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• Scott Lemieux says:

  August 10, 2008 at 1:49 pm

  I agree; I recall is get­ting pretty mixed reviews but on a second view­ing I still think it’s a knock­out. I like Ratcatcher too…

• Benjamin says:

  August 10, 2008 at 1:56 pm

  In 2005, she dir­ec­ted a video for The Doves song “Black and White Town”, and she’s attached to the BBC film ver­sion of Lionel Schriver’s nov­el We Need To Talk About Kevin, accord­ing to the ever-reliable Wikipedia.
  I sim­il­arly found Morvern Callar to be astound­ing. I have the impres­sion – I’m not sure from where – that she needs a per­son­al con­nec­tion to a pro­ject in order to work on it, and that this would cause her to work care­fully and slowly, because it there­fore means some­thing to her, as it’s pulling from her own self. Hence an infre­quence of projects.

• Dave McDougall says:

  August 10, 2008 at 2:16 pm

  Wasn’t she ori­gin­ally going to dir­ect The Lovely Bones? I think she may have asked off for the reas­on Benjamin refers to.
  Morvern Callar is indeed miraculous.
  I am very much look­ing for­ward to Ms. Ramsay’s next film, whatever (and whenev­er) it may be.

• Girish says:

  August 10, 2008 at 2:18 pm

  Ah yes, a big Lynne Ramsay fan here, esp. “Morvern Callar”. (Her short “Gasman,” on the “Ratcatcher” dvd, is ter­rif­ic and should be bet­ter known.)
  I found this news report on her from about a year ago:
  http://news.scotsman.com/scottishfilm/Whats-happened-to-Lynne-Ramsay.3343407.jp

• Joel says:

  August 10, 2008 at 2:18 pm

  On imdb, there was some talk about a failed Lovely Bones adapt­a­tion, which must have eaten up a few years of her life. Incidentally, I fin­ished writ­ing a nov­el yes­ter­day, after two years of work, and saved a final-draft ver­sion on my desktop. Before leav­ing the house, I told my wife not to “pull a Morvern Callar on me” if any­thing tra­gic should hap­pen on my trip to the store. This led to our own dis­cus­sion of where Ramsay has been and how awe­some Ratcatcher is. Nice to see that Glenn has been eaves­drop­ping on our living-room conversations.

• Ryland Walker Knight says:

  August 10, 2008 at 4:49 pm

  I want to chime in, too, because I, too, was talk­ing to a friend the oth­er day about how I need to know more female dir­ect­ors because there’s two I can name off the top of my head that I always want more from: Claire Denis and Lynne Ramsay. Has any­thing been writ­ten about the con­son­ances between those two? That’d be a rich essay, or series of essays.
  Also: Samantha Morton…sigh. I did­n’t catch _Mister Lonley_ dur­ing its lim­ited run here in the Bay and, well, drat.

• Mike De Luca says:

  August 10, 2008 at 5:11 pm

  Lynne Ramsay’s “Morvern Callar”, like “Apocalypse Now”, just sucks you up into the ambi­ence, col­ors hum­ming, tak­ing you to place a tad night­mar­ish, a tad beau­ti­ful, a place excit­ing in every regard.

• Jason says:

  August 10, 2008 at 5:30 pm

  When I first read Alan Warner’s extraordin­ary nov­el elev­en years ago (I was study­ing con­tem­por­ary Scottish lit­er­at­ure for my MA in English), I did­n’t think it could be adap­ted prop­erly (though I thought Trainspotting’s Kelly MacDonald would have made for a fine Morvern). I was aston­ished by Ramsay’s adapt­a­tion and by Samantha Morton’s per­form­ance and I too have been want­ing more from Ms. Ramsay these past six years. I’m a patient man, how­ever, so I will con­tin­ue to hope that she will draw me back to the art­house theatre someday with anoth­er pro­voc­at­ive film (Hell, I’m still wait­ing for Whit Stilman after a decade!).

• Josh says:

  August 11, 2008 at 1:48 pm

  I loved Morvern Callar, too, (It was in my top ten that year for OFCS) but I remem­ber read­ing an inter­view Ramsay did with cranky old bas­tard Mike Leigh, wherein he sug­ges­ted that because it was an adapt­a­tion (and bour­geois, prob­ably), it was not rep­res­ent­at­ive of her true gifts as an artist, or some such, and she seemed to agree. I’m prob­ably mis­rep­res­ent­ing what they said, based on my faulty memory, but the gist was, Ratcatcher and Gasman are much closer to her heart. In any case, I’m look­ing for­ward to hear­ing from her again some day…