With haunting images, an eerily beautiful soundtrack, and enduring characters, Debra Granik’s Winter’s Bone leads the viewer through the gray, misty world of the Missouri Ozarks and into the life of the Dolly family. Seventeen-year-old Ree Dolly, played by Jennifer Lawrence, is left to fend for herself and two younger siblings after her father disappears. Winter Bone transports the viewer into Ree’s somber and heartbreaking world by providing the viewer with an intimate view into the lives her family, the town drug dealers. Known for creating and dealing methamphetamine, the Dolly family’s secrets run deep. When Ree decides to search for her father or risk eviction, it does not sit well with her extended family members. As she struggles to …show more content…
The jump cuts guide the viewer through the various times and places of the story’s plot in a way that reflects the instability of Ree’s life. When Ree is approached by her cousin to go with her to find her father’s corpse, both women are on Ree’s front porch; however, as soon as the dialogue ends, the film utilizes the jump cut to show a woman pushing open a gate in an area that is presumably hours away from the porch where the women stood moments before. As the scene widens, the viewer is able to see that Ree and her cousin accompany this woman. There is no need for an explanation for how the two women got to the gate because the viewer intrinsically knows that Ree is leaving with the women to find where her father is buried. The jump cut serves to accelerate the time it takes in the world of the film. Not only does the jump cut allow for the acceleration of time, it jumps through time and space. Following Ree cutting off her father’s hands in the pond, the movie jumps to the next day at the police station with Ree’s father’s hands wrapped in a plastic bag in Ree’s lap without any explanation of how she arrived there and what she had been doing previously. The jump cut allows the film to speed up time and space without explanation; however, it is dependent on the viewer’s understanding of the context of the story. The use of the jump cut makes the story enticing and requires the viewer to pay
The book that i chose to do this speech on is Cowboy Ghost. Cowboy Ghost is about a boy named Titus who goes on a cattle drive through Florida in the early 1900s. The main character in this story is Titus. Titus Timothy MacRobertson is a small and weak 16 year old boy that wants to impress his father that kind of ignores him. His mother died giving birth to him and his father “blames” Titus for her death. His father (Rob Roy MacRobertson) is a strong, massive and hardworking man. His brother Micah is a 29 year old man that is described as being a second Rob Roy MacRobertson because of his strength and size, at the end of the book you find out that he was more like their mother. The cattle drive was going really good until seminoles (indians)
In today’s world there are millions of people who grow up in situations that make them powerless. Poverty, violence, and drugs surround children from birth and force them to join the cycle. In L.B. Tillit’s Unchained a young boy named TJ grows up in this environment. With both his mother and father struggling with addiction, he is often left alone on the streets to fend for himself. He turns to a local gang for protection and a sense of place in Jr. High, but is quickly taken out of the life he knows when his father overdoses and dies. TJ is sent to live in a foster home where he learns to care for others and meets a girl and falls in love with her. However, when his mother regains custody of him, TJ is forced back into the gang where he uses violence and drug dealing to stay alive. With help from his foster care manager he soon realizes that he can make it out of his life and return to his foster home and the girl he loves. A central theme of Unchained is that people have the power to make decisions to determine their future.
Edwidge Danticat novel, The Farming of Bones, provides readers with an understanding of the relations of Haitians and Dominicans by chronicling the Haitians escape from the Dominican Republic following the parsley massacre and emphasizing the importance of remembering the past. Though it is a work of fiction, Danticat is able to present characters and plot points that illustrate the racial and ethnic relations between Haiti and The Dominican Republic that led to the spread of antihaitianismo. The main themes of the novel explores the impact of nationalism and the formation of ethnic/racial formation through the characters actions which allows the reader to understand the ethnic/racial tension occurring at the time on a much personal level,
Throughout life, individuals are faced with decisions and obstacles that must be overcome. These decisions and actions are easily influenced by outside forces and motivations and the outcomes of our actions can have a drastic effect on one's destiny. The act of deciding a course of action is not always simple, but it is made even more difficult when we are faced with a time period and a negative outcome if we chose not to continue on our journey. In the short story “Winter’s Bone,” written by Daniel Woodrell, we are taught that throughout life people make choices between what they want to do and what they need to do. Sometimes those choices lead to unfavourable outcomes,
Winter is brought up in the projects of Brooklyn with her three younger siblings. They live a very wealthy life and get whatever they want whenever they want it. Her mother is more of sister than the typical mother role model, since Winter looks up to her she ends up becoming like her from the shallow self-centered individual, being motivated by material possessions, attractiveness and to attract as many men as she can, especially if they have money. When the family is moved to a mansion in Long Island the ‘ghettoness’ isn’t taking out of Winter and her father 's 'empire ' collapses, her father is arrested and locked up; the FBI ended up taking everything they owned. Winter and her three younger sisters are put into foster homes, while her mother becomes addicted to crack.
