For those of you who haven't seen Winter's Bone, it's... intense. Based on a book by Daniel Woodrell, it's a study of life in the Ozarks, shot in a neorealist fashion-- that is to say, many of the actors aren't actors at all, but locals of the region or people with real-life experience in the roles they're portraying.
Films like Winter's Bone don't generally attract me. I have a tremendous amount of respect for gritty drama, but it's just not where my interest lies. But this was an opportunity too special to pass up, and I was blown away by what I saw.
I was even more blown away by Granik.
You can always tell a Brandeis student, current or former, when you see one. We're socially conscious, outspoken, invested in seeing things clearly,* and have a particular kind of enthusiastic, adorable energy we like to call being Brandeis awkward. Granik is that all over-- gangly limbs and nervous smiles and vibrantly alert, even as she speaks softly. Her answers to our questions were always thoughtful, insightful, and extremely... well, consistent. Going into the Q&A, I'd wanted to ask three things-- "Why this story, why film, and why this story on film?"-- but as she started answering other people, I found I didn't have to. She was a politics major at 'deis (I looked this up on Wikipedia beforehand, like all well-researched students), and it just screams out in every word she says.
So when the microphone finally got to me, I condensed: "How did you come to film?" I asked.
Our eyes met, and she beamed at me. "You know, I-- I've asked that of other people, before. That's exactly what I would have asked. It, ah, it's interesting, to feel like I'm coming full-circle."
(I'm still smiling.)
And her answer was exactly what I had predicted it would be. That she'd always been attracted to documentary; that Boston in the early 80s was a political hotbed; that she was extremely lucky to find female role models enacting social change on myriad issues when she was at the right age to really hear them; that there's nothing like going out with a camera in your hand and capturing something powerful.
And it inspired me, because it's nothing like the answer I would have given in her place.
Our eyes met, and it felt everything like a torch being passed and nothing like a torch being passed, because in the two minutes she was answering my question, she saw herself in me and I saw a future in her. And it's brilliant, because no other medium can connect people like that. Yes, you can write fiction or non-fiction, memoir or satire, but you can't... you can't hear music on the printed page. You can't listen how someone's breath changes, see the glint in their eye, watch a sun set. Debra Granik found film because she loves America, she loves people, she loves regional stories and heritage and hard truths. And in a way, that's how I found film, too-- but where she's inspired by documentary, I'm inspired by narrative. And there's room for both of us.
They had a bunch of free posters sitting out on a table by the exit. I grabbed one, and I was halfway out the door before it occurred to me that I could get her autograph. That I could turn around and walk back in, and wait my turn so we could exchange pleasantries and be Brandeis awkward as she hastily scrawled her name.
I kept walking.
When I got back, I hastily scrawled something on that poster myself. Something that would carry all the meaning that an autograph never could. Something that would capture the connection we'd actually shared, even if only for a moment:
"How did you come to film?"
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*The Brandeis motto is Truth, even unto its innermost parts. It's hilarious, how accurate that is.
