In 2011, the Debra Granik-directed Winter’s Bone earned four Oscar nominations–Best Motion Picture of the Year, Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role (Jennifer Lawrence), Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role (John Hawkes) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Granik and Anne Rosellini).
The story of a 17-year-old trying to uncover the fate of her father among the criminal clans of the Ozarks, Winter’s Bone earlier won the Grand Jury Prize as well as the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. In between Sundance and the Oscars, the film won two 2011 Independent Film Spirit Awards for Best Supporting Male and Female Acting Performances (Hawkes and Dale Dickey, respectively). Additionally Winter’s Bone earned Spirit nominations for Best Director, Best Feature, Best Female Lead and Best Screenplay.
In the aftermath of the success enjoyed by Winter’s Bone, Granik entertained several narrative feature possibilities. Nonetheless, she eventually wound up moving into the documentary filmmaking discipline with Stray Dog, which centers on Ron “Stray Dog” Hall, a burly 67-year-old Vietnam War veteran dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder. Granik first met Hall at a biker church while scouting locals in the Ozarks for Winter’s Bone and wound up casting him in that film as crime boss Thump Milton.
Granik got to know Hall and became fascinated with him as a documentary subject. She saw his close, almost therapeutic relationship with his four small dogs, became drawn to his sense of humor and lack of self-consciousness, and began to see him as someone who could make the plight of Vietnam vets real and immediate to viewers.
Stray Dog had Granik shuttling between her NYC home and Reeds Spring, Missouri, where Hall runs At Ease RV Park, living in a trailer there. The documentary chronicles Hall’s life, casting an eye on his therapy sessions, tracking him on his annual biker pilgrimage to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. where he broke down in tears, and capturing his heartfelt romance with Alicia, a woman he met during a trip to Mexico; she is 23 years younger than him. We see him learning Spanish to better connect with Alicia who’s seemingly always there to comfort Hall when he abruptly awakes from PTSD-related nightmares. Hall has dedicated his life to her, other loved ones and fellow military service veterans.
Stray Dog made its world premiere in June at the Los Angeles Film Festival where it was honored with The Documentary Award. The Film Society of Lincoln Center selected Stray Dog for the Spotlight on Documentary section of its 52nd New York Film Festival which wrapped earlier this week (Sept. 26-Oct. 12). This marked Granik’s return to the New York Fest where she made her first major splash with Winter’s Bone.
“When I saw Ron on his own turf, in the RV park that he runs, I felt his life was extremely rich with important themes that you might not notice at first,” recalled Granik. “His story is about surviving the vicissitudes of an unforgiving economy. There are people among us in our society who survive poverty and make their lives interesting. His is an edgy, scrappy survivor story. His life is full of moxie, verve, color and texture. He’s someone who is naturally accessible and I saw the potential for his story–and the story of Vietnam vets–to connect with an audience.”
Granik’s making of Stray Dog happened incrementally over the course of three years, with shoots taking place during strategic points in Hall’s life. As for what the biggest challenge was for her in the transition to documentary filmmaking, Granik related, “The sheer quantity of the material. You wind up with many more scenes than you can put into a film. That’s the common ache in documentaries. The real intellectual challenge is to figure out what to keep in the film and what to let go of.”
Mixing it up
Granik said she would like to continue directing a mix of narrative feature films and documentaries, noting that “the big dogs” like Martin Scorsese are active in both disciplines. She added that documentaries are “less fickle” than narrative features in that the latter can fall through in a moment’s notice. Meanwhile, “you can always keep progressing with a documentary,” observed Granik. “People can’t pull the plug on your project. You can sustain your investment and involvement in a documentary.”
Furthermore, Granik could also extend her directorial reach to the advertising sector as she is represented by Los Angeles-based production house SPLENDID & Co. for commercials and branded content. Headed by partners/executive producers Erin Tauscher and Taylor Ferguson, SPLENDID is a Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC)-certified company.
Relative to the spot and branded entertainment arena, Granik said that she’s open to all kinds of storytelling opportunities. The director is no stranger to short-form fare. Granik is a graduate of the NYU Graduate Film Program where she won multiple awards for her short film Snake Feed.
From there, Granik went on to her feature directing debut, Down To The Bone, which helped launch the career of actress Vera Farmiga. For that movie, Granik won the Best Director-Dramatic honor and Farmiga the Special Jury Prize for Dramatic Acting at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. Down To The Bone also earned Granik a nomination for Sundance’s Grand Jury Prize. The film also