'Winter's bone' analysis

A) How far does 'Winter's bone' rely upon an understanding of it's social context? Refer in detail to at least one sequence from the film. [20]

Winter's bone's narrative takes inspiration from four pieces of social context: a sense of separation from mainstream US infrastructure,  an emphasis on family loyalty, addiction and its consequences with families and those around the user and the reality of financial insecurity, domestic abuse and mental illness. As Winter's bone drawing inspiration from all four of these sections, I believe it is important to have at least some understanding of the social context of the film.

In Winter's bone, the film helps audiences with no prior knowledge of the social context understand it, as instead of explicitly explaining that a certain scene relates to one bit of the social context, it buries it in the plot, whilst making it aware to the audience. This means that the audience don't need to have a prior knowledge of the context, but for them to understand the messages being conveyed during the film, they need to at least know of the social context, which the film does a good job at showing.

B) 'Winter's bone' - social and production context

The film 'Winter's bone' derives from the usual hollywood type film, as it focuses on the rough and poorer side of America, whereas majority of big budget films focus on the high life of America, influencing how other people outside of America view those who live there. As most audiences aren't exposed to the darker and poorer side of America very often, if at all, then many audience members will have a oppositional reading to the film as a whole, meaning that they won't agree with what the film is trying to put across, and won't enjoy the film as a media text. For those that don't watch independent films often, or stick to a certain genre such as action, then Winter's bone's narrative may seem slow and tenuous, disengaging many audience members.

The film also takes on many issues during the film, which may come across as being too convoluted for many. The film has elements of substance abuse and medicinal drug addiction, domestic abuse, financial insecurity, mental illness, poverty, low educational standards and lack or respect for women, whilst they try to fight the system. As the film takes on so many issues, some of which can be seen in mainstream movies, it has a hard time at tying up all loose ends by the end of the film. It just gives the message that most of the issues are unresolvable and that the characters can't be bothered to peruse changing the situations to better themselves any further. Topics and themes such as drug addiction and lack of female power have been used countless times in mainstream movies, such as Trainspotting (1996). But as these mainstream films only tackle one or two big issues, they are focused on more prominently, and are usually resolved by the end of the film, or are at least hinted towards being fixed later on.

The film was made on a budget of around $2 million, which for any film is a very little amount. Shooting was started and wrapped in a 25 day period, spanning from January to March 2009. Pre production was started two years prior, as it took so long to find and secure filming locations in the south of America. Locations included real life living locations of families living in the south, as to make the film feel more like a social realism film than a high budget flick. The film was shot using high resolution red DV cameras, except the dream sequence, which was made using Super-8 film, as this gives the footage the grainy look seen in Ree's dream.