Lynne Ramsay, a great filmmaker, has “Die, My Love,” starring Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson, hitting theaters a few weeks from now. It’s her first film in over eight years. She’s just released five films in 27 years.
During her talk at the BFI London Film Festival on Saturday (via ScreenDaily), Ramsay said she was unsure she would make another film after 2017’s “You Were Never Really Here.” “I got so depressed – [I thought], Am I ever going to make another film?” she said.
During post-production for the Joaquin Phoenix–led film, Ramsay recalled being told by the project’s financier, “This is really sh*t, but Joaquin’s okay,” noting there was an overwhelming expectation for the film to make it to Cannes, which led to Ramsay being forced to submit an unfinished cut to the Cannes Film Festival.
It was soul-destroying. I ended up cutting the film to the bone. I thought [the financier] hated the film and was going to pull the plug. It was so economical.
It does sound like the projects Ramsay was circling as possibilities after “Die, My Love,” including a film based on Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick,” “Stone Mattress,” starring Julianne Moore, and “Polaris,” with Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara, have been shelved.
“It’s good to start thinking about making films in one space, and doing them really well,” she said, while discussing these “ambitious” projects she was unable to get made between “You Were Never Really Here” and “Die, My Love.” “Sometimes [you have to] just jump to something else, go write something else, swim and take long walks.”
Instead, for her next film, Ramsay will be going back to her roots in Scotland. The filmmaker says she has a script “in treatment” for a film set in Glasgow.
I’ve actually written something. It’s in treatment mode. I’m not going to give details.
Could it be the vampire movie that Ramsay and her “We Need to Talk About Kevin” star Ezra Miller teased during the summer? The pair were said to be co-writing the script together, and Miller stated it would be “the first thing I do next.”
Whatever Ramsay does next, we’ll be watching. As for “Die, My Love,” I felt it didn’t get a fair shake at Cannes — it features a wildly unpredictable performance from Jennifer Lawrence. Hopefully, the post-Cannes reviews will be better, but the film has barely been seen since then, having skipped Telluride, TIFF, and NYFF.
Criterion's December lineup has some great additions to the library, but the title that jumped out at me is Werner Herzog's "Grizzly Man," which officially joins the Collection on December 8.