How Winter’s Bone was Made

Winter’s Bone: Soundtrack and Music

The music didn’t fail to capitalize on the significance of the location, which made the Winter’s Bone movie even more immersive. Most of the music was performed by musicians from the region. It included traditional mountain folk songs, hardscrabble honky-tonk tunes, gentle folk ballads, hymns. The soundtrack features two originals, one performed by the Tindersticks’ Dickon Hinchliffe, and the other by actor John Hawkes, who played the crucial role of Teardrop in the movie.

Furthermore, the dominant voice in those performances is none other than Merideth Sisco. With her mountain voice, she provided arresting vocals that captured the spirit of the movie. Whether it’s her rendition of “High on a mountain,” the divine “Farther Along,” or the traditional “Ballad of Jessup Dolly,” she and her band Blackberry Winter are lovely.

Where Was Winter’s Bone Filmed

The location of the Winter’s Bone movie is imposing, present, and strong. Set in the frozen Ozarks, It gives the viewer a sensation that it is a character in the movie. It’s almost like the location lived the characters rather than the characters living in it. No wonder the movie was nominated for four Academy Awards, including one for Best Picture.

While the landscape is beautiful, it is also dark. It’s isolated from the rest of the world. Just as portrayed in the novel, the small community is also as tough as the cold Ozarks. During the movie, the viewer learns to trust no one as the inhabitants of this world cannot be trusted. That is evident in how her hostile relatives warn young Ree from searching for her missing father. But she refuses to back down and she also becomes a folk hero.

Here in a secluded, drug-stricken community, Ree symbolizes the victimized yet strong women in the Ozarks. Certainly, the surreal effect of the invisible yet ever-present drug makes the movie feel like an Alice in Wonderland tale. A girl who is thrown in with challenges bigger than her, and she is must overcome them.

The location of the Winter’s Bone movie certainly boosted the realism, added depth to the storyline, and reflected the values the movie wanted to capture. It’s a testament to how untamed, raw, and brutal rural America can be.

Accolades for Winter’s Bone

Winter’s Bone Awards

In total, Winter’s Bone won 63 awards and earned 120 nominations. To name a few:

Wins:

AFI Awards: Movie of the Year.

Alliance of Women Film Journalist: Best Woman Director, Best Breakthrough Performance, and Outstanding Achievement by a Woman in the Film Industry.

Amazonas Film Festival: Best Film.

Nominations:

British Independent Film Awards: Best Foreign Film.

Golden Globes: Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture.

Academy Awards: Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role.

The Winter’s Bone movie is hailed as the turning point in Jennifer Lawrence’s acting career. Furthermore, it’s not a less important role for John Hawkes who played the role of Ree’s evil uncle.
Moral of the Movie

The burning question throughout the Winter’s Bone film is how Ree became so strong? Certainly, she didn’t get her personality from her parents, or anybody in her wretched community. It remains a largely unresolved issue.

The movie does deliver a message of hope and optimism in a grim world.

Is this what the filmmakers wanted to say with their movie?

Are humans born evil or good by nature? The movie isn’t about good and evil but it seems to ask the questions. If nobody raised Ree to be strong, is it then her human nature that drove her to face the impossible?

Perhaps, despite all the despair something good can be born.

Survival is another major theme in Winter’s Bone. This is a place where people hunt for food. And there’s a scene where Ree teach her young siblings how to use a rifle and hunt a squirrel.

Furthermore, the movie clearly depicts a clash of moral codes where people forsake their ethics to survive in a harsh world. It seems like deep down everybody knows the right thing to do but for some personal reason, they choose to stand by and do nothing.

In the end, it’s a movie that makes the viewer think. With many opportunities to be melodramatic, the movie managed to stay on course. At least, it is consistent.

“Winter’s Bone” will give you the chills!

First of all, the winter’s Bone movie is a curious blend of realism, gangster, and noir. If you’re curious about this movie, it’s a backwoods tale of a teenage girl who becomes entangled in some serious family drama. It’s a movie that takes “misery Loves Company” to new territories, to the Missouri Ozarks to be specific.

The movie is an adaptation of a 2006 novel by the author Daniel Woodrell.

Winter’s Bone Plot

Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) is a teenage girl in a dysfunctional family. Her mother is sick and unable to move. Her father is a suspected drug dealer who went missing after signing up their family homestead as a bail bond collateral. After the local Sheriff Baskin (Garret Dillahunt) shows up at her doorstep warning her of eviction, she embarks on a quest to find her father. All the while taking care of her depression-stricken mother and younger brother and sister.

She considers joining in the US army, in hopes of collecting the $40,000 cash bonus advertised in the recruitment posters. Her father is nowhere to be found and is a suspected criminal in crystal meth manufacture. She only has one week to find him. In order to keep the tumbledown roof over everybody’s head, she must be the man of the family.

As the movie unfolds, Ree is racing with time to find her father but first, she must uncover untold family secrets.

The screenwriters Debra Granik and Anne Rosellini adeptly portray the wretched and intertwined world of a dysfunctional family. Everything from lighting to camera angles and special effects serves to intensify the sickening atmosphere. Thus, the viewer teleport to a gloomy world of suspense with every scene.