He and Lawrence had discussed adaptations before. They considered “The Awakening,” Kate Chopin’s 1899 novel of female liberation, which ends with the protagonist, Edna Pontellier, walking into the sea. But that felt safe. “What’s the challenge?” Scorsese had thought. “Die, My Love” was like “The Awakening” if it began with Edna already underwater. “I said, ‘You know what? This is a challenge,’ ” he recalled telling Lawrence. “ ‘This is the kind of thing you should be doing. Go take a chance. Knock any sense of a comfortable character off the board and just go for it.’ ”journey-inline-newsletterinline-newsletter