Winter's Bone Film

In American Independent Cinema, Geoff King states “This book is organized around three main points of orientation: the position of individual films, or filmmakers, in terms of (1) their industrial location, (2) the kind of formal/ aesthetic strategies they adopt and (3) their relationship to the broader social, culture political or ideological landscape…they are produced in an ultra-low-budget world a million miles from that of Hollywood blockbuster; they adopt formal strategies that disrupt or abandon the smoothly flowing conventions associated with the mainstream Hollywood style: and they offer challenging perspectives on social issues, a rarity in Hollywood.” I agree with Geoff King’s definition of Independent Cinema. Independent films are films that show non-traditional cinematography; usually tell the story of people who are underrepresented in society, and shows content that is not typically shown in Hollywood films.

In classical Hollywood narratives the story line has a beginning, middle, and an end. It contains a climax, it has a linear story line, and it has goal-oriented characters. In contrast an Independent film is more realistic, the films are less predictable, and they don’t always have a happy ending. I believe Winter’s Bone does fit the description of Independent Cinema. Winter’s Bone was shot in the Ozark Mountains in Missouri this is a place we don’t tend to see in Hollywood blockbusters. Ree, the main character in the movie, was a 17-year-old girl who was raising her two younger siblings and taking care of her ill mother while searching for her father. She needed to find her drug-dealing father in order to keep their house that was put up for bond. The characters and conflict in the movie are elements we don’t usually see in typical Hollywood movies.

While in the search for her father, Ree faces many dangerous circumstances that put her life in danger. She gets beat up for asking for her father and continues to struggle throughout the