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Friday, Dec 31, 2010 1:01 PM UTC

3. “Winter’s Bone”

This stylistic break in the gripping Ozark drama may seem random at first, but it makes perfect sense

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Topics: Best Film Scenes of 2010, Film Salon, Best of 2010, Winter's Bone, Movies,

3.

Atmosphere is everything in this film version of Daniel Woodrell’s novel, set in a poor rural area of the Ozark mountains, where life seems to have changed little in the last 50 years. When the film begins, 17-year-old Ree (Jennifer Lawrence) is already under immense pressure, caring for two younger siblings and a mentally deteriorating mother after her dad — who was never much help to begin with — has gone AWOL, maybe for good. When she’s given less than a week to save her family’s home — the only thing standing between them and the hard lives of woodland creatures — the strain becomes nearly unbearable.

The scene we’ve highlighted here occurs about two-thirds of the way through the story. It’s the most surprising scene in the film, not because it gives anything away — it’s a dream sequence, with oblique imagery that invokes earlier events and foreshadows future ones — but because it’s stylistically different from the rest of “Winter’s Bone.” It’s almost a little abstract short film stuck in the middle of a visually conservative, Deep South spin on hard-boiled detective fiction. But it only feels random the first time you see it; by the time the final credits roll, every part of it — from the close-ups of panicked woodland creatures to the roar of chainsaws — makes perfect, beautiful sense.

Matt Zoller Seitz

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Matt Zoller Seitz's series of 10 video essays isn't just a countdown of the year's greatest scenes, though it is that. It also zeroes in on the DNA of movies -- the shots and cuts, lines of dialogue and music cues that illustrate a film's personality and style -- to

show just what makes them so riveting.
5. "The Social Network"
6. "Ne Change Rien (Change Nothing)"
7. "Shutter Island"
8. "Somewhere"
9. "The Ghost Writer"
10. "Solitary Man"

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