Winter's Bone (Debra Granik, 2010)

[HistoryProf]

Actually, the crude closeups and same creepy direction of that musical scene suggest that these people are also backward and addicted to meth, not the opposite (and it certainly never implies that they're not addicted to meth). Because they're not from the same area, the normality of the army recruiter and bail bondsman (both acted awfully imo) is accentuated to emphasize how backward everyone from the Ozarks is; that further proves my point. And obviously Ree and her siblings aren't addicted to meth, they're the "good guys". Everyone else are "bad guys". Unfortunately, that's about as in depth as we get with anyone in this film.

I think this has clearly reached a "we must agree to disagree" point that is clearly irreconcilable. From my perspective this is so clearly an utterly ridiculous reading of the film that I can't believe you are serious. It is notable that you are the only person anywhere on the internet I have seen attack this film so vehemently for it's lack of verisimilitude - which has instead been the very foundation of its accolades. It's fine that you had your problems with it, but you must be able to see that they are yours and yours alone. The continued contentious attempts to convince *everyone else* of their inability to see what is so glaringly obvious to you has become absurd.

[rohmerin]

We've watched it tonight (after Two lovers) and we are impressed about how good it is, yes, but we are more shocked about that people way of living, I've search and they are called Hillbilly.

Here in Spain, this film will be accussed of being racist, offensive or whatever the socialist will see.

I suspect that in the rest of Europe, some audiences could notice the danger of thinking in gipsies and Antiziganism . We did! And I don't feel proud. Most of them live, act and deal with drugs like the people in the film. But that Southern Americans are white and mostly blonde. I don't expect some reader can imagine we are racist, but this Hillbilly world has caught us without knowing anything about them and with all the bad press that Gipsy pleople suffers, I wanted to share my feelings and ask to other Europeans if they have felt what I felt .

[Zot!]

I've search and they are called Hillbilly.

Sorry to tease Rohmer, but that is just a wonderful bit of mispeak to my American ears. But yes, I can confirm that there is plenty of poverty in America. Not to mention much of the wealth is a facade, but that is a different topic. I actually did find some of the characterisations in Winter's Bone to be "too much" but others considered it to be realistic. You can find this discussion earlier in the thread.

[aox]

The film was basically a snap shot of the rural town I am from in eastern Oklahoma, and of my extensive travel in the Ozarks of western Arkansas. I couldn't believe the amount of detail the director got right.

[triodelover]

The film was basically a snap shot of the rural town I am from in eastern Oklahoma, and of my extensive travel in the Ozarks of western Arkansas. I couldn't believe the amount of detail the director got right.

Seconded. I grew up (and live) in the Southern Appalachians (East Tennessee). I've known folks like those in the film all my life. When I was young they were 'shiners who had moved into "farming" (marijuana). Now it's meth. About halfway through my wife, who is a social worker here, turned to me and said, "These are my clients".

I appreciate that the film treated these people realistically but without the condescension so often seen when filmmakers attempt this type of subject matter. Granik largely left their dignity intact. There's a certain integrity to someone like Teardrop. Yes, he could be the north end of a southbound horse but he has his own code and sticks to it.

These folks aren't "ignorant hillbillies" (and that concept is largely a Hollywood construct, as in "Beverly"). Given very few tools and no advantages, they survive mostly by their wits. You might not approve of how they do it but I think the film gets it pretty much right. Mr Mills has his head in a very dark place where the sun never shines, which usually happens when one tries to pontificate about things unfamiliar to their experience.

[matrixschmatrix]

It's interesting to think of the movie in the context of racism- as the people in the movie are all white, it never came up, but it's easy enough to think of the plot transplanted to (say) Mexico and having it be a major critical focus. I think a lot of the cries of condescension or class prejudice levied against Granik come from a similar place- she's depicting people whom one rarely sees on screen (and almost never without a more normative cultural context) in a light that could certainly be seen as very negative or reductive.

I actually think accuracy is not necessarily a foolproof defense in such circumstances- I'm thinking of The Kids Are Alright, which though not necessarily inherently implausible in its specifics is still answerable in some ways for reinforcing a problematic narrative about homosexuality, or Precious, which was attacked as being almost identical to the most frenzied anti-black propaganda. If you tell a story that makes people who want to attack or dismiss a group in a way that makes it easier for them to do so, it's certainly a legitimate criticism to observe that.

I don't think that applies to Winter's Bone, though, at least not for me- partially because the movie so admires its heroine, who is in turn so much a part of the world being depicted, that it would be difficult to view it as an attack on everything about that world, partly for the moments of incredible grace and beauty that clearly emanate from the culture shown (namely the music, which is a recurring element) and partly because of the movie's general refusal to demonize anyone, even those acting as villains. It's hard to imagine anyone going into Winter's Bone clear-eyed and coming out of it with nothing but ammunition for ranting about their hatred for those damned white Southerners.

