T H E F I L M S O F D E B R A G R A N I K
B R A T T L E T H E A T R E F R I D A Y , M A Y 3 1 S U N D A Y , J U N E 2
FILMOGRAPHY / SCHEDULE SNAKE FEED (1997) DOWN TO THE BONE (2005)..... FRIDAY, MAY 31, 6:30PM WINTER’S BONE (2010).......... SATURDAY, JUNE 1, 7PM STRAY DOG (2015)............... SUNDAY, JUNE 2, 4:30PM LEAVE NO TRACE (2018)......... SUNDAY, JUNE 2, 7PM
ALSO PLAYING AS PART OF THE PROGRAM FILMS SELECTED BY DEBRA GRANIK NASHVILLE (ALTMAN, 1975)........................... JUNE 1, 3:30PM COCKFIGHTER (HELLMAN, 1974)...................... JUNE 1, 9:30PM THE OTHER SIDE OF HOPE (KAURISMÄKI, 2017).... JUNE 2, 12:30PM HEROES FOR SALE (WELLMAN, 1933).................. JUNE 2, 2:45PM
"Coming of age in the Boston area: Waltham,
working people brought me places I could never go as a
Somerville, Mission Hill, JP. Boston formed and
civilian. You can’t go into the back rooms of the post
shaped me. From feeling a part of a liberal critical
office, meat packing counter, see the pesticide team
mass, a city of students who are in the midst of asking
working in the housing project, talk in-depth with a large
questions about big systems, to the hands-on training
scale apple grower—unless you have an assignment. I
of how to exploit video as a tool of activism—that all
would not have met the men and women who do those
happened in the neighborhoods and enclaves of this
jobs unless I was given the structure to be interested in
city.
their lives, ask questions, record their labor. Filmmaking is that structure. From this gig making industrial safety
Brandeis: Marx and Freud, the history of
films, I became engaged with photographing people in
documentary from Pere Lorenz to Humphrey Jennings
their work and performing labor.
to Salesman (1969) to Gimme Shelter (1970) to Joyce Chopra. Caring about almost everything!
Somerville: Vernon Street Studios was where I did my video-making. It was also used by several other groups of
Women’s Action Coalition: Being part of a radical
political media makers. In the toxic fumes of the foam
action group that was experimenting with ways to
factory, we’d edit and transfer our footage. We’d add our
push the discussion forward about the changes in
titles and our music on cranky outdated machinery.
everyday life that feminists wanted to see happen. I
Abundant skill sharing and training in Somerville, people
had a chance to taste cultural guerilla warfare—we
in the area willing to instruct, bring up the next
operated as a small group of combatants and
generation. Camera training at Somerville Community
conducted ambushes, sabotage, hit-and-run stickering
Access TV. Being schooled that the camera is an
tactics, non-sanctioned postering to fight the larger
important tool and weapon. It was instilled in me by
and less-mobile patriarchal and right-wing forces
these politicized veteran activists that it is worthwhile to
surrounding us. I was in the media and image-making
document, to bear witness, to reveal.
arm of the coalition. I loved activating and hitting the streets. I liked the adrenaline, and the feeling—to
MassArt: Sitting in on classes there, got to see a great
speak up fueled a sense of being alive and active, as
variety of the experimental film work made in the U.S.
opposed to still and angry. (Backed by L7’s Shove,
during the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Pried open my mind and
which we used on the soundtrack to one of the
provided a strong counter influence to the documenting
agitprop videos we created.)
