Ammonite (film)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
Original title Ammonites
Country of production United Kingdom
original language English
Publishing year 2020
length 120 minutes
Rod
Director Francis Lee
script Francis Lee
production Iain Canning ,
Fodhla Cronin ,
Emile Sherman
music Dustin O'Halloran ,
Volker Bertelmann
camera Stéphane Fontaine
cut Chris Wyatt
occupation

Ammonite is a romantic film drama by Francis Lee , which will celebrate its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2020 and will be released in German cinemas on January 21, 2021. It describes a fictional relationship between the British fossil collector Mary Anning and Charlotte Murchison, the wife of the Scottish geologist Roderick Murchison .

action

In the 19th century, in the middle of the Victorian era, the celebrated but unrecognized fossil collector Mary Anning worked alone on the rugged south coast of England. In the days of her famous discoveries, she looks for fossils that she can sell to tourists to feed herself and her sick mother. When a wealthy customer, Mary's colleague Roderick Murchison , asks her to take care of his melancholy wife Charlotte, she can't afford to turn down his offer because she needs the money.

From then on, she introduces Charlotte to the secrets of finding fossils, and the shy young woman helps her with her work. Despite an initial distance between the two women and because of their different social classes and personalities, an increasingly intense bond develops between them. You need to determine the true nature of their relationship.

Biographical

Mary Anning was a British fossil collector who is considered one of the earliest female paleontologists . Mary Anning, who was born in the village of Lyme Regis in Dorset on the southern English coast, is said to have been noticed as unusual at the age of 15 months . She was one of ten children of whom only she and her brother Joseph survived childhood and was named after her eldest sister, already called Mary, who died a few months before she was born at the age of four. Mary's father, Richard, was a carpenter who supplemented his income by looking for fossils on the cliffs near Lyme Regis, which he then sold to tourists.

After his death, the Anning family was left without a breadwinner, and Mary and her brother Joseph began large-scale hunting for fossils that could be sold to supplement the family income. As a result, she soon had connections to the geologists and biologists of her time, such as the Scottish geologist and paleontologist Roderick Murchison , Charlotte Murchison's husband. For many years he was chairman of the Geological Society of London , the Royal Geographical Society and head of the Geological Survey and one of the leading geologists of his time. His research laid the foundation for geological exploration of England , France , Germany and Russia . Roderick Murchison had married Charlotte, the daughter of a general, in August 1816.

Elizabeth Philpot was a fossil collector with whom Mary Anning had been friends since childhood.

production

Film title, staff and idea

The titular ammonites are an extinct subgroup of the cephalopods. Mary Anning , whose life the film is inspired by, collected their fossils.

Directed by Francis Lee , who also wrote the script. The Scot made his film debut with God's Own Country . “I first met Mary Anning when I was looking for a fossil for my friend,” says Lee of his inspiration for Ammonite . “I was immediately drawn to this working class woman who, despite being disadvantaged in a classy, ​​patriarchal society, rose to be one of the leading authorities in her field, but whose accomplishments went almost completely unrecognized by her contemporaries. […] Most of all, I wanted to make sure I gave her dignity and respect to elevate Mary Anning to the status she deserved when she was alive. ”Lee was from that time when society was utterly patriarchal and in which women were completely in the possession of their fathers or husbands. The medical profession at that time also believed that women had no sexual organs of pleasure, and society at that time gave no thought that two women could live in a real relationship. Lee emphasized at the same time that Ammonite was not a film biography, but was only inspired by Anning's life. See-Saw Films, the British Film Institute and BBC Films are involved in the production.

Cast and filming

Street lights in
Lyme Regis , where the film was shot, were designed after the ammonites that gave the film its title

Kate Winslet took on the lead role of Mary Anning , Saoirse Ronan plays her new houseguest Charlotte Murchison, James McArdle her husband Roderick Murchison . Fiona Shaw took on the role of Elizabeth Philpot . Also starring are Claire Rushbrook as Eleanor Butters, and Gemma Jones and Alec Secăreanu as Molly Anning and Dr. Lieberson, who both played in Lee's God's Own Country .

Lee shot most of the film in Mary Anning's hometown of Lyme Regis in Dorset, as well as in Surrey and London. Filming began in mid-March 2019 and ended in the same spring / beginning of May 2019. In Lyme Regis, the film team had recreated Georgian house facades. Sarah Finlay is responsible for the equipment . Stéphane Fontaine acted as cameraman and received numerous nominations and awards for his work for Jackie . Lee had previously worked with his film editor, Chris Wyatt , on God's Own Country .

Film music and publication

The film music was composed by Dustin O'Halloran and Volker Bertelmann .

At the beginning of June 2020 it was announced that Ammonite was in the "official selection", a selection of 56 films from the Cannes Film Festival originally planned for May 2020 , which have been canceled in their usual form due to the coronavirus pandemic. The premiere is now scheduled for September 11, 2020 at the Toronto International Film Festival . Also at the beginning of September 2020 it will be shown at the American Film Festival in Deauville. He was also in a selection of films to be shown at the Telluride Film Festival . At the end of August 2020, NEON presented the first trailer. In October 2020 it will be shown as the closing film of the London Film Festival . It should come to German cinemas on January 21, 2021. Distribution in the USA was taken over by Neon , a film distributor that previously published the queer films Portrait of a Young Woman in Flames and Beach Rats there . On November 13, 2020, it will come to selected US cinemas.

Awards

Telluride Film Festival 2020

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b ammonites. In: tiff.net. Retrieved August 26, 2020.
  2. a b c Ben Travis: Ammonite: Cast And Synopsis For Francis Lee's Latest. In: empireonline.com, May 14, 2019.
  3. a b c Nick Romano: Ammonite director says Kate Winslet, Saoirse Ronan film is about 'the power of love' and 'touch'. In: Entertainment Weekly, June 4, 2020.
  4. a b Jennifer Mulcahey: Lyme Regis is transformed ahead of filming for new Mary Anning drama. In: Dorset Echo, March 10, 2019.
  5. Anita Singh: Film-makers create fictional same-sex romance to spice up story of 'unsung hero of fossil world'. In: The Telegraph, March 11, 2019.
  6. Francesca Evans: It's a wrap! Filming of 'Ammonite' comes to an end. In: lyme-online.co.uk, May 2, 2019.
  7. Dustin O'Halloran & Volker Bertelmann to Score Francis Lee's 'Ammonite'. In: filmmusicreporter.com, December 3, 2019.
  8. Festival de Cannes 2020: la liste des films labellisés "Sélection officielle». In: troiscouleurs.fr, June 3, 2020 (French)
  9. Elsa Keslassy: Deauville Fest to Showcase 10 Movies From Cannes 2020 Official Selection. In: Variety, July 28, 2020.
  10. a b Ryan Lattanzio: Telluride Film Festival Reveals 2020 Selections: 'Ammonite', 'Nomadland', Werner Herzog, and More. In: indiewire.com, August 3, 2020.
  11. Benjamin Lee: Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan fall in love in first Ammonite trailer. In: The Guardian, August 25, 2020.
  12. Naman Ramachandran: Saoirse Ronan, Kate Winslet Drama 'Ammonite' to Close BFI London Film Festival. In: Variety, August 26, 2020.
  13. Start dates in Germany. In: insidekino.com. Retrieved August 20, 2020.
  14. ammonites. In: boxofficemojo.com. Retrieved August 29, 2020.