Ruth (2021)
A Short Film following Ruth Ellis, the last woman to ever be hanged in the UK. On her last day, Leon Simmons comes to interview her, in the hopes of uncovering her side of the story.
Not knowing what will be unveiled....
Monika Raesch
"Providing audiences with a text that they can relate to on a personal level and that took place within their own culture and representing their own ideology, the higher the level of agreement with the characters’ actions."
About Ruth
This Short Film was made for two main reasons.
To create a monologue based piece of work
To explore this character's rich and tragic history
Coming into this project, I had no intention to adapt anything for it. I was planning it all to be original and created by myself as is the case with the majority of my projects. However, it was only after finding Ruth's story, researching into it and diving into her history, that I felt that this was a story that I needed to tell. One that really stood out to me in that it's a woman who has committed an unforgivable crime, but the reasoning for the crime is what really makes her unique.
I quickly found that this character was so interesting and engaging to write, listening to her voice, getting her voice pattern down, how she speaks with such confidence and elegance was something to behold.
Being faithful to this story was something that I took extremely seriously from the start of writing all the way up to the end of Post-Production. Everything you see in this piece has been researched and planned to form what I see to be the essentials of Ruth's narrative. She had a tormented and brutal life, to be able to tell her story is something that I take great pride and great care in doing.
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I am so incredibly proud of this project, there is so much more that I am yet to explore with this character and that I hope to explore in the future.
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Inspirations
This was a very important project to me and a lot of things inspired me in my journey to create it. Such as:
The ITV Drama - Des. Based around the serial killer of 1983. The language and characterisation of Des was something that I found so fascinating. The way he was aware and even proud of his work drew parallels to Ruth back in the 1950s, so it was a big inspiration in terms of how the character was presented.
The Netflix Drama - Criminal. The format of this show is so effective and such a great way to box in characters and develop layers upon layers to them. Half of the reason this narrative is framed in an interview format is to really portray how revealing a one to one conversation can be when you have nothing to lose.
The Works of Maya Angelou. This one is a bit abstract but it's true. She claimed that her process was very much a "search my mind for what to say" type of process, and I applied this to my writing, finding it very cathartic and made me feel emotionally closer to the characters, allowing me to really dig into them and react how they would react as the conversation carried on.
Cast
Ruth is played by my frequent collaborator, Livvi Parsons. We spent a lot of time together finding the voice for Ruth, really digging into her character and her mannerisms, all the way down to her movements and body language.
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Leon is played by Callum Battlemuch. He had a lot of the natural charm and charisma that I wanted this character to portray but was able to confidently bring out the darker more manipulative side of Leon in ways that surprised me.