I believe that Winters Bone does rely on a very basic
understanding of the social context behind it throughout the majority of the
film, however in some scenes it relies on a more in-depth understanding of its
social context for the film to be fully enjoyed. An example of a scene where
this understanding is more focused on is the scene where Ree must saw off her
father’s hands to prove he is dead. I believe this scene is where the film
starts to lose people as before this the danger of poverty and becoming
homeless is very real and easy for anyone to understand, as represented in the
mise-en-scene such as Ree’s clothing as it tattered and mostly looks like hand
me downs which only purpose is to keep her warm in the winter, this shows that
she either doesn’t care for her appearance or that she simply can’t afford new
clothes to wear. The scene first shows a hand-held close-up of Ree plunging her
hand into the river to retrieve her fathers dead body. The shot lasts a long
time before she puts her hands into the water to try and build up suspense and
whilst the suspense makes sense as she is considering not doing this, the fact
that she still went through with it immediately took me out of as an an average
person I could no longer relate to or fully grasp the emergency of the poverty
to lead her to do this and so therefore would not go through with this myself.
Because of this it made it seem unrealistic to me. After this there are several
close ups of the reactions of Ree and Merab, the reactions shown from Ree could
be perceived as believable if an understatement of the average persons
reactions. The performance shown portrays Ree as sad and in shock due to the
increase in her heavy breathing and weak refusals of using the saw, but ultimately,
she is shown to be strong enough to do this and although this may be due to the
immediacy of being homeless looming over her head I feel like the average
viewer – myself included – would not be able to do this, even going as far to
be sick instead. This therefore made me feel took out of it again.
After Merab has chopped off both of Ree’s fathers hands
there is a close up of Ree who looks numb and expressionless, once again this
reaction is not the expected one of someone who has been a part of body
mutilation to their own family, most people – myself included – would probably
be sick, however here that may be because we can’t relate to the sense of
secretive loyalty there is in the Dolly family which would lead to this sort of
thing being considered as normal, this loyalty is also shown when Merab puts
her coat around Ree to try and comfort her. As the average person would not
have a family as secretive as this to the point where this is considered
average, this is unrealistic to them and puts them at unease, making it feel
like they’re watching a film, not that this is a realistic portrayal of a
family.
