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Whoa, What? Lynne Ramsay Working on a Sci-Fi 'Moby Dick' Movie?

by Alex Billington
October 21, 2011
Source: The Playlist

This sounds like something I already can't wait to see. The Playlist found quotes and a reveal in an interview with We Need to Talk About Kevin director Lynne Ramsay on Simon Mayo & Mark Kermode's BBC 5Live radio show (here) about her next project. Apparently it's a sci-fi take on Herman Melville's classic Moby Dick, but it all takes place inside of one ship. "I'm working on something loosely based on that. And it's science-fiction, so we're taking the premise into the galaxy. So we're creating a whole new world, and a new alien," she says, after musing "this is really the first time I've spoken about, it's been very under wraps."

Ramsay goes on to say a few other things about the project. It doesn't even have a title yet, but I'm getting vibes like Danny Boyle's Sunshine based on what she says. Ramsay explains that she likes the idea of the Moby Dick story as a director. "It's another monster movie, cos [sic] the monster's Ahab. For a filmmaker, it's really interesting, because it's about this mad captain taking everyone on this crazy journey to their death, from his need to revenge. Making a film is like a crazy journey, and sometimes you go into dark waters, and you see some casualties along the way. It's fascinating stuff, because there's so much in it." That sounds dark, and more of a metaphor for her work as a director, but an intriguing comparison nonetheless.

"A very psychological piece, mainly taking place in the ship, a bit like 'Das Boot,' so it's quite claustrophobic."

She goes on to say that "I'm still scripting, but I'm doing a lot of visual scripting now, so designing, pulling in different parts. What's great with the new technology, first of all I made a trailer. Before you know I might have a little mood board film. You can start to think about the sound design fairly early on." So it's already coming together and it sounds like it will indeed be her direct follow-up to We Need to Talk About Kevin, which is perfectly fine with me. Having seen that film, I'm extremely excited to see her style applied to a sci-fi movie and contained environment story like this. I'll be keeping a close watch on this film for sure.

Ramsay is a Scottish director whose feature debut was Ratcatcher in 1999, followed by Morvern Callar in 2002, but it took her nearly 10 more years to then make We Need to Talk About Kevin. If you haven't seen the trailer for that, I highly suggest it (watch here), one of my favorite films of the year and it's visually a masterpiece. You can listen to the full interview with Ramsay on BBC's website, watch a YouTube of this answer segment, all thanks to The Playlist. Ramsay's We Need to Talk About Kevin with Tilda Swinton arrives in limited theaters December 9th, go see her new film when it's in theaters, I highly recommend it.

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