Down To The Bone

Earlier this year, the American indie Winter’s Bone bested Animal Kingdom, The Kids Are All Right, The Runaways, Boy, Please Give and Jack Goes Boating to earn the Grand Jury Prize.

A brooding, poetic adaptation of the Daniel Woodrell novel of the same name, the minimalist crime thriller Winter’s Bone has attracted critical acclaim from American critics: The New Yorker’s David Denby calls it “a work of art that grabs hold and won't let go” and Roger Ebert praises Jennifer Lawrence’s “dogged” performance as Ree Dolly, a teenage girl trying to find her bail-jumping father as she looks after her mother and younger siblings.  

Here is the trailer:

News Hit reviewer Andrew Moraitis had a chance to speak to its co-writer/director Debra Granik before her film’s debut at the Melbourne International Film Festival this year. In this interview, Granik talks about the subject matter of Woodrell’s source material, the subject matter of meth addiction and some of the difficulties of independent filmmaking.  

When reading the novel, where you actively looking for properties to adapt?

Absolutely! We were looking and the book was sent to us. Because he (author Daniel Woodrell) was also looking for an adaptation to be done of a film, it was sent to us before publication, so the book can circulate to option the filmmakers to read the material and figure out if they were interested. And Anne (Rosellini) and I, who executively produced the film and co-wrote the screenplay, we let them know we would like to approach him and see if he was interested in us.

How did he respond?

Look, it was very hard to let him know in advance what you might do with it. He had seen our previous film, which let him know how we work, and the scrappy type of filmmaking that we do, which would be low budget. He had a very distinct reference and he let us know that he liked that film, which also had the word ‘bone’ in it. It was called Down to the Bone. And when he gave us that confidence, he knew what we were about, so the expectations were appropriate, you know. And then he showed us a lot of places that had inspired him in the visual landscape where he lived in the Ozarks region. When he showed us it, he gave us a very rich inspiration of what it might look for, even if we couldn’t go directly in his home town. What kind of housing stock which was appropriate for Ree that had emerged over time. What the school might look like in that area. Different details. And then he introduced a sheriff in that town, musicians. So these veins, these initial veins, were very important as the film developed and it went on in the next few years. We had these trips that we would take to try and meet families where we could film. We were trying to put all the initial pieces together. So his initial veins set us on a coarse where we could link up with other people.

So, did those meetings influence the way that you would portray certain characters?

Definitely! Life models always influences a lot because they give the real details of everyday life that you can’t imagine. So, you know, once we were using a real person’s house, a lot of details were there for us. So a lot of what they have, the decorations they had on the wall, this could be Dolly’s house. Instead of us trying to imagine what we thought would be Dolly’s house, ‘Why not find a family that would be very close to the circumstances that would be very close to the circumstances that they would be living?’ Try to use a lot of their material details. Lived things, Lived life and use them. Because we, as outsiders, really can’t recreate that with any kind of precision. Instead, the notes we take, the things we see, we use that.

But you specifically chose not to shoot on any meth labs. I am thinking of that specific sequence where Teardrop takes Ree to a destroyed meth lab, where you used a location that had been destroyed by fire?

In that situation, we visited an accident where the fire was from the meth explosion. So it was a pretty toxic site and it was pretty unadvisable to muck around with them without any kind of hazardous explosions. In the end, we felt like it was pretty beyond our means to do that. In the end, we just found a house that was owned by a family where the fire had not been… It is as you say, it had burned but not by that cause. But some of the fire is very indistinguishable; the result of the fire is you cannot tell why or how it burned. You can give at least a suggestion of what could be. In that situation, where it is not as if it is verbatim or authentic in that sense, but it is not that.

But it would still be disturbing for the crew. What effect did that have on the crew?

(Long pause) I think that the subject of meth for everybody involved – for local people and the crew – it was extremely upsetting. There is not one aspect of looking at meth that is mellow or benign: what it does to a human being’s body, their faces, their teeth. Everything about it is so vicious, and so dramatic and so relentless. There is basically not one bit of solace in that whole depiction of actual reality of it. I think there is a very sombre feeling that happens when it is talked about dealt with, a lot of families have personal brush-ups with it. A member of the family somehow been introduced to it, or exposed to it somehow or refused it, whatever the case I, just having it there, and a lot of people spend a huge amount of energy figuring out how to get around it or how to help a family member get out of it. And then when properties burn or lose properties because someone rent it ended up cooking in there, it adds to the haunted thinking: God, where did this scourge come from? How did it even take route in our community and why?

In that regards, Ree is such a strong character. She is very much not interested in that lifestyle at all. When writing it, did you feel uncertain how to replicate that strength on screen?

In that case, she is a little big larger than life. She has got a lot of those characteristics- that you just mentioned- of a heroine. The degree to which she accepts responsibility in keeping with others, in that way a heroine or hero. And we did not know what it was going to be like, what you would feel about a girl having those characteristics. I think that Jennifer Lawrence was given these very real settings in which to function and very real obstacles. She really had to run the hill. She really had to wrangle her on-screen brother and sister in certain things. She did have logs and different kinds of animals to contend with. And the fact that she had these real-life tasks I think we started to feel confident that everything the actress was doing would have a rigour to it and you would sense that she was not just breathing through experiences. She was very, very full of feeling to what she was feeling and what she would be reacting to. And, that would be, in the end, felt in the on-screen experiences.