and chronicling. Through friendships made at MassArt I committed documentation of many protests—and
Massachusetts Dept of Occupational Safety:
eventually had links to colleagues who could use that
Creating educational and training videos for a state
footage which I stood out there in the field tirelessly
agency with a mandate to protect the health of
recording.” —Debra Granik, from a message sent on May 20, 2019
RECURRING COLLABORATORS
Anne Rosellini: co-writer on Winter’s Bone and Leave No Trace, producer on all four featurelength works
Michael McDonough: director of photography on Snake Feed, Down image from Down to the Bone
to the Bone, Winter’s Bone, and Leave No Trace
"A freezing winters day, in the parking lot of a grocery store in a small town in upstate New York. An American flag cake careens down the belt to the
Victoria Stewart: second assistant editor on Winter’s Bone, producer and editor on Stray Dog, assistant
checkout stand. This is the opening to Down To the
editor on Leave No Trace
Bone, an everyday drama about a society, which has lost its bearings, in which the camera closely tracks the
Jonathan Scheuer: co-writer on
life of its protagonist, Irene. She is struggling to raise
Snake Feed, executive producer on
two sons, keep a stale marriage afloat and conceal her cocaine addiction as long as she can. In a sudden burst of decisiveness, Irene enrols in a rehab programme,
all films through Stray Dog
Dale Dickey: performer in Winter’s Bone and Leave No Trace
hoping to get her husband back. On her return, the distance between them seems to have become even greater since their separation, pushing Irene into a destructive relationship with a former cocaine addict. Without ever falling into easy moralizing, Down To the Bone sets out to provide an accurate depiction of its
Kerry Barden and Paul Schnee: casting on Winter’s Bone and Leave No Trace
Dickon Hinchliffe: composer on Winter’s Bone and Leave No Trace
characters, with all their failings and problems, who are struggling in that grey zone between right and wrong."
Ron Hall: performer in Winter’s Bone and subject of Stray Dog
—Description of Down to the Bone courtesy Viennale Film Festival
"Found structures and sets that are loaned by the real inhabitants can’t be imitated. Winter’s Bone was filmed in a local family’s holler. The family was very involved in advising us, providing information, allowing their animals to be present while filming. Over time spent working with them in preproduction, the granddaughter in the family, Ashley, became a lifemodel inspiring the character of the younger sister. Eventually she seemed like the only one who could inhabit the shoes of this character and I asked her if she would play the role. She brought in her own toys and this tree house was a real place in her yard. When I saw it, I liked the shape and form photo by Sebastian Mlynarski
of the structure and it was one of the many details from the life lived in that holler that we incorporated. The best path to photograph this story was to stick closely to what we were shown, what the family was really living with. The houses, toys, vehicles, clothing, and animals in their holler became the setting and textures of the physical
image from Winter's Bone
environment of the film." — DG
photo by Victoria Stewart
"Parking lots and the great shadows cast by the tall lights. In the making of Winter’s Bone, we had a chance to collaborate with a group of intensely talented local musicians in Southern Missouri. This is one night after a gig when they went to get some pie and coffee before hitting the road home. Parking lots are significant part of the American landscape in any region. They are part of the landscape of nowhere that we contend with. What surprised me about this tableau was the dog-shadows. I hadn’t really seen them amidst people shadows before. I was taken with how graphic this banal setting became once I noticed the shadows. Light and shadow being one of the core guts of all photographic imagery and painting." — DG
TWO INTERVIEWS WITH DEBRA GRANIK by Jake Mulligan Originally published on DigBoston.com on October 23, 2015
No, I went back a couple times, then came home again, looked at the footage I was collecting, and asked “what
JM: You met Ron Hall on the set of Winter’s Bone.
am I getting here?" That’s when you realize [you have a
When did you realize that he was a movie in his
film]—when the footage contains something
own right? Does that happen immediately, or were
unexpected, or when it’s surreal, or when it gives you a
you already shooting footage before you decided he
stomachache, or all of the above.
was the subject for a feature? DG: These projects often start with an inexplicable
I read that you would shoot in sessions that lasted
attraction. There’s something about the way Ron
between 7 and 10 days. Is that accurate? Were early
moves, or his dialect, that attracts my attention. Or
shoots longer or shorter?
there’s something I want to know from him—I see the
The first shoot was 4 to 5 days. And that spurred us to
“Vietnam” tattoos on his arm, and want to know what
keep going back, and then the shoots got longer. We
that meant to him. Or maybe I always wanted to talk
also collaborated with local shooters to get footage of
to veterans who’d had that experience. But if you
one-off events we weren’t there for, and also to get
come out of a place that’s not your own, and you’re
footage of events that can’t be planned (like a funeral.)
still thinking about someone there afterwards, then
We knew when Ron’s family would be having a music
there’s going to be an urge to go back.
night or a potluck or something like that, so we’d always try to structure things so we’d come down to Missouri
And what attracted you to Ron on a cinematic
on one of those days. So he was a featured player. He
level? How early are you thinking about the shape
could articulate and communicate to us what he was
of the final film?
doing on a daily basis.
