Throughout her career, Lynne Ramsay has created some of the most searing character studies in modern cinema. From Ratcatcher to You Were Never Really Here, her work is defined by unflinching direction and fearless performances. In her new work, Die My Love, she teams up with Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson to create her take on Ariana Harwiczs’ seminal 2012 novel that’s as thorny, grotesque and fantastical as ever, anchored by two showstopping performances. Ramsay, it must be said, is also responsible for rewiring this writer’s brain at a crucial point in her life.
LWLies: When I was 18, I was studying in Leeds and I went one January morning to see a film called We Need to Talk About Kevin.
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Ramsay: Just what you want in the morning.
I don’t think it’s hyperbolic for me to say it changed the trajectory of my life. Before that I liked film, but I hadn’t really thought about it as a career. I remember the walk home so clearly, because it was about 10 minutes and I just felt completely shell shocked. So thank you.
You’re welcome. That’s a massive compliment.
It’s funny because I was talking to a friend about it last night and she said, ‘I had exactly the same experience.’
When I went to Sundance a few years ago, there were a lot of young filmmakers who came up and said, ‘That really changed my life’ – or even Morvern Callar. I hadn’t thought about it before, but I was really moved by that, when people said, ‘That really made a difference to me,’ because sometimes you’re battling on as a filmmaker, and you’re like, ‘Oh God, this is crazy.’ It’s great when someone watches a film that’s that old and it still feels relevant.
Do you feel like your films take a little while for people to digest?
Maybe so. I think if a film’s got longevity and there’s still people watching it, that’s a win. Every film’s a challenge – some work better than others. I love to experiment and I love pushing people as far as I can. I never make the same film twice, but you’re always going to get people liking one more than the other. You’ve just got to be pragmatic. If it’s challenging, it’s going to be divisive. You never please everyone. If you do, it’s probably not something that’s great.
Speaking of not wanting to make the same film twice, I know that when the novel ‘Die, My Love’ was brought to you by Jennifer Lawrence, you were a bit hesitant because of We Need To Talk About Kevin.
Yes, I didn’t quite go the same way. Here I was more interested in talking about this woman and what she’s going through, and creating a portrait with the mother as this feral beast in a way. I was thinking about the couple, and that I’ll make a kind of love story, but it’s just an upside down one. He doesn’t get her, she doesn’t get him, everything is falling apart, it’s unraveling, but there is love there between them. They’re in two different planes at this point in their lives, but I felt as if they did love each other. He loves her, he just doesn’t know how to handle her.
In the book, you’re completely in the perspective of the unnamed woman. You don’t necessarily get that in the film – you have a lot more of [Pattinson’s character] Jackson’s perspective. You knew you had Jennifer to be the lead. Where did Robert Pattinson come in?
I’ve got a relative at film school, she’s a young producer, and I was just talking with her about who’d be good. She brought him up and I was like, ‘God, Robert, he’s amazing.’ I’d also wanted to work with him for a while. I contacted him and he was up for it. He really pushes himself. Jackson can be a bit of a thankless character, but he brings something to it, and it’s got a kind of beauty as well. He’s three-dimensional as an actor, and I love his choices and what he’s doing. I’d love to do something again with him.
Something I love about your films is the way you work with actors. You take them to places we’ve not seen in them before – that’s true with Joaquin Phoenix in You Were Never Really Here and Tilda Swinton in We Need to Talk About Kevin.
I love breaking boundaries and running with things and experimenting. With Jennifer, she was really in the character of Grace and there was a wildness to it that I hadn’t seen a lot of. She wasn’t making excuses too much either – you can bandy about all these terms about her mental health, but there was something that I liked in the character, a sort of power she has within herself. I think in the film she’s more honest than anyone else is.
Out of Cannes, Robert said that it was a really different experience for him because of the way you work with improvisation and physicality. How did Jennifer take to that?
All the way through, you’re establishing a relationship of trust, and it’s solidified when you’re in the movie. Mainly we talked about things and were quite instinctive, and there were a couple of scenes that I did change because there was a better way to play it. Also, maybe you’re running out of time and you know you’re not going to make it, so you’ve got to be really practical and go, ‘We’re going to get something that just works right now.’ You have to be in the moment when you’re making films rather than so attached to things. They trusted me enough to go on this journey, on this roller coaster.
The cabin that you shot in and where the majority of the story plays out was stunning. Was it purpose built for the film?
No, it was an existing house that the production designer found. It had all these strange doors to doors to doors and it just felt really interesting – a bit like there were layers within the house.
It’s very ‘Yellow Wallpaper’ – it creates that sense of being trapped in this space.
It had a kind of maze-like quality to it, that house. Feeling like somehow the house was unsettling was important to me. They can’t quite feel at ease anywhere, and it becomes a bit of a trap. We thought about how to make it feel more oppressive – it was a strange location, it had these doors where you could come through one way and come out the other way. When Grace and Jackson were having an argument, it lent itself very well to that frame. That’s why I shot it in Academy frame actually, because it worked with that location. It was mainly because of that house. I was going to shoot Scope at one point and then I was looking at it and thinking, ‘No, we need this height.’ We did some tests, the DoP Seamus McGarvey and I, and then with the designer as well, and it just worked. Also, it’s a portrait frame, so I think it’s really good because it’s all about Grace. I think it had its own kind of magic. I had never shot with it before. Shooting with a different format, it was challenging, you know? But then I found my way of working with it. Whereas We Need to Talk About Kevin was shot in Scope. That’s in a tiny space as well, but that worked well because there’s a lot of two shots.
You get a sense of distance.
A dance between Kevin and Tilda.
All your films also have this juxtaposition of love and violence. Is that a byproduct of the things that interest you?
Yes, I’ve gravitated towards quite challenging stories. They’re trying to uncover something about humanity, they have a light and dark as well. I’ve actually tried to make quite different films, but I’m into complex characters, and things that I think are a bit more risky than you normally see. I think I’m always trying to put contrast in things and make them complex, and I never want my characters to feel like they’re just sitting in one place. There’s parts of Grace that are probably really challenging for an audience, but there’s also parts that are relatable and funny, and you’re there with her and you get inside her. I think that’s what I like to do as a director – I really like to punch through with characters that you can relate to, but who can be extreme as well.
