The edge is where I come from. The edge is my home.
Amy Liptrot, author of ‘The Outrun”
As women, we are not perfect, just like we are imperfect as people. But the saving grace of our imperfections is the empathy we have for other people and ourselves. This film, “The Outrun,” directed by Nora Fingscheidt, and adapted by Amy Liptrot’s memoir of the same name, conveys that. We follow Rona, played by Saoirse Ronan, at age 30 during a time where she is healing from her troubled past on Scotland’s Orkney Islands. The film is a force and the sound and the visuals team together to show that. I had the opportunity to speak to the director about her latest feature, as well as her collaboration with Saoirse Ronan, who served as both an actor and producer for the first time. Nora also worked closely with the author of the memoir, as this narrative feature is based on her life.
“The Outrun” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on Friday, January 19th, 2024. The film has additional in-person screenings throughout this week. Learn more here.
Our Sundance 2024 coverage is sponsored by the Gene Siskel Film Center. One of the last arthouse theaters in Chicago, they present a curated collection of international, independent, and classic cinema reflective of Chicago’s diverse community. Learn more.
Can you talk about the adaptation process, working with Amy and Saoirse?
We collaborated really closely throughout the whole process, from the very beginning to the end. I pitched them my vision of the film after I had read the book, because the book is quite difficult to adapt, it’s very internal. It’s the equivalent of journal writing essays. It has the quality of being inside her head, remembering what happened. You’re also inside her head observing and processing, and reconnecting with that place she once wanted to run from. Now she comes back and finds healing there. I thought that we need to add a layer into the narrative called the “nerd” layer, a layer that represents Amy’s internal life which is so rich and full of amazing connections and poetry.
I really like this approach and I asked that we find a new name for the character in order to create a healthy distance for each of us for different reasons. We had the zoom before we started any of the adaptation process, and Amy suggested the name Rona, which is a Scottish island. Saoirse and I responded to it because Rona is also connected with Ronan, which means little seal, and seals play quite an important part in the film. And then it’s a kind of anagram of “Nora.”
So we found this name thanks to Amy, and then we went into a very solitary process with the book for several weeks. I went through the book and I color coded the different aspects: her childhood, the teenage years, London, sound levels, sound observations, nature observations, Orkney folklore. When I finished it, I went through again and I color coded. I wrote the moment down that I thought must be in the film with all the different parts. So I had different piles, and cards, and colors. Then I spent a couple days arranging them in an order that I thought could make a film. Based on that, I wrote a treatment, and I sent it to Amy and Saoirse. And then we started working on it together. I did the writing, but they were reading, and feed backing.
Amy and I we spent hours and hours on zoom going through it because then we had to fictionalize things, dramatize things, and leave things out. I wanted Amy to be a part of this as much as possible. It becomes a massive responsibility to make a film about a real person’s life.
Can you talk about working with Saoirse in her new role as a producer and an actor, and how you two developed the character of Rona?
I think Saoirse and I are both drawn to these characters that are fighting with their inner demons, more than just outside antagonisms, because it’s something that I personally relate to, as most of us do. Working with Saoirse is amazing because she is a very open-minded person, but she is also a very physical actress. So it was incredible to see her transformation. She worked with choreographer Wayne McGregor to find how Rona moves, and we had a rehearsal process so she could work on her voice with a dialect coach. And we also had different pre-shoots. We had to go when the lambs were being born in April, then again in June when the birds were nesting, and again to film with the seals. Every time she went, she experienced something that was only part of Rona. And when we were filming in London, she had been delivering lambs. It sounds very romantic, but it is very hard work. It’s bloody and gory, and they die, and you don’t get any sleep. So it was a long-form process of finding this character together, and for me as a director, it was a marvelous experience to watch her become Rona.
Can you talk about working with the rest of your cast, both seasoned actors and people in the area who were “new actors”?
I also don’t know how to put it in terms, because they actually are real actors now. But I always say that they are newer actors playing themselves. In making the film, I wanted to make it as authentic as possible, also due to the responsibility I felt to Amy and her family, with the place and everything. So we shot in the real locations. We shot in the farmhouse that she grew up in where her father had his mental breakdowns. And we shot in Amy’s dad’s real caravan. The place we filmed in Orkney is the real cottage where Amy spent two of her winters.
We also thought if we go and film in those real places with as many real people from there instead of having actors trying to fake an Orcadian accent, it would be probably impossible. Also, there is a certain way of speaking . . . we do have some actors who are able to do the accent wonderfully, but there is also a beauty in finding the right people who bring so much of themselves into the film, and the real locals who helped us recreate the real events. The dance sequence is a recreation of an event called Muckle Supper. It takes place in November, but we were filming in August and September, but the locals helped us recreate that event. They made it look exactly like what Muckle Supper would look like.
Can you talk about the sound in the film? I read in the press notes that you were trying to get an acoustic feel into the film. I’d love to hear more about the process, and your experience working with your composers John Gürtler and Jan Miserre.
John and Jan were the sound team and also our composers. We all went to film school together. We’ve collaborated for many years on many different projects. And the great benefit, besides from trusting each other, is that we all understand the importance of what a great sound and music concept is. So we usually we start from scratch. The minute I write a screenplay and they read the first version, we zoom and do a sound concept together. It’s because film is visuals and sound. It’s 50/50. If you want to create an audio immersive experience, there is no other way. And so we were inspired by the nature sounds and clashing them with the city sounds. We wanted to merge them at times, and to transform them according to Rona’s inner state. So when she’s really messy, the sound is really messy. It’s almost like the sound breaks, distorts. Your perception when you are drunk results in you seeing reality very differently. Your brain mixes it all up, so the dialogue gets mixed up. And it comes so late. The nature sounds are so intense when you are on a cliff and you hear the Orcas. The storms are so encompassing. The music is also using natural sounds. We did a lot with wind tubes and ancient Orkney instruments, and merged it all together. So our music and sound design were married together.
What do you hope people see in your film?
I hope they are inspired by Amy’s journey, as I am. It is a journey, and it’s a tough one to watch. It’s brutal, and she’s been to horrible places. And she turned into the extremes, not just because of her addiction, but the extreme that she grew up with. Her father’s Bipolar episodes shaped how she grew up. And her experiences with her Mother’s extreme religiousness. She took all of that and formed it into something constructive. And now she’s doing art, she’s having a family and living her life, and I find her story really amazing and inspiring. I hope people take away hope and encouragement, but I also hope that they have more empathy with people in recovery, because recovery is a tough process. It goes day by day for years. It’s sometimes very easy to point your finger and go, ‘yeah, now you’re sober, get a life, move on, you’ve got this.’ But that’s not that easy and I hope this film creates an awareness.
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