[triodelover]

I think a lot of the cries of condescension or class prejudice levied against Granik come from a similar place- she's depicting people whom one rarely sees on screen (and almost never without a more normative cultural context) in a light that could certainly be seen as very negative or reductive.
...

It's hard to imagine anyone going into Winter's Bone clear-eyed and coming out of it with nothing but ammunition for ranting about their hatred for those damned white Southerners.

I'm going to disagree with you. It's precisely when that "more normative cultural context" is present that depiction of these people becomes reductive. Context is everything and as my class-conscious grandmother would have said, these folks are common, a word with a steamer trunk full of baggage in the South. Surround them with the whole of society and my grandmother's evaluation becomes the outsider's normal point-of-view. (My grandmother herself was resolutely lower middle class, Southern Airs and Graces Division, a phrase I would dearly love to claim as mine but in all honesty must attribute to Gore Vidal in his eulogy of Tennessee Williams, and really had no business referring to anyone with that pejorative. That never stopped her.)

Here the absence of that normative culture allows us to view the characters without the overt classism that we know is there and, as a result, gives us an opportunity to evaluate their subculture on its own merits and not against a somewhat biased backdrop of the society as a whole. Whether this is a good thing is the individual viewer's choice.

As far as coming out with a hatred for white Southerners, I'll agree. But who goes into a film like this without toting their biases along?

[matrixschmatrix]

Hmm, that's a good point, and I didn't mean to imply that racism/classism/what have you comes exclusively or even primarily from movies in which the people who are the subject of prejudice are presented without a normative context- I think you're right that it's more often when people are presented as outsiders that problematic elements bubble to the surface. My point in mentioning that aspect is I think the people and lifestyle presented is an unavoidable focus here, and that makes it a more probable target for criticism.

[triodelover]

Hmm, that's a good point, and I didn't mean to imply that racism/classism/what have you comes exclusively or even primarily from movies in which the people who are the subject of prejudice are presented without a normative context- I think you're right that it's more often when people are presented as outsiders that problematic elements bubble to the surface. My point in mentioning that aspect is I think the people and lifestyle presented is an unavoidable focus here, and that makes it a more probable target for criticism.

Quite right. The focus is unavoidably on the subculture, warts and all. I see how a viewer might criticize the actual lifestyle and the depiction of same (Who the Hell would want to live like that?). But in the real world, the one that gives lip service to second chances but never want to pony up first chances let alone second ones, these people exist and survive at the margins. Perhaps it's my perspective, but I see the portrayals of the characters as sympathetic, revealing a humanity in folks like Ree, Sonya and Teardrop that outsiders never see - never even try to see. Compare this to the blunt, one-dimensional portrayal of Maggie's family in Million Dollar Baby, where the normative context was provided by the seamy world of boxing, which came off looking good when compared to the Fitzgeralds. I know Granik has been criticized, but I think she got it spot on.

[colinr0380]

Compare this to the blunt, one-dimensional portrayal of Maggie's family in Million Dollar Baby, where the normative context was provided by the seamy world of boxing, which came off looking good when compared to the Fitzgeralds.

You've just reminded me of that bludgeoningly unsubtle film! I could maybe have coped with the mother throwing the keys to the house her daughter had bought with her boxing funds back at her out of some form of spite or wounded pride and returning back to her trailer (although that subplot was not developed in any significant way, except to be an easy way of revealing to Clint that he truly was Swank's only caring parental figure), but Swank's family taking a detour to Disneyland on their way to visit their just-paralysed daughter (and then indignantly storming out when she for some reason gets upset that they did this) really took the biscuit!

[mfunk9786]

You must not have spent too much time in American trailer parks, my friend.

[James Mills]

Compare this to the blunt, one-dimensional portrayal of Maggie's family in Million Dollar Baby, where the normative context was provided by the seamy world of boxing, which came off looking good when compared to the Fitzgeralds.

You've just reminded me of that bludgeoningly unsubtle film! I could maybe have coped with the mother throwing the keys to the house her daughter had bought with her boxing funds back at her out of some form of spite or wounded pride and returning back to her trailer (although that subplot was not developed in any significant way, except to be an easy way of revealing to Clint that he truly was Swank's only caring parental figure), but Swank's family taking a detour to Disneyland on their way to visit their just-paralysed daughter (and then indignantly storming out when she for some reason gets upset that they did this) really took the biscuit!

Same as it ever was with Clint. Unforgiven is still the only film of his that I can make it through.

[Kirkinson]

Winter's Bone music tour coming this summer.

[manicsounds]

I was shocked to see the uncle played by John Hawkes, I didn't recognize he was the same actor from Deadwood. He really transformed himself into that character, at first I thought it was just some local they found acting as himself.