It was a life that was really photographically available. There’s a lot of texture there. There’s the
And once we get there, there’s some level of verite. You
gravel drive, with all these humble dwellings, and a
embed, and you’re quiet, and the phone rings whether
bunch of bearded men. There’s small dogs. On that
you’re there or not. A cake burns, or dinner is cooked,
level, it’s a photographic paradise: there are layers,
either way. But other things do have to be planned for.
textures, unexpected qualities, lyrical qualities, and
The subject, after a while, knows how your crew works.
downright beauty. But I didn’t immediately say “Ron
And they begin to collaborate with and accommodate
embodies a bundle of American themes and I know
that. I joke that when you get deep enough into a
there worth discussing.”
project, you start to get emails from your subject saying “there’s something you’re going to want to film!”
There does seem to be a level of balance between
talking, people are reenacting everything under the sun, from
what’s planned and what’s merely observed in the
the Middle Ages through the American Civil War. There are
film. There’s a scene where Ron’s neighbor Bobby
people reenacting Vietnam, people dressed as Native
comes over to pay rent. And there’s a beautifully
Americans. It’s a psychohistorical bazaar—America is the
composed shot of Bobby walking in the door—
bizarre bazaar.
that’s not the sort of thing you would catch on the fly, right?
The editing often has us going back and reconsidering the
Yeah, and we have like four different versions of
footage we’ve already seen. Especially in the first 15
Bobby paying rent. There was one instance where we
minutes—for instance when you introduce that trailer
really loved the lines and the exchange—but [the
park, there’s no indication that Ron is the proprietor.
image] was blue and black, and on a video-level it was
That’s a big risk. We are a culture that loves clarity and
super compromised. And so the next time Bobby came
causality. There’s way more room for ambiguity in the
up, we altered the blinds in Ron’s office, so that
European film tradition. When we create narratives in this
Bobby would be illuminated. And we held them up,
country, even our closest colleagues will say things like “Do
too, so that we could get the shot of Bobby walking in
you think we maybe need some more explanation in there?”
the door. So that’s halfway between documentary-
There’s a lot of pressure on today’s editors to never leave any
style shooting and traditional composition. I’ve seen
doubt for anybody. And if viewers have to work too hard,
Bobby go through that gate, and be greeted by those
they make that out to be a negative thing.
dogs, so many times. And the thinking is I really like that, I’ve become accustomed to that, I want to get a
So was that your intent? To structure the images in a way
shot of that.
that would constantly provoke and then deconstruct specific expectations about this culture and region?
Some of the imagery in the film has an inexplicable
I mean, that’s the dream of what editing does for our thought
quality. There’s the scene where Ron reveals the
process, right? Editing provides an opportunity for us to
specifics of his military service: he’s talking to a
compare two things. Or to alter a feeling that has been
clown.
produced by a first piece of information via a second piece of
I know! That visual. When Tory [Stewart], the editor,
information. You’re not looking for the “gotcha” moment, as
would finish a scene, we’d always be freezed on a
Albert Maysles said. You’re not looking to throw your subject
frame. And in that case, in those moments, I would
under the bus. And if you show something unsavory and
succumb. My America, our America… We live in a
problematic, you have to ensure that you show the other
very cacophonous and unexpected set of crosscurrents
elements of the person’s life too—because the unsavory
at all time. And we have to learn to cope with the fact
aspects are never all there is (unless you’re making a movie
that in this very rural community center, they’ll be a
about a sociopath.) The responsibility of editing is to fan the
neighbor in a clown suit who’s listening to an older
cards out, to show the full deck. And when people say what
vet speaking about wartime experiences. That just is.
do you want people to get out of your film, the answer is I
My brain goes crazy to think that while we’re
want them to ask questions.
"The art of rebuilding motorcycles in a backwoods garage. This was a place that a bougie city-slicker could not go alone. This is a place without a published address. This is not visible from any street or lane. Our guide, Stray Dog, was friendly with a young man in the area who could reassemble and re-build almost any motorcycle. His understanding of the mechanical systems in a motorcycle was at an expert and genius level. He would get creative and mix and match pieces from a wide range of bikes. This was one of his creations. Highly custom—no two alike—fanciful and intimidating end results. In a different life, he might be on a design team. For now he was tinkering, amusing and impressing his friends with his resourcefulness, but with an aura of the threat which the large glass of alcohol in his hand cast over his every day." —DG
image from Leave No Trace
The following is an extended transcript of
But they’re all bound together by this one
by the findings. It was of course
an interview originally published in the
base—they know each other through this
photogenic. The director of photography
June 28, 2018 issue of Dig Boston.
