Lynne Ramsay

Lynne Ramsay
Ramsay at Cannes, 2013
Born	(1969-12-05) 5 December 1969 Glasgow, Scotland
Nationality	Scottish
Alma mater	Napier College National Film and Television School
Occupations	Film director screenwriter cinematographer
Years active	1995–present
Children	1

Lynne Ramsay (born 5 December 1969) is a Scottish film director, writer, producer, and cinematographer best known for the feature films Ratcatcher (1999), Morvern Callar (2002), We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011), and You Were Never Really Here (2017).

Her films are marked by a fascination with children and young people and the recurring themes of grief, guilt, death, and its aftermath. They are low on dialogue and explicit story exposition, and instead use images, vivid details, music, and sound design to create their worlds. In April 2013, she was selected as a member of the main competition jury at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. In 2015, she was named as a member of the jury for the main competition at the 2015 Venice Film Festival.

Early life and education

Ramsay was born in Glasgow on December 5th, 1969. Her parents introduced her to movies through the work of Bette Davis, Nicolas Roeg, Alfred Hitchcock and Michael Curtiz at an early age. She also credits the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz as an early inspiration.

Ramsay had an early passion for photography and painting.

She studied fine art and photography at Napier College, Edinburgh. Ramsay cites watching Maya Deren's film Meshes of the Afternoon in class as a turning point in her career, inspiring her to apply to film school on a whim and encouraging her turn towards filmmaking.

In 1995, she graduated from the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield, England, where she specialised in cinematography and direction.

Career

Short films (1996-1998)

In 1996 Ramsay completed her debut short film "Small Deaths" as her graduating film at the UK's National Film and Television School. It is a series of three vignettes of children grappling with familial realities and the repercussions of their actions. Ramsay is the writer, director and cinematographer for this film. It won the 1996 Cannes Film Festival Short Film Prix du Jury.

Later that same year Ramsay finished "Kill the Day", her second short film. It captures a day in the life of a heroin addict recently released from jail, and tackles the theme of memory.

"Gasman" (1998), also written and directed by Ramsay, is about a brother and sister who attend a Christmas party with their father, and encounter two other children who are strangely familiar with him. This won her another Prix du Jury that year as well as a Scottish BAFTA for Best Short Film.

Ratcatcher and Morvern Callar (1999-2002)

Being impressed by her shorts, Ramsay was approached by Ruth McCance of BBC Scotland to write a treatment for a feature film. After handing back 50-60 pages of script, she got to direct the movie herself. This film turned into Ramsay's debut feature Ratcatcher which released in 1999 and was funded by BBC Scotland and Pathé. The film was mostly made by first-time filmmakers, as Ramsay enlisted the help of her film school colleagues. Ratcatcher is set in Maryhill, Glasgow during the binmen's strike of the 1970s and follows James (William Eadie), the child of a struggling working class family. The film received great critical success but stayed within the art house audience. It was screened at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival and opened the Edinburgh International Film Festival, winning her the BAFTA Award for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer.

Morvern Callar (2002) is based on Alan Warner's existential 1995 novel of the same name. The film follows a young girl (Samantha Morton) adrift in Europe following the suicide of her boyfriend, which she doesn't report to the police.

The Lovely Bones debacle

In 2001, it was announced Ramsay was slated to direct the adaptation of Alice Sebolds The Lovely Bones, which she had read in a manuscript form prior to its publication. Her script told the story of the murder of a girl from her fathers perspective. Shortly after the book turned into a global bestseller resulting in more pressure. Ramsay has said in interviews "People started to call it ‘The Lovely Money,’ they were getting greedy around it. And I could feel the vibes. It became like the Holy Bible, I kept handing in drafts and I thought they were good, but it was like ‘But that’s not exactly like the book, the book’s going to be a success.’ That was the mistake they made with the project." Then Film4, which had signed her onto the project, was massively downsized and the head of the company finally gave into the pressure coming from Hollywood big shots such as Steven Spielberg, and unceremoniously replaced Ramsay with Peter Jackson in 2004, when Jackson was fresh off The Lord Of The Rings saga. Ramsay has described dealing with Hollywood as a "David and Goliath situation". The Lovely Bones by Peter Jackson turned out to be a commercial and critical failure.

The following year Ramsay had to deal with the death of her father and then the death of her close friend and co-writer on Morvern Callar and the unrealized The Lovely Bones script, Liana Dognini.

We Need To Talk About Kevin and Jane Got a Gun dispute (2010-2015)

After a long hiatus Ramsay returned in 2011 with We Need to Talk About Kevin. The film, based on Lionel Shriver's novel, is about a mother (Tilda Swinton) dealing with the aftermath of a school massacre committed by her own son (Ezra Miller). It is again directed by Ramsay and this time co-written with her husband Rory Kinnear. Ramsay recalls working together with Jonny Greenwood for the soundtrack of the movie as an especially exciting part of the process.

Starting in 2011, Ramsay was sharing plans to direct a modern sci-fi adaptation of Herman Melville's Moby Dick called Mobius. She has stated that the film will be set in space, and deal with themes of psychology and claustrophobia, quoting "So we're creating a whole new world, and a new alien. [It's] a very psychological piece, mainly taking place in the ship, a bit like Das Boot, so it's quite claustrophobic. It's another monster movie, cos the monster's Ahab." She even secured funding for the project in 2012. The film has yet to come to fruition.

The short film "Swimmer" (2012), was co-commissioned by BBC Films, Film4 and the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. It won a BAFTA Award for Best Short Film at the 66th British Academy Film Awards in 2013.

