{"id":10798,"date":"2010-06-18T06:00:07","date_gmt":"2010-06-18T10:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.moviefanfare.com\/?p=10798"},"modified":"2014-05-06T14:26:07","modified_gmt":"2014-05-06T18:26:07","slug":"winters-bone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.moviefanfare.com\/?p=10798","title":{"rendered":"Winter’s Bone: Interview With Writer Director Debra Granik"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"wintersboneWinter'sDebra Granik comes a long way from the Ozark Mountains of Missouri, where her new film Winter\u2019s Bone is set. The writer-director currently resides in Manhattan, but has also lived in Boston, Washington, D.C. and Maryland. The life of the mountain people depicted in her film is something new to her. But you could never tell that, based on the film\u2019s authenticity and almost documentary-like feel.<\/p>\n

Winter\u2019s Bone, shot in the Ozarks, was a real challenge for Granik, who wasn\u2019t sure she had it in her to capture the people and places and sights and sounds of the location.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt took a lot of trips down there to get the confidence to make this,\u201d the director admits from the comfy lobby of a Philadelphia hotel. \u201cA flag went up at first. Initially, we thought we were not the people to make this. Things could go wrong when you are an outsider who wants to make a film about a place you don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Based on a novel by Daniel Woodrell, Winter\u2019s Bone tells the story of Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence<\/a>), a teenager who cares for her two younger brothers and mentally unstable mother in their Ozark home. The family\u2019s home becomes endangered when Dolly\u2019s ex-con father disappears; it seems he put their house up for collateral while in prison for selling methamphetamines. While trying to track down her father, Ree encounters a local lawman, some of the area\u2019s residents involved in the drug trade, and her volatile uncle (John Hawkes<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe story was magnetic to us,\u201d says Granik of her film that won the coveted Audience Award at the most recent Sundance Film Festival.\u00a0 \u201cAnd meeting the author meant a lot to us, and then having him introducing us to a few core ingredients gave birth to further research. We hooked up with a folk singer in this community, a sheriff, an Ozark scholar. Then we went to New York City where we decided to try an adaptation.\u201d<\/p>\n

After penning the script, Granik and co-writer Anne Rossellini reconnected with their \u201cardor for the project.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe still loved the protagonists,\u201d says Granik. \u201cThen we went back down there. Our visits down there, through careful research and having a guide, we realized we could start putting the pieces together. We worked with local actors and found a piece of land and a house that Ree Dolly could live in, and we could find a trampoline for her to play on. Our confidence in trying to coordinate the project grew as ingredients in the area were made available to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Granik says that the leads came from around the country and immersed themselves in the Ozark culture. \u00a0\u201cJohn (Hawkes) had to listen to local people from the community. He talked to people in bars and went into them, hung out in them and got his bearings. Jen (Lawrence) comes from Kentucky. She didn\u2019t know\u00a0about that hardscrabble life, but she had a sense of things. She had a way of pronouncing stuff in the script (properly) and knew about hunting.\u201d<\/p>\n

The director, who got started in the industry by making educational films and health safety films in Boston and eventually attended New York University\u2019s film program, has one previous feature under her belt. 2004\u2019s Down to the Bone featured Vera Farmiga<\/a> as a housewife and mother who has a secret drug addiction.<\/p>\n

One wonders why Granik has now made two films about drugs, even though the problem is seen through two totally different perspectives.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never sought out drugs as a subject, but I do find that life circumstances brush up against drugs,\u201d confides Granik.\u00a0 \u201cIt feels that drugs have helped people feel better. Alienation and economy play a part of it\u2014it\u2019s become almost a marvel not to do drugs. Some of the complications and life circumstances that we have in a first world country are that hard\u2014I think it\u2019s become very understandable how certain forms of pain relief have become ubiquitous.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just don\u2019t show drugs as a party or glamorize them. I\u2019m not interested in drugs as recreation. They play a role in terms of their part in human existence and how they try to make lives work in a safe and healthy way. So therefore they have to be taken on. I\u2019m doing battle with them, not embracing them. It\u2019s a hard subject matter to take on. After Down to the Bone, I figured, that\u2019s enough. But Daniel\u2019s book had it in there, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

In many ways, says Granik, drugs and, particularly the subject of meth tackled in Winter\u2019s Bone, is the new form of moonshine.<\/p>\n

\u201cIowa and Southern Missouri have had enormous meth problems,\u201d says Granik. \u201cIowa\u2019s is very severe, because one of (meth\u2019s) ingredients was prevalent there.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, it\u2019s not unique to the Ozarks, but it\u2019s there. Poverty is always linked because poor families are drawn to that. Meth was very powerful when it hit in the Ozarks. The people don\u2019t have resources to hide it (their drug problems). It\u2019s out there like a raw sore. So, this is the new moonshine. It can be made on the black market. It can be made self-sufficiently with black market systems. It can get very elaborate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Granik, who is currently working on adapting a novel set in West Virginia, \u00a0is elated that not only did she\u00a0 get to make Winter\u2019s Bone on her own terms, but also get it distributed after its acclaimed showing at Sundance. Her and her partners stuck with the studio (Roadside Attractions) that showed interest in it before it won the big award.<\/p>\n

In many ways, the film had reminded people of another independent success story of a few years ago, 2008\u2019s Frozen River, which featured Melissa Leo as a hard-pressed mother who takes to smuggling immigrants across the Canadian\/U.S. border to make money for her family. The film won strong reviews and garnered several awards, including two Academy Award nominations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat film was an excellent role model for us,\u201d says Granik. \u201cIt played for months in theaters and gave great exposure to Melissa Leo, an actress usually in the background, who deserved a closer look. I think the same thing happened with Vera (in Down to the Bone) and we hope it will happen again now (with Jennifer Lawrence).\u201d<\/p>\n

One has the feeling it already is happening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Debra Granik comes a long way from the Ozark Mountains of Missouri, where her new film Winter\u2019s Bone is set. The writer-director currently resides in Manhattan, but has also lived in Boston, Washington, D.C. and Maryland. The life of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":10799,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[5595,1670],"coauthors":[1707],"class_list":["post-10798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-staff-notes","tag-movie-directors","tag-movie-interviews"],"yoast_head":"\nWinter's Bone: Interview With Writer Director Debra Granik<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Debra Granik discusses her new movie Winter's Bone and the challenges of shooting a movie in the Ozarks. Winter's Bone stars Jennifer Lawrence. 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