business endeavor they’re trying to do. So
that we like to work with was amped about
I’m just trying to find a visual, a concept,
the idea. And Oregon crews are really adept
When I interviewed you leading up to the
that we can cling to. Sometimes when
at working in the forest or in the rain. So a
release of Stray Dog, you’d mentioned
you’re doing a documentary, it’s like
lot of things are starting to stack up, saying
that you were doing pre-production
groping blind, looking for what? Not truth,
yes, yes—we can make this film.
work on a nonfiction feature about the
but evidence, detail… you find a lot, and
lives of men who’d recently been released
some of what you find is not what you were
Another comment that stuck with me
from prison. Is that a film you still hope
looking for. It’s a messy business.
from our conversation about Stray Dog
to make? And what led you from that
was you citing the photographic texture
project towards Leave No Trace?
Leave No Trace was being developed,
of that film’s location as being one of the
I am still doing that project. Even on the
simultaneously, as a script. It’s an
primary motivations that attracted you
train today, I was hacking away at it. We do
adaptation of a novel called My
towards making it in the first place.
it in monthly increments. So at the end of
Abandonment. A producer up here in
Certainly I felt a similar interest at work
each month, I owe this big report to the
Boston, Linda Riceman, had been very
in Leave No Trace, especially in the
team: what we filmed, what’s not working,
affiliated with that book. She’d cultivated a
opening minutes, like the way that the
what is working, what’s happening in the
relationship with the author, and then
green palette of the park gives way to the
lives of the characters. And in today’s
brought the book to me and my producing
grey of the nearby city’s architecture,
report, I pasted this big hydra into the
partner, Anne Rossellini. We liked it, and
highways, and concrete.
beginning paragraph. I said, we have to
we thought, let’s dig deeper: let’s go to
You know how they say people who live in
view this as a hydra.
Portland, let’s do a recce, let’s talk to social
the north have 18 different words for snow?
workers, let’s ask rangers to bring us into
I always think people of Oregon must have
Is it expanding?
the heart of this municipal park where
had that many words for shades of green…
Well that, yes, but… there’s a core
people do live undetected for long periods
to be in the Pacific Northwest and to
organization—meaning a business—that
of time, let’s go out into the farm area
immerse there means you’ve got to see all
the people we’re filming are affiliated with.
[where the characters are temporarily
those raindrops, and you’ve got to see all
They’re trying to open a gym. So the core is
placed], let’s look at all of these
the ways that rain then reflects off surfaces.
this place. Then there are all these lives,
environments and see if we think we can
It is a texture: the reflective quality, and
like tentacles, trying to find their own way.
tell this story. And we were very excited
moistness, of the temperate rainforest.
Much of Leave No Trace occurs in
One thing that I’ve always found very
I’m definitely in that school that believes
“natural locations”, but it also shares
moving about your films is how little
there’s too much weight on the human face
certain qualities with the tradition of the
information you give at the start of each
in the American cinema. That’s implicit
road movie, or just with on-the-road
work. With Stray Dog I felt the editing
and imperative within the star system. And
stories in general. Every twenty minutes
was designed to suggest expectations
I become exhausted by that. I want to see
or so, invariably, we end up in a new
which are themselves related to
what they’re doing as well. I want to see
location. And there’s always a process of
stereotypes—and then those stereotypes
where they are. The face versus the
indoctrination that comes with each new
and expectations get broken down by the
environment… when you’re on a set…
location: getting use to the labor, the
information and images which follow. I
even a set that’s quite familiar, like a starlet
social mores, even just what they eat.
felt a similar quality in Leave No Trace.
in a wealthy house… what’s interesting
Unfortunately I haven’t been able to
Can you tell me about how you decided
probably is her, or him. Because the
read the source novel on which the film is
what information to give upfront?
fabricated wealthy-house set isn’t all that
based, so I don’t know how faithful this
As a storyteller, I love to go against the
interesting after so many years of it.
is towards the original text. But I am
grain of the conventional American dictate,
curious where it came from—from the
which would be that A has to really connect
Could you tell me about finding the
text, or from your research, or from
to B which then connects to C—and that if
editing rhythm for this movie?
something else altogether?
there’s any moment between B and C
I like to work with the editor. And we go
The locations, once we find them, influence
where you think some viewers might get
through a lot of versions. Any shot that has
us a lot. They come into the script in a big
lost, you have to plug it up so they don’t.
the option to go longer has probably, in the
way, whether they were in the novel or not.
