Morvern Callar, Lynne Ramsay, 2002 (with Samantha Morton)
Where the hell IS Lynne Ramsay these days, anyway? I thought Callar was, well, miraculous, and I’ve been jonesing for a followup ever since…
Image of the day
You May Also Like
"Mise-en-scene," what does it mean?
"Mise-en-scene," what does it mean?
Raymond Burr takes it and doesn't like it from Robert Ryan, as Rock Hudson looks…
Glenn KennyAugust 17, 2011
"The Gyllenhaal triumverate of hate"
"The Gyllenhaal triumverate of hate"
Today's New York Observer has a profile of conservative Hollywood conservative gadfly Andrew Breitbart, wherein…
Glenn KennySeptember 9, 2008
"The Headless Woman"
"The Headless Woman"
Image courtesy of OutNow.CHFirst saw this puppy at Cannes last year, and this is what…
Glenn KennyAugust 19, 2009
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…
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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!).
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…