This summer, people around the country will be seeing the movie version of Daniel Woodrell’s 2006 novel, “Winter’s Bone.” They’ll wonder if the movie shows life in the Ozarks as it really is. The movie was filmed in Taney and Christian counties in Southwest Missouri, during the winter of 2009. You can see the trailer and read a synopsis of the plot.
This movie, with its glowing reviews and big success at the Sundance Film Festival, raises a couple of interesting questions:
- Why do independent filmmakers focus on the gritty part of life, often including drugs and violence?
- Why do movies like “Winter’s Bone” provoke discussions about authenticity?
Comments to today’s review of the movie in The New York Times address these questions (with the usual pointlessness of online discussions).
I saw “Winter’s Bone” a month ago in Branson, in a private showing in which many members of the cast and production crew were in attendance. I had a chance to visit with some of them and to compliment director-screenwriter Debra Granik on the mostly outstanding performances that she got from the actors.
Ms. Granik told me that she chose “Winter’s Bone” because of its strong characterizations and plot, not because of the grim subject matter and not because she was interested in depicting people in situations involving poverty, violence and drugs.
Concerning the depiction of people of the Ozarks as uneducated, violent, and crude, I have to admit that the population includes a segment that is uneducated and violent and who cook and ingest meth. “Winter’s Bone” does not pretend that these are the only people of the Ozarks. The characters in the movie are mostly poor and many of them are physically abusive of themselves and others, but they are not treated with condescension or portrayed as stupid.
The Ozarks landscape itself is in its stark late winter beauty. The junky homesteads shown are simply what you see in much of the Ozarks.
Many of the characters show sensitivity and intelligence which they exercise within the bounds of their familial and cultural constraints. If the author or director imposes constraints that seem artificial, the reader or viewer will wonder why the characters did not take other actions. When you see “Winter’s Bone,” you can figure this out for yourself.
Promoters of the Ozarks will wince at the lack of anything in the movie that would encourage tourism or the movement of jobs to the Ozarks. Occasionally a movie does give a region a short boost, such as “The Bridges of Madison County,” did for Iowa. Can you think of a feature film that was an effective economic development tool?
With “Winter’s Bone,” I’ll remember the characters in a dramatic situations involving conflicts between father and daughter, neighbor and neighbor, older sister and younger sibling, and clan and community.
These conflicts are universal, not regional, and combined with the straightforward plot, steady pacing and good acting, “Winter’s Bone” is a movie that I’ll remember along with “Hud,” and “Days of Heaven.”
I read the book, but haven’t seen the movie. I was born in the Missouri Ozarks and have lived here most of my life.
The poverty and drugs seemed relatively accurate, though I have no experience with the weird sort of mystique that went with this outlaw culture – it was a little over the top melodramatic, like a hillbilly mafia story for me, though I can see how this might make a very good movie. And I did enjoy the book, I just thought the family/mystic sort of stuff with the poor folks wasn’t very accurate.
Another problem I see is that it was just sort of an action story, relatively simple, set in some sort of poor hilly place, and I didn’t thing it captured the uniqueness of the Ozarks culture.
I don’t want to sound to critical of the book because I enjoyed it and would recommend it. I like the fact that something about the ozarks was so popular.
However, if you want to read fiction that captures the essence of what makes the Ozarks the Ozarks – I would recommend Donald Harington.
I look forward to seeing the movie.
Richard,
Thanks for writing.
“Winter’s Bone” might be a better as a movie than as a novel. I once heard Larry McMurtry say something like “minor novels make better movies than great novels.” If I remember correctly, he was talking partly about his first novel, “Horseman, Pass By,” that was the basis for the movie “Hud.” A major work of literature is likely to be too complex in plot to translate easily to the screen. Of course there are a few exceptions.
The movie “Winter’s Bone” has a fairly simple story (Ree has to find her father, alive or dead, to save the home she shares with her mother and siblings). The quality of the script and the acting make the film memorable.
I agree with you that “Winter’s Bone” is not about the Ozarks, but a drama set in the Ozarks. The same story could have been set in many locations.
I have to agree with Harry when he said that it might be better as a movie then a novel because of the visualizations that can come to life when it is on the big screen. That is how I feel about a lot of movies that are through the Sundance circuit. Interesting though.
I enjoyed your blog entry on Winter’s Bone. Though I haven’t lived in the Ozarks, I think the squalor depicted is found in other parts of Missouri as well. I enjoyed the movie a lot. One thing I had to wonder about the story was how it seems everybody seemed somehow related to everyone else. It seemed a lot worse than in any Faulkner novel I’ve read!
Since the story was a drama about the relationships within an extended family, it’s no wonder that most of the characters were related.
Dale, I’d like to show you around Taney County. Come down in the fall.
Moving from California to the Ozarks not far from Taney county, One of the first notable characteristics I found was how extensive everyone was related. My son’s friend went with us on a canoe trip as well as a neighbor. Both strangers. They began talking about their aunts and found out they were second cousins. Over and over I have seen this happen. After 5 years here, I just assume everyone is related and then pleasantly surprised if they aren’t.
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Based on the book I’m unlikely to pay to see the movie. Way too unnecessarily violent for my tastes, for no apparent reason, one-dimensional and unrealistic. Have seen the trailer, and although Ree is shown in slacks there (dresses in the snow in the book, and a totally unrealistic scene where she takes off wet clothes in a winter cave to get warm (!)) I’m just unsure what the point of this exercise is anyway. Ok, it’s gritty, I’ll give you that. The descriptive writing is very good, but the point is ? At least in the book, the payoff is meager, and I don’t feel anything has really changed, either with her character or the situation.
The older I get the less I like movies. I prefer my own imagination.
I hope you don’t take offense as I am only compelled to comment through personal philosophy, not malice. I disliked Winter’s Bone for the very reason that I liked Days of Heaven; Terrence Malick’s work tells a story of tragedy and horror while never allowing these things to taint the magic and majesty of the natural world in which they take place, where Winter’s Bone is so intent on its oppressive mood that it permeates the environment leaving no truth beyond the dire human dramas on display. Even while a scene of a harvest being destroyed (in Days of Heaven) allows the viewer to appreciate the human struggle, it simultaneously transcends this struggle to show a profound beauty in the very force that causes it. I would very much like to see a film that utilizes the stark beauty of a winter in the Ozarks without compromising atmosphere for the sake of an attempt at bleak realism. Just my two cents worth of opinion. Cheers and Godspeed.