You cast professional and non-professional actors. Did giving them those authentic tasks help everybody?

No, I think it does. I think it does help everybody. I do. I think the combination of local, untrained actors with experienced actors rich, too. It can be hard and it makes anomalous things happen in the filming process that trained actors can struggle with. The idea that they can be working with someone who does not do the same take every time, I think that also adds a certain freshness because an experienced actor has to really listen and really respond each time. So, at its best, it can be a really positive chemistry.

Michael McDonough’s cinematography in this movie is very energetic, edgy, alive. What conversations did you initially have with him in what you wanted the film, book, to look like on film?

We worked together, we, um, went to film school together and we worked together on prior projects so it is a very rich process to be with Michael and I think he feels vice versa. In particular, a couple of films that we really loved the cinematography in was Paul Greengrass’ film Bloody Sunday. I don’t know if you are familiar with that film. It’s not that we are doing anything even close to that but what we love is looking at fresh framing and unusual techniques. Not to make it too stylised but the fact that we felt free to in some ways use the camera to keep up with the camera work. And we also really admired the camera work in the Darden brothers films because there handheld cameras are used not to make it fo-documentary or not to try to make it something but literally to keep up again. This kind of filmmaking is so good for low-budget films. We are not asking everyone to get tapped up and walk everywhere meticulously. What we are asking is to, what you are doing is working so hard, like a documentary-like focus-puller to literally let the actors move and keep up with them. It is imperative to working really tight with real homes, homes where you can’t bust open a fourth wall and you can’t make it a set, you know. It is in service to the idea that you are working with children or untrained people who won’t do everything the same. Instead of you trying to knock down, if the camera can keep up with them, that can be awesome. So that was really some of the thinking behind it. So that was the thinking behind it. And we also were very invested when we could do really simple lighting. We did not really have room for a huge package. We did not have the space or the juice to really light up the world, you know, using extraordinary lighting for the woods. We had to really go dark and be OK with the idea that the dark scene there would be a lot of fall-off. We could not really make the woods come alive. It turned out it was harder than we thought actually because we went into a situation with extreme, extreme bright sun that day. If it had been overcast we would have actually fared better. But these are the things. He is a very inventive person.

I also wanted to talk about you relationship with the editor, in particular that introductory scene with Teardrop that had a jagged, edgy feel to it. What kind of feel did you want the editing to have in contrast to the vision?

Yeah, I will definitely answer that, but one more thing about Michael. But we do, we do a book where we cut out some of the images and stills and start to look at all the different images that we like. I am just saying that it is a rich process that we look at films that we admire, photographers that we admire, and not that we will ever be precisely doing that. But it gives a sense of feeling for a sensibility that we might be attracted to. And then, of course, the real light itself will dictate the real details. Will end up dictating the kind of the kind of gossips that is grown up from the gravel. The kind of lighting that organically… with the editor, I really enjoy my collaboration with him. I had never worked with Affonse before: Affonso Gonçalves, he’s edited a lot of films actually. He is not new to the game at all. He did a wonderful job, I think, balancing- being able to include images that were very light and still keep the idea that once she embarks on the idea that were a little bit relentless, she does not really have a lot of breathing room or wriggle room. The scene that you are talking about. I feel that he really did want that to be come out of a thing that we were reworking after that, that he would approach her so physical, so fierce in her warning. I know he plays around a lot. Try to chip away at it. Try many, many connotations before he gets it. As someone who likes to have a director work with him, it’s wonderful to me. I did not feel like I was imposing on his room. Instead, I really felt that we were like hashing it out together. I know that for like a lot of those scenes there ends up being like 20 versions before you come to one where the moment of the lunge feels right.

Really? 20 versions…

Oh, easily 20, yeah. Sometimes they are not easily changing much. There might be a different reaction that you might put in for Ree. Or different lines that get cut. Or added back sometimes. Sometimes, very, very trusted colleagues come in towards the end and they say, “You know. I did not really understand that.” And we think “wow. You know if you put that thing back in the kitchen. That line, they will understand something.” A lot of times you have to choose severely as you try to shape up the film it can be too much. And you take out a couple of lines that you did not really realise that an audience needs to hear but that we all get used to, but a first time listener has to hear it.

In the independent market, is there a pressure to have names in your cast or is that not your experience.

Oh no. It is a definitely a pressure. It is such a huge pressure and to not you have to go rogue and go for a very small budget and go off the radar. The pressure is enormous. It’s the be all and end all. Umm, I feel like so few countries around the world are exempt from that. I feel like, sadly, the West coast model has actually infected film investing all around the world. Very few. Let me put it this way, in the English speaking world, I can’t speak for what happens on other film cultures but in the English language world. Value, marque value and celebrity value is mandatory. It really goes against the filmmaking that I try to be involved with. Because there are very few recipes that work where someone has a very involved celebrity identity can just disappear and go right inside a film.

Winter’s Bone will be released nationally on November 11. 

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