With backstory, that’s really tricky. Most
course of editing, been very short at one
If something ends up being there that we
stories involve it, to bring you there. And I
point, then somewhere in the middle at
respond to, then we try hard to bring it in,
do think about dreams, and flashbacks, and
another, then maybe we tried it very long to
because it’s what we really found. So we
whatnot, but then I think, “well, what
see if that was effective… we try a lot of
love to think of it as a marriage between
happens if, like life, you just start it in the
different permutations. I would say that
what’s in the book and what we really find.
here and now”. You don’t get to see Tom’s
editing is trial-and-error unless you have a
mother because she’s not there. You don’t
big dogma going in—unless you have a big
A nonfiction element.
know a whole lot about Tom’s military
formal thing you’re going to do, [like] the
Yes. And you’re right with the analysis of
experience, his combat experience. Not to
beginning of every scene will begin with a
how it breaks down, that’s even how we
be coy, but it’s true: we’re dropping little
crane rising up, and then we’ll cut to this
edited them, as chapters. “The forest”, “the
pieces of information, and if you’re
and that.
farm”, “on the road”, “in the cabin”, and
listening, you’ll latch onto them.
finally that community at the end, which is
Would it be fair to say that you’re not
named Squaw. That community has certain
Does this relate to your sense of visual
dogmatic in that sense?
kind of dwellings… and we didn’t know
composition? You don’t employ the
It’s fair to say that, yes. I’m very eclectic,
what we were going to find. Squaw was a
close-up very much. You often stay in the
actually. I’m trying to look for how long
real place. It was an old logging camp from
long-shot, and in deep focus. In terms of
people can actually take in the scene, study
the 1920s. With those dwellings which look
framing and blocking you’re often giving
it with the characters, let the characters
a little bit like an advent calendar or like a
as much emphasis to setting as you are to
function and perform something, really
Hobbit village. It’s not just RVs but these
the people within them. Is that connected
make something, really cut something,
micro-cabins, original tiny houses.
to this idea of giving the viewer freedom
really use the wood to light the fire, even if
to be active?
the fire doesn’t light magically on the first
On some level I'm surprised to hear that
Well I love to include the details in the
take. Let’s just say it takes four tries. In that
the community is one you found as
frame. I want people to be able to see the
scene, it’s damp, he’s getting frustrated—
opposed to one you crafted, because it
camp, to see how they start a fire. Near the
it’s important to let some of that play out.
hews closely to the kind of communities
end there is a moment where Ben lights a
depicted in your other works.
fire with a ferro stick. And I really wanted
The nonfiction elements yet again.
Yeah, it was not a set that we built. And we
the knife to be seen—it was pretty much a
Yes, absolutely. I was wondering what
were grateful when we found it, because it
close-medium. As much as possible, my
[Tom] would find in the rural setting. She
did remind me of some of the wonderful
favorite close-up is one that includes the
found a young man next door who’s getting
parts of Stray Dog’s micropark… the idea
hands. He’s hunched over, so they’re very
through school by being interested in
that the people in the dwellings are
close to him—that is a very “close” shot.
agricultural class, who does 4-H. 4-H exists
neighborly, at times. Not always, but you
in every state of the country. It’s one of
know—they can decide to pull out a guitar,
But it’s more about the motion of the
those unknown unifiers—which intrigue me
say, and make a night of that.
body than about the face?
sociologically.
On a narrative level Leave No Trace functions as a parable of sorts. And yet there’s still this intense focus on surface texture —the kind of thing we’ve been talking about—the research elements, the nonfiction elements. They’re discernable and they don’t necessarily feel as if they’re being used in service of the parable, or in service of some larger “point”. Is this a balance that you’re conscious of while you’re working? You can never be so conscious of that. I think you grow into it. You start to make the connections as you’re working. I don’t have the kind of brain that can go into it with that. It was kind of a fluke, but halfway through one of the many rewrites of Leave No Trace, I happened to go to a performance of The Tempest. And I was like, lo and behold, here’s this really adrift father character, it’s different circumstances but, he’s also exiled, he also has a storm in his emotions, and he’s also hypervigilant yet conflicted and confused, and feels harmed, and is a roiling person, and his daughter is his whisperer, almost, she’s the person who can bring him into balance. I loved that this classic work of literature shed some light about dyads—about two people who offer each other something complementary that somehow facilitates survival.