Godard directed with the very goal to break the classical film rules of its era. Though watching it now, it would seem like many of the techniques used are very present in other film. But, backtrack to 1960, Breathless was the very first film to incorporate jump cuts into it. Before Breathless was released, most French films were shot and filmed in pretty much the same manner. Godard utilized jump cuts to create a sense of chaos and confusion that seemed quite peculiar in the postclassical period. He essentially cuts the gaps between time and space to elicit a more eerie and fast paced aura to the film. No matter the period we are in, thriller films all eventually try to bring out the emotion of suspense. Godard wanted to show that he was able to make a film through unorthodox measures and produce a film that was better that the traditional ones.
...er introduction is the main reason why the foreshadowing is necessary for the reader. Therefore, this extract sets the tone for the rest of the book, a constant suspense on what will happen to Lennie and Curley's wife.
the audience does not determine a solution until the very end, and it's worth the wait. Foreshadowing helped to build suspense within the film as well as confuse the audience into not knowing the future for Rosemary. The use of space allowed us to identify with Rosemary in certain scenes as well as add to the suspense by showing great depth within certain shots. The compositions of tone were extremely important within the film because it was able to set the mood for a particular scene.
The fragment we were given is a three paragraph narration that has longer sentences at the beginning and little by little begins shortening them until by the final paragraph they are very short. The long sentences being used to slow down the time that will be very important in the passage and hence to build up the suspense and tension in the ambience until the sentences become short and speed up the time in the story, building the tension more and more to a point where it seems like something is coming or something will occur. The story is also told by a protagonist narrator which we know thanks to the use of the first person and the direct access to the character’s mind along with his feelings and thoughts. This narrator is retelling us the story (“I have naturally no wish to enlarge on this phase of my story. (…) I would have passed it over if I didn’t think that some account of it was necessary for a full understanding of what follows”[line 19-20]) of his trip over to Ransom’s house, a path which will trigger his paranoia and fear. The style of the writing is very direct as the narrator is practically in a one-sided dialogue with his readers.
Editing plays a vital role in the film Amélie. Jean-Pierre Jeunet uses editing to express the characters emotions and personalities throughout the movie. Without editing, this film would not be able to present a good message to the audience. For example, editing is important when the director adds animations such as the pounding hearts and the talking stuffed animals to emphasize the characters’ emotions within a particular scene. The film uses a mixture of continuity editing and discontinuity editing. For example, continuity editing is present in the scene when Améli calls the phone booth in the park and Nino answers. The two characters have a conversation with the camera transferring back and forth and they speak to each other. There is a
Winter in the Blood, a Native American novel written by James Welch, takes place on a cattle ranch in Montana, around 1970. On the surface, this is a story of a Blackfoot Indian sleepwalking through his life, tormented by visions, in search of a connection to his heritage. Welch's language is, at once, blunt and poetic, and the pictures it conjures are dreamlike and disquieting. Furthermore, the narrator of the novel is disheartened by the loss of his brother, Mose, and his father, First Raise ? the two most cherished people in his life. After struggling with guilt, sorrow, and alcoholism, the narrator overcomes these down falls through re-identifying with himself and his culture? specifically through the help of his grandfather, Yellow Calf.
This scene is attempting to insinuate to the audience his failure of being a detective. This presents discontinuity due to the fact that the the film is changing space rapidly with no indication of time. This has graphic discontinuity edit because the scene is trying to create dissimilar environments but present the same visual principle. Rhythmic relation in this also contributes to the discontinuity by montage. As each scene is changing within the scene, the musical background has sudden interruption to follow with the intensity. Therefore, as there is no logic connecting the shots, this is to underline and present bewilderment to the audience due to the rapid change in
There are multiple reasons why a book can be banned or challenged. Book banning causes the removal of materials in schools and libraries due to “inappropriate” content. The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold, was banned due to sexual content and language.
Is society too egotistical? In Hunters in the Snow, Tobias Wolfe gives an illustration of the selfishness and self-centeredness of humankind through the actions of his characters. The story opens up with three friends going on their habitual hunting routine; their names are Frank, Kenny, and Tub. In the course of the story, there are several moments of tension and arguments that, in essence, exposes the faults of each man: they are all narcissistic. Through his writing in Hunters in the Snow, Wolfe is conveying that the ultimate fault of mankind is egotism and the lack of consideration given to others.
Debra Granik presents the unforeseen and diametrically opposed stereotypical, Hollywood representation of America in her film Winter's bone. She provides the audience with multiple visual elements (key scenes). She outlines the idea that, “in the land of opportunity, opportunity is not given”. This means that many in America such as Granik’s character “Ree Dolly” have no ability to pursue their hopes and dreams. They face difficulty standing on their own two feet, without being so reliant on society. Because the opportunities that are supposed to be freely given, are just not given. This gives the audience intuition to think and comprehend what opportunities they have. Additionally, it outlines that American's are free to, but not free from