Week 5

I don’t like movies like Winters Bone. I like escapism, and certainly Winters Bone was enveloping enough to cast a seamless illusion; but honestly, I like escaping to richer vistas, not barren tundras of woe. That isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy Winters Bone. I did. I just wouldn’t watch it again, not like I religiously view some of my favourite movies, for example anything by Sofia Copolla, Tim Burton, Paul Thomas Anderson etcetera. I feel about Debra Graniks films much the same as I do about Micheal Hanekes; they have to be seen, but more as an obligation to the language of cinema. There are only so many rape scenes I can handle before I call out gimmick.

I’m beginning to think that as well as audience, I might benefit from working on concision, as careful wording will bring my word-count down and afford me room to say more, rather than labour existing points (which I’ve noticed I do a lot). For example, I wanted to talk about John Hawkes’s character Uncle Teardrop, mostly because his performance was such an unexpected departure from anything I’ve seen him in before; he was so quietly menacing, in contrast with the nice-guys he’s played (ala Me and You and Everyone We Know). Where did he learn to be so malicious? David Hopper I suspect.

Also, though independent cinema is generally lauded for its ambitiously extensive range of themes, exploring nooks and crannies of existence at which a spineless Hollywood balks, there’s less originality than you might think. In fact, there are independent ‘formulas’ as much as there are cut-out plots and characters populating the box-office crème-de-crème. This comes to mind only because Winter’s Bone, without coming across as derivative, is vaguely reminiscent of other films. The reusable thread here is beautiful/young/female protagonist combats the brutal forces in her environment and its cretin-inhabitants; another ‘little girl lost’ portrait with a white-trash slant. Again, Winter’s Bone is not mere regurgitation and has plenty to offer beyond its liberal borrowing of materials from this canon; it fails however to completely transcend the films it’s in ode to, and without the added elevation it is questionable as to whether Winter’s Bone would’ve been the same movie.