Film Flam

Giorgio Moroder ♫ Chase (theme from Midnight Express) (by JayWesLeyroz)

Giorgio Moroder.

Your honor, if it please the court I would also like to submit this as Exhibit A, and the following as Exhibit B.

That is all.

The defense rests.

Scalps.

Danny Yount has often been the shining beacon in otherwise dismal cinematic productions. It’s no simple task to rise above mediocrity.

Kudos to Mr. Yount.

BLEU DE CHANEL - THE FILM (by CHANEL)

Good ol’ Marty directs a commerical for some perfume company. Equal parts 8 1/2, Blow-Out, and D.A. Pennenbaker. It’s great, and reminds me of Scorsese’s short in New York Stories.

Woody Allen aggression.

Winter’s Bone (2010)

Kind of Blue

Extremes teach heavy lessons. Debra Granik’s 2010 film adaptation of Daniel Woodrell’s novel of the same name lives in the harsh world of lessons taught in pain. Initially seen by critics as a neo-noir, Granik’s film strikes tones that are more Aesop’s fables and Greek tragedy than Ralph Meeker.

WInter’s Bone begins with images of restraint, and tension. Dogs chained up, the black deadened trees with their gnarled hands writhing into the sky. The soil of the earth, black and gravely. The world of the film is more Cormac McCarthy’s The Road than the lush green landscapes of Deliverance. Everything is in state of decay and destruction. Things don’t live as much as they survive.

In this world of devastation lives Ree, our cherub faced protagonist. The film’s production design is extended in the casting; Ree is softest thing in the movie. A tender lamb in a film populated by sharp faced jackals and sinister looking wolf people. Everyone looks like a meth addict; pock-mark faces, angular postures and obsidian eyes that look at her like the delicate soft-fleshed thing she is.

This world that she lives in - a hollow cave of despair without knowledge of anything outside of it - is all Ree has known. She lacks the Darwinist skills to be a threat to anyone, but she persists. The people of Winter’s Bone are divided by land, road, and above all, gender. Women hold the role of protective lioness watching over their pride. The men, selfish and cowardly are scavengers of the landscape, preying on the weak and fearful. While the violence of men in the film has a manic unpredictability, it’s the exacting determination of the women’s violence that creates the largest sense of fear in the film.

The women of Winter’s Bone are Mother Nature incarnate.They do not question the need to kill in the name of their pride. They understand the power of blood, and they can see how the cold has conquered everything, how the encroaching decay is upon them and only through action will things change. They guard men from each other and strike hard in the name of family. That’s their role; guardians of family. When Ree is asked: “..ain’t you got no men that can do this for you…” there is sympathy, but there is no mercy.

Debra Granik’s cold-steely blue film is a masterful mediation on the nature of people who live so poorly that their instincts become animalistic. It’s a film about love, and protecting the few things that make you human: compassion, honor, family, and forgiveness.It’s delivered with assurance by a filmmaker who’s dedication isn’t unlike Ree’s. Debra Granik serves a greater cause than herself; she serves at the mercy of the Dolly family’s tale of redemption through loss and pain. It’s a great film, and one that heals just as much as it scars.

Data:

Winter’s Bone

Release date: June 11, 2010
Director: Debra Granik
Writer: Debra Granik and Anne Rosellini based on the novel by Daniel Woodrell
Director of Photography: Peter Zeitlinger
Running Time: 100 minutes or 1 hour and 40 minutes

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