[To complement
last week’s series on winter histories, I wanted to focus this week on cultural
representations of the cold, wintry and otherwise. Add your cultural
connections for the cold, in all media and genres and with all meanings, for a
frrrrrrrigid weekend post, please!]
On the gritty
realism, and something more, found in a compelling recent indie film.
It’s set in the
Ozarks, not the Appalachians, but in many other ways writer-director Debra
Granik’s award-winning film Winter’s Bone (2010; I haven’t read Daniel
Woodrell’s 2006 novel,
so I’ll be focusing on the film alone here) would have made a perfect addition
to my early-October series on AmericanStudying Appalachia. The film feels very
much like a 21st century version of local
color, one that utilizes the same sorts of regional and cultural
stereotypes yet also, like the
best such regionalist fiction, finds the complex and compelling humanity
within the locally grounded communities and stories it traces. That Winter’s Bone’s communities and stories
includes a heavy dose of methamphetamine
production represents, unfortunately, precisely such a realistic (if
certainly controversial) engagement with early 21st century life
in the Ozarks.
In its
protagonist and heroine Ree, however—acted to understated perfection by a very young Jennifer
Lawrence—Winter’s Bone adds an important
layer on top of that bleak realism. I used the term “heroine” very purposefully
to describe Ree: despite its overall depiction of a gritty, dark world, one
defined not only by the centrality of meth but by threats (and realities) of
violence at every turn, Winter’s Bone
focuses on an idealized central character, a young woman consistently willing
to do everything possible (up to and including risking her own life) to take
care of her disabled mother and two younger siblings. And while the film impressively
balances those two sides, the darkness and the ideals, for most of its running
time, there’s little doubt by the conclusion that goodness has triumphed: Ree
has survived her ordeal, achieved her objectives, and remains firmly in control
of her family; she has even made a positive dent in the perspective of the
film’s other most important and complex character, her bitter and cynical uncle
Teardrop (John Hawkes).
These two
elements to Winter’s Bone, its local
color realism and idealized heroine, could be read as contrasting or even
contradictory. But there’s another possibility, one related to what I
highlighted in this
series on New England women’s writing: a recognition that a central theme
of much late 19th century local color writing was precisely the under-narrated
struggles, strengths, and heroisms
of American women. Much of that fiction, indeed, made an implicit or even
explicit argument that such a focus on local communities allows for an
awareness of and engagement with those women’s experiences and stories that
might otherwise be impossible within our dominant or traditional narratives of
American life and identity. Similarly, a young woman like Ree is far from a traditional
21st century film heroine or protagonist—but her home and region are
likewise outside of the norm when it comes to our collective stories, and in
drawing our attention to that setting and world, Granik’s film concurrently
makes it possible for us to engage with the singular, striking, and very
American story of young Ree Dolly.
Last cold
cultural connection tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Other cold connections you’d highlight?
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