on to the next sentence and do it again. The next sentence often changes something in the sentence before, and you have to go back and start all over. Problem after problem, you try to solve it. What is writing but the solving of impossible problems? Or like Suzuki said: Nirvana is to see a thing through to the end.

WINNER:

I’M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS, screenplay by Charlie Kaufman

JAKE I guess I was just taken in by the sympathy that Cassavetes showed for her. I feel like maybe our society lacks a certain kindness, a certain willingness to take in the struggles of others struggling with, uh, issues caused by…

YOUNG WOMAN An alienating society?

JAKE (frustrated) I don’t know. Uh, I guess. Yeah, it seems hopeless.

YOUNG WOMAN What does?

JAKE All of it. Everything. Like feeling old, like your body is going, your hearing, your sight. You can’t see, and you’re invisible. And you’ve made so many wrong turns. The lie of it all.

YOUNG WOMAN What is the lie of it all?

JAKE I don’t know, that it’s going to get better, that it’s never too late, that God has a plan for you, that age is just a number, that it’s always darkest before the dawn, that every cloud has a fucking silver lining!

NOMINEES:

THE FATHER, screenplay by Christopher Hampton & Florian Zeller

ANTHONY I feel as if… I feel as if I’m losing all my leaves, one after another.

WOMAN Your leaves? What are you talking about?

ANTHONY The branches! And the wind… I don’t understand what’s happening any more. Do you understand what’s happening? All this business about the flat? You don’t know where you can put your head down.

FIRST COW, screenplay by Jon Raymond & Kelly Reichardt

KING-LU I see something in this land I haven’t seen before. Pretty much everywhere has been touched by now, but this is still new. More nameless things around here than you can shake an eel at.

COOKIE It doesn’t seem new to me. Seems old.

KING-LU Everything’s old if you look at it that way. History isn’t here yet. It’s coming, but we got here early this time. Maybe this time we can be ready for it. We can take it on our own terms.

LA LLORONA, screenplay by Jayro Bustamante & Lisandro Sanchez

JUDGE The attorney general presented evidence, witnesses, expertise, and official army documents in which all the Mayan Ixil people were considered state enemies. 38% of all victims were children under 12 years old. The harm done surpasses all human understanding, and it has deeply damaged, not only the direct victims of the massacres, but also the whole social fabric of Guatemala. Telling the truth helps heal all wounds from the past. Considering that General Enrique Monteverde was aware of the killings happening under his command and did nothing to prevent them despite being able to do so, he is found guilty of genocide.

MARTIN EDEN, screenplay by Maurizio Braucci and Pietro Marcello

RENATO If you don’t want to respect me, at least respect your contracts.

New York Film Festival 2019: