How Far Does "Winters Bone" Rely Upon An Understanding Of Its Social Context







How Far Does "Winters Bone" Rely Upon An Understanding Of Its Social Context


Winters Bone is a film rooted with verisimilitude, this is immediately shown with a mid-long shot of a couple of children, it is obvious that these children are not actors but instead real school students. The auteur, Bronik, uses this to create her natural, organic cinematic world and this documentation style creates this realistic atmosphere that ultimately forces the spectator to immerse themselves in the world. This is reinforced by the mid-shots of the parents-to-be being taught how to be parents, we notice here that the boyfriend and girlfriend are not both holding the baby, but the woman is, this introduces the patriarchal society that is established in the Ozark's and a present theme throughout. Finally, we get a mid-shot and point of view shot of the soldiers marching. with Ree peaking at them through the doors window. This frame within a frame symbolises Ree's desperate desire to escape this place and live a better life.



This dream is then dropped into the bin of reality with a long shot of Sonya doing her daily chores, yet again she is doing the work where typically the men would be and thus the patriarchal society is shown again. The mise-en-scene shown through the outfits add to the overall effect of neo-realism in the film, the outfits themselves have a context of being locally sourced and so add to the context overall in the film, adding even more layers of life. In this scene we hear the first piece of dialogue in the sequence, we notice how the dialect in the area is quite hard to understand from a foreigners point of view (the spectator) forcing us to be active viewers instead of passive, it forces us to do this as another way of enveloping us into the world and creating more of a reason to take a preferred reading.

We then cut using a sound bridge of Ree doing some wood-cutting, again traditionally a mans job but the women are the labourers in this community, and this long take reinforces the ideas mentioned before-hand. We cut to Sonya and a man and then back to Ree reacting to the sheriff coming up her drive. The law in this place is unwelcome and we see this through the one-take of his search, almost as if we are watching him, making sure he doesn't do anything, just as Ree, and the man, are. Mid-shots of both the characters are used but when looking at Ree through a mid-shot it makes her seem much smaller in comparison to the sheriff, this could symbolise the fact that she is overwhelmed with responsibility at such a young age, like many of the young girls in the Ozarks are. We see the man now, slowly approaching, knife in hand through a long shot, which makes the sheriff retreat, showing just how little power the law has in this place, and how secrets are deeply ingrained in the society.









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