In 2012, Ramsay was slated to direct Jane Got a Gun, a movie about the farmer wife of an outlaw husband, who, after his gang turns on him, must defend herself with the help of an old lover. Natalie Portman signed on to star and produce the film. In March 2013, Ramsay abruptly left the project due to creative differences with producers and funders, including over the latter's demand for a happy ending. She was replaced by Gavin O'Connor. Actor Jude Law also left the production shortly after. In November 2013 news broke that the production company behind the movie was suing Ramsay for $750,000. They state that the director didn't fulfill her contractual duty. The lawsuit also states that Ramsay "was repeatedly under the influence of alcohol, was abusive to members of the cast and crew and was generally disruptive." Ramsay denied the allegations in a statement made shortly after. A year after parting ways, the lawsuit was resolved out of court. The public aspect of the dispute caused significant backlash towards Ramsay. At the same time her marriage with Rory Kinnear came to an end. During the fallout she went to Santorini where she worked on the script that would become her next film, You Were Never Really Here. While staying in Santorini Ramsay got pregnant and gave birth to her daughter in Athens.

You Were Never Really Here and current projects (2016-present)

You Were Never Really Here, an adaptation of Jonathan Ames's novella of the same name, premiered to wide critical acclaim at the 70th Cannes Film Festival in 2017, where it received a standing ovation, and Ramsay won the Best Screenplay award. The film, starring Joaquin Phoenix as Joe, a war veteran and hitman saving young girls from sex trafficking, was picked up by Amazon Studios.

In 2018, she revealed she had started writing a script that she describes as an "epic environmental horror". In November 2020, it was announced Ramsay would be filming an adaptation of Stephen King's The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. and adapted Margaret Atwood's Stone Mattress

In November 2022, it was announced that Ramsay will be directing an adaptation of Ariana Harwicz’s novel Die, My Love, which will be produced by Martin Scorsese and Jennifer Lawrence, the latter of whom will additionally star as a woman who's driven to insanity by her marriage and childbirth. Ramsay said that Lawrence sent her a copy of the book, noting that the film itself would be funny, and confirmed that it would be her next film after the 2023 Hollywood strikes.

Influences

In 1999, before the release of Ratcatcher, she cited Nan Goldin, Richard Billingham, Terrence Malick, Andrei Tarkovsky and John Cassavetes as her creative mentors. In that same interview she spoke about Robert Bressons book Notes on the Cinematographer as "a little bible [...] in film school".

Ramsay has also noted Rainer Werner Fassbinders Fear Eats the Soul and David Lynchs Blue Velvet as early influences that made her think more about the medium.

Themes

Ramsay’s films explore themes of death, rebirth, childhood, loss of innocence, guilt and memory.

Critical response

Cannes Jury including Ramsay

In 2007, Ramsay was rated number 12 in Guardian Unlimited's list of the world's 40 best directors working at that time.

Sean O'Hagan wrote in The Guardian that "Ramsay is entertaining company, whether talking about the art films she loves —by Bergman, Cassavetes, Fassbinder— or railing against the 'bullshitters and backstabbers' of the film industry." The Harvard Film Archive describes Ramsay as "an uncompromising filmmaker fascinated by the tremendous power of cinema to appeal directly to the senses and awaken new depths in our audio-visual imagination. Immersive and at times almost overwhelming, Ramsay's films abound with uncommon imagery arresting for its remarkable use of texture, composition, color, music and sound."

In her The New York Times biography, Ramsay's work is described as having a "gritty, realistic visual style that demands attention."

Tilda Swinton, whom Ramsay directed in We Need to Talk About Kevin, called her "the real McCoy", saying, "She is one of those rare directors who creates the kind of films that just would not be there if she didn't make them."

British film critic Jonathan Romney, when speaking on We Need to Talk About Kevin, opined "Ramsay thinks not in concepts but in images. She doesn't make intellectual films, but ones that are close to music, taking visuals to the point of abstraction."

Los Angeles Times columnist Mark Olsen considered Ramsay "one of the leading lights of young British cinema", describing her additionally as "among the most celebrated British filmmakers of her generation."

Filmography

Feature film

Year	Title	Director	Writer	Producer
1999	Ratcatcher	Yes	Yes	No
2002	Morvern Callar	Yes	Yes	No
2011	We Need to Talk About Kevin	Yes	Yes	Executive
2017	You Were Never Really Here	Yes	Yes	Yes

Short film

Year	Title	Director	Writer	Producer	DoP	Notes
1996	Small Deaths	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
	Sweet Heart	No	No	No	Yes
1997	Kill the Day	Yes	Yes	No	No
	One Eye	No	No	No	Yes
1998	Gasman	Yes	Yes	No	No
2012	Swimmer	Yes	No	Executive	No
2019	Brigitte	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Documentary

Awards and nominations

Main article: List of awards and nominations received by Lynne Ramsay

On 8 October 2013, Ramsay was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Edinburgh for her contribution to British film.

Personal life

Ramsay was previously married to Rory Stewart Kinnear, a writer and musician.

Her niece Lynne Ramsay Jr. has starred in two of her aunts short films as well as in Ratcatcher as the protagonists little sister Anne Marie.

Ramsay has one daughter with Tilda Swinton and John C. Reilly being the godparents of the child.

See also

• List of female film and television directors
• Women's cinema

External links

• Lynne Ramsay at IMDb
• Profile: Lynne Ramsay AcademyFilms.com