Winter Bone opens in theaters today to rave reviews – with most of them stemming back to it’s Sundance premiere back in January, which was the lieu of where I got to sit down with the film’s helmer. Debra Granik sort of experienced the same critical reception with her debut film, a solid addiction drama in Down to the Bone (04), also a Sundance winner, but that bit the dust theatrically – and that’s sort of the starting point for my interview with her — how does one get so much love (the film made Vera Farmiga’s career) and then move onto the next project in difficult indie filmmaking conditions.
You’ll get a sense of the kind of back “bone” that is needed to stay afloat in the industry, how did Daniel Woodrell’s book come into the fold, Granik’s passion for strong female characters which I think might be on some subconscious level, emblematic of her struggle as a female filmmaker and finally, I asked her next project (a road-trip love-letter to the U.S) and about the film’s ending – which features some banjo play, which would perhaps come across as some tacked on cliche-like ending if done by anyone else. Adjust the volume if you need to – she had lost her voice the night earlier to what must have been a party atmosphere after the film’s screening.
