Director of new Kate Winslet film Ammonite defends lesbian plot line

The director of a film about 19th Century palaeontologist Mary Anning has denied ‘sensationalizing’ her story by making her a lesbian. 

Francis Lee, the director of Ammonite, said he wanted to give Anning something ‘to elevate her’ because her work was overlooked by men. 

Ammonite, which will be released next month, stars Kate Winslet as Anning and Saoirse Ronan as her friend Charlotte Murchison. 

There is no evidence Anning and Murchison were intimate, and distant relatives blasted the lesbian storyline when news of the film broke in 2019. 

Barbara Anning said: ‘Do the film-makers have to resort to using unconfirmed aspects to make an already remarkable story sensational?’ 

Ammonite, which will be released next month, stars Kate Winslet (left) as Mary Anning and Saoirse Ronan as her friend Charlotte Murchison

Mary Anning (pictured) brought Charlotte Murchison on her trips along the coast in the hope the outdoor activity would help Murchison’s illness

Mr Lee admitted there was ‘no documentation to suggest’ Anning had sexual relationship with either men or women. 

He told Deadline magazine: ‘I wanted to give her a relationship that felt worthy of her, that felt equal. In this society where men overlooked and reappropriated her work, I didn’t feel that that could be with a man.’ 

Francis Lee (pictured), the director of Ammonite

Anning was the daughter of a cabinet-maker, had little formal education, never married and died aged 47 in 1847.

But her finds along the Jurassic Coast in Dorset changed history.   

The director gained success from his debut film God’s Own Country, which told the story of a gay relationship between a Yorkshire sheep farmer and a migrant worker. 

It comes amid recent backlash over the sensationalising of historical stories by changing key facts.

Real-life inspired dramas including Netflix’s The Dig and The Crown came under fire, with the culture secretary Oliver Dowden even demanding the streaming service make clear The Crown was a work of ‘fiction’. 

The Dig, starring Lily James, Ralph Fiennes and Carey Mulligan, dramatised the find of an Anglo-Saxon burial ship at Sutton Hoo, Suffolk.

Historical inaccuracies included to dramatisation of a Spitfire crashing while the excavation was ongoing. In another scene The Dig hints that Peggy Piggott’s (Lily James) husband, fellow archaeologist Stuart Piggott, is more interested in fellow male excavator John Brailsford (Eamon Farren) than he is in his wife.

Kate Winslet as Anning and Saoirse Ronan as Murchison during one of the film’s scenes

There is no evidence Anning and Murchison were intimate, and distant relatives blasted the lesbian storyline when news of the film broke in 2019. Pictured, a scene from the film

Peggy Piggott (shown left) is portrayed in The Dig as a ‘sidekick’ to her older, more experienced, husband (right, Stuart Piggott). In reality, she was highly experienced herself

In reality, although Peggy and Stuart did divorce in 1954, his sexuality has never been documented and there is no record of any romantic relationship between him and another excavator besides his wife. 

In the case of The Crown, invented scenes included the false suggestion the affair between Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles continued throughout his marriage to Diana. 

Emma Corrin, who plays Princess Diana, has admitted that the controversial fourth series is ‘fictionalised to a great extent’.

During a series of interviews, the 24-year-old said the storylines were invented and the members of the Royal Family depicted in the new series were ‘characters’ created by Mr Morgan.

The Culture Secretary added his voice to mounting concern that fabricated scenes in the drama series were so damaging to the Royal Family (pictured, Princess Diana in the show) 

US chat show host Tamron Hall asked Ms Corrin about reports that MPs and Royals were upset by The Crown’s depiction of Charles, Diana and Camilla.

‘It’s a difficult one,’ she replied. ‘I think for everyone in The Crown we always try and remind everyone that… the series we are in is fictionalised to a great extent.

‘Obviously it has its roots in reality and in some fact but Peter Morgan’s scripts are works of fiction.’

Allies of Mrs Thatcher spoke of their fury at scenes suggesting that she sought to avoid being deposed in 1990 by urging the Queen to act in the ‘national interest’ by dissolving Parliament and allowing her to call a General Election.

Lord (Charles) Moore, Mrs Thatcher’s biographer, dismissed the account as ‘dotty’ and ‘a very bad mistake by The Crown’.

Mary Anning and Charlotte Murchison: What is known about their relationship? 

Charlotte Murchison was a renowned geologist and accompanied her husband on a trip to the Jurassic Coast in 1825.

During her time in Lyme Regis, Murchison met and befriended palaeontologist Mary Anning. 

The fossil-hunter brought Murchison on her searches along the coast in the hope the outdoor activity would help Murchison’s illness.

She nearly died of malaria during a trip to Rome early in her marriage to husband Roderick Impey Murchison and suffered from ill health for the rest of her life, dying aged 80.

Charlotte Murchison (pictured) was a renowned geologist and accompanied her husband on a trip to the Jurassic Coast in 1825

Anning never married and there are no records of whether she had a romantic or sexual relationship with women. Pictured, Winslet and Ronan in a scene from Ammonite

Anning stayed with Murchison on her only trip to London in 1829. 

And a letter from 1833 informing her friend of her dog Tray’s death in a landslide proves they corresponded. 

Anning never married and there are no records of whether she had a romantic or sexual relationship with women. 

Lee and others have used creative licence to suggest Anning was a lesbian, but she may equally have been asexual or uninterested in romance.

‘I do not believe there is any evidence to back up portraying her as a gay woman,’ Barbara Anning, one of her family members, told The Telegraph in 2019.  

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