And there is an element of the mythic which sits on the margins of the movie. There are a few scenes where it creeps in. The ending, with the mountain, is one. That is almost literally a case of the mythic sitting on the edge of the movie just out of view. After screenings of Winter’s Bone, it was European people who kept telling me: that’s a classic fairy tale. The witch warns her not to go too far into the forest, she goes anyway, she has to bring back a trophy, the heart of the hunter, to prove she was there, and that she did the journey, and that she didn’t turn back. Leave No Trace has a few of those elements—getting very lost in the tempest, right? They go deep into the forest, there’s a storm raging, trees are blowing, the water’s coming down, it’s getting colder, they’re very lost—those are the elements… to tell a story in a natural environment means you’re going to bring in the mythic.
image from Leave No Trace
Image from Stray Dog
"The ending shot of Werner Herzog's Stroszek
cheaply constructed asphalt and cement site of fast-
(1977) is a chicken on a turntable, dancing behind
buck commerce. We don't know if he is there
the glass of a miniature tableau in a roadside arcade.
volitionally or forced by circumstance. All we do
The chicken dances to the surging and careening
know is that he could not be more alone in the
harmonica and whooping vocals of Sonny Terry,
frame. Attempting to describe it reminds me of a
scratching the surface for traction and turning in
statement by the filmmaker Claire Denis: ‘many
circles. The chicken is out of context, isolated, lost
times images describe and make you feel what
and lonely. The music imposes a sense of the frantic
words can not.’
and desperate. As I replayed the scene of the dancing isolated Why do animals let us feel things we cannot put in
chicken, and heard the police officer speak the
words, and cannot experience directly? Is it because
phrase "can't stop the dancing chicken", I thought
they give us space to wonder what they might be
why am I attracted to this? Is it not wildly heavy-
feeling, which is probably what we're feeling? Or is
handed? I struggle with the contemporary taboo of
it the space to project onto this chicken my feelings
being too obviously symbolic. Sometimes,
about the protagonist, and what has happened to him
especially when it comes to trying to let out a cry of
in his struggle to survive living in the U.S.? All
feeling about this big, young, conflicted, fast, cheap,
these questions surge up, triggered by this final shot.
and outta control nation, I crave the heavy-handed.
Then there's the awareness that the chicken is locked
Sometimes the most unsubtle image serves as an
in a cage inside an arcade in which “Genuine Indian
elegy, eliciting the ancient and needed emotional
Souvenirs” are sold, adjacent to a parking lot in
cycle of catharsis. Herzog certainly does not shy
which a lone Native American man in full regalia is
away from confrontation, holding up mirrors, or
standing, waiting, watching as cars drive by.
catharsis. I have a special reverence for filmmakers
Visually, this lone figure is within the larger arcade
who do what I dare not." - DG, excerpted from
of the tawdry re-sale of his culture, encased in a
longer writing about Stroszek
The Art of the Unreal
originally published in Dig Boston on May 30, 2019
by Hannah Kinney-Kobre When we talk about realism, we talk about
of surviving in the wild: McKenzie’s
But her films also reveal those places where
it mostly in terms of the banal. The can
character begs to sit down; her hands grow
reality shifts not on the basis of terror but
rolling down the hill, desperate impatience
cold and stiffen as her father hurriedly
on the basis of something akin to mystical
in waiting rooms and lines, offhand
breaks branches and clips fronds in order to
experience. Later in Leave No Trace, Tom
gestures and flat lighting––those details that
construct some kind of shelter, placing
helps a neighbor with beekeeping. The light
we take to signify everyday life as it is
leaves inside her jacket for insulation. But
is warm and dappled; Granik cuts close on
lived. The filmmaker Debra Granik is often
when watching the scene we don’t register
the hive as a section of it is pulled up, the
described (and on occasion has self-
it just as a realist depiction of survival in
yellow of the bees revealed by the light, a
described) as a “social realist.” And it is
the forest, but as a place where reality
faint humming sound emerging alongside
true that Granik does hew to a certain
breaks down: The light in the scene is
them. The woman places the bees in Tom’s
realist tradition; her films are often about
intensely blue, turning the patterned green
hands, as the camera moves from a medium
survival on the edge of systems. This is true
