Seamus McGarvey ASC BSC on the cinematography of Die My Love

Director Lynne Ramsay’s new feature, Die My Love, offers a visually poetic exploration of love, motherhood, and psychological fracture. As cinematographer Seamus McGarvey ASC BSC evocatively explains, the film “depicts two people, and they've moved to the countryside to make their lives idyllic, and what we witness is the gradual osmotic disintegration of their lives.”

Guided by Ramsay's instinctive storytelling, McGarvey crafted imagery that mirrors the film's inner world, stepping away from realism and embracing emotional perception. In this exclusive conversation, McGarvey reflects on developing the film's distinct visual language, staying attuned to the dynamic performances of lead actors Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson, and much more.

Reteaming With Lynne Ramsay

“Die My Love, for me, started when Lynne Ramsay called me up, and she said, 'I've got this wonderful film based on a book by the same name,'" McGarvey recalls. "Anything that Lynne does, I'm up for. She's such a unique filmmaker.”

The duo had previously teamed for the 2011 film We Need to Talk About Kevin, which limned the emotional gulf between a mother and her deeply troubled son. "When you embark on a film with Lynne, you know that the camera is going to be central to the narrative," McGarvey shares, adding that Die My Love presents “a pictorial depiction of a breakdown. The psychic labyrinths of a woman who'd recently had a baby, in a new home, with all the tribulations and trials of love told with the camera.”

Shooting on 35mm Film

"One of my suggestions initially was, 'Let's shoot on Ektachrome,'" McGarvey says, referring to Kodak's 100D color reversal film stock. "We didn't want it to feel like a realist film, and Grace, the character played by Jennifer Lawrence, we wanted it to feel like it was somehow an embodiment of her perspective. A skewed perspective of the truth. And Ektachrome allowed for that because it really has a unique photographic signature."

With Ektachrome's exposure index of only 100, "The day interiors were a challenge," McGarvey acknowledges. "We needed to pump a lot of light into the sets." Rather than a limitation, the filmmakers found this to be a creative benefit as they crafted the movie's unique perspective. "The decisiveness of the impact of strong sources gave it a particular look," McGarvey shares.

"There is a mystery to film," the cinematographer continues. "I got all my gray hair shooting on film because you don't know that it's definitely there. There's something really special about that because you've taken a step into the dark, literally."

The filmmakers were well-prepared for any potential pushback to their decision to shoot on film. "Lynne shoots very frugally," McGarvey observes. "She knows what she wants. She doesn't run endless takes. So we knew that the arguments that were going to be employed to force us to shoot digitally were not there.

"We were greatly helped in that regard by our friends at Panavision, who supplied Panaflex Millennium XLs and the PVintage lenses that we used in the production," he adds. "It wasn't a huge budget film, but [Panavision] have a base in Calgary where we shot, in Canada. So it was great, again, knowing that you have that support right there."

Communing With the Camera

"It's interesting, the notion that film can be a reflection of one's mind, and how the way a camera moves can wordlessly depict inner sensibility," McGarvey muses. "There's a lot of silence in the film, and I think that cinematography is uniquely served to depict those kind of ideas. I love that, when a camera can be eloquent and doesn't have to rely on words.

"I had a brilliant operator called Chris Chow," McGarvey enthuses. "There's quite a lot of handheld, and his handheld is second to none. It's amazing. And he also did Steadicam as well."

Indeed, McGarvey was surrounded by talent on the production, both behind the camera and, of course, in front of it. The cinematographer reflects, "When you're working with people as brilliant [as and] the caliber of Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson, you've got to give them some leeway because they always offer up surprises and beautiful moments of happenstance that you don't presage. And there's something really wonderful about that, and it's good to be lithe enough as a filmmaker to go with those changes. That's when the unexpected magic in cinema happens.

"With Lynne, if she's not feeling the spirit of the shot, she'll abandon it immediately," the cinematographer adds. "She'll just cut it off and say, 'Right, let's do something else.' And there's something really refreshing about that because she knows how to follow her instincts. That is why her films kind of have this peculiar ring to them, because they're unequivocally filtered through her director's mind and heart."

Filming Day for Night

"All the night exteriors we shot by day, and it gave a sense of surreality to the night work because it doesn't look real," McGarvey explains. "There's an absolutely avowed sense of artifice.

"For those day-for-night shots, because a lot of them were in forests and a low-key environment, we had to shoot on negative," he continues. Specifically, he turned to Kodak Vision3 200T 5213 or 500T 5219 "just to get the exposure right in those shady forest scenes," he explains. "We exposed it normally but printed down in the timing. Contrast was reduced, but there was plenty of information there to play with."

Sélection des objectifs

During preproduction, McGarvey worked with Panavision to test several sets of lenses, ultimately selecting PVintage primes as his primary lens set. Updating Panavision's legacy Super Speeds and Ultra Speeds with modern mechanics, the PVintage lenses "are really beautiful," the cinematographer shares.

"I also shot with two Petzval lenses, a 58mm and an 85mm Petzval, which I love," he adds. "We used those predominantly for their sort of swirly bokeh around the edges. So when Jennifer is having her moments in her head, they were perfect. With dappled trees in the background, you really see that signature of those lenses, which I really love."

Framing Claustrophobia

Another critical creative decision was the choice of aspect ratio. "This film was about portraits, and it was about claustrophobia, and it was about people in a little boxy house," McGarvey says, retracing the thought process that led to the filmmakers' decision. "We knew immediately that 1:1.33 Academy was the way to go in terms of the aspect ratio. It's a beautiful format for putting people in the bottom or the edges of frame.

"It sort of fitted the house," he continues. "It was a real house that Tim Grimes, the [production] designer, found, and then he enhanced it and designed the film into the house. But everywhere we looked, we were just like, 'Thank goodness we shot with this aspect ratio.' Everything seemed to fit really well."

Embracing Art

Die My Love, McGarvey concludes, is “defiantly a piece of poetic cinema. I think that Lynne is a master of that type of direction. There's so much leeway to think poetically, to work poetically. It's really lovely when you remind yourself that cinema is an art form, and art is a great word.”

Find tickets to Die My Love, and explore more about the movie, here.