leaves into something kaleidoscopic, a
shot to focus more on Tom, now perfectly
of the father and daughter who quite
vision only broken up by the white of their
quiet except for the noise of the bees. Later
literally live on the edge by choosing to live
breath in the air (the cinematography is by
she shows the hive to her father, instructing
in the woods in Granik’s latest film, Leave
Granik’s longtime collaborator Michael
him to close his eyes, then removing her
No Trace, but also the residents of the RV
McDonough). Granik and editor Jane Rizzo
protective suit. When he opens his eyes, he
park in her documentary Stray Dog, who
cut quickly between shots here––Foster
smiles––and the film cuts close to her face,
struggle to pay rent or see dentists. But
grabbing a bundle of sticks, the harsh noise
serene, surrounded by wisps of hair, then
what marks Granik as a realist is not so
of his feet on the frozen ground, and his
moves down to her fingers, crawling with
much her interest in survival but her
knife hacking at the branches. The abrupt
bees. Reality gives way once more, but into
interest in the process of survival. Her films
cutting and his abrupt movements are
an image not terrifying but quietly ethereal
document the minute details of experience
contrasted with McKenzie’s slow, almost
and ineffable––a moment where the
that are usually left out in service of a plot:
mechanical attempts to collect fronds.
material of reality shifts not to produce a
the way Ree slices potatoes directly into the
Music seeps in, long dissonant chords, and
horrifying emptiness but instead a vivid
pan in Winter's Bone, or the sound that rain
the editing is no longer abrupt but rather
mystery.
and sleet make as they hit leaves in Leave
elliptical: Foster constructing the shelter, to
No Trace. This attention to the intricacies
him picking his daughter up, to placing the
Granik has cited influences such as
of experience is borne of a careful research
glistening leaves into her jacket.
filmmakers Ken Loach and Mike Leigh––
ethic––Granik has stated in many
but also, tellingly, the work of classical
interviews that she spends years doing
As the two lie down, McKenzie’s Tom asks
Hollywood directors like King Vidor and
research for each of her films, even taking
him if they’re going to freeze to death in
William Wyler. She notes in one interview
the time, for instance, to interview and talk
their sleep, a flashlight illuminating her
that the work of these classical Hollywood
with truck drivers before writing a short
face. When he says no, she asks him how
directors is “sometimes more cumbersome
scene in Leave No Trace where one truck
he knows that, with the camera close on her
or melodramatic than European social
driver offers the primary characters a lift.
pale blue face. But the sequence then ends
realism, because they are emerging from
And yet to say that Granik’s films depict
on her father’s face, the white light of the
the studio system.” Granik’s work is not
reality is to leave out the fullness of
flashlight strong on him as he looks up into
cumbersome, not having emerging from a
experience they actually depict.
the dark. Granik by this point heightens the
system that functions in the same way as
intensity of the sequence so that it verges
Hollywood did in the ’40s. And while her
What she is actually interested in are the
on the expressionistic—the blue color, the
work is not melodramatic in the way we
places where our idea of what life is begins
jagged cutting, and the clinical white light
recognize melodrama in classical
to disintegrate and become something else,
amidst the dark. It captures reality not as it
Hollywood film––as something explicitly
the marginal space that exists between the
is lived but as it is felt. The motions of
constructed in the narrative itself––Granik’s
realist and the surreal where our experience
everyday life gives way to the moments
films do reveal how the heightened and
becomes something strange to us. For
where our experience of reality is not so
unreal sensations of the melodramatic form
instance, there is a scene in Leave No Trace
banal, not dependent on the temporal, but
exist even in the banalities of daily life.
where the father and daughter (played by
fragmented instead. In this scene
Realism expands under her watch to
Ben Foster and Thomasin McKenzie
Granik captures those moments of terror so
encompass the unreal, the horrifying, and
respectively) camp out in the freezing
acutely that it appears the material the
the fantastic—not life as it is seen, or even
forest, which on one level demonstrates
world is built out of seems to have become
typically photographed, but rather how it is
Granik’s attention to the practical realities
something else entirely.
experienced.
images from Leave No Trace
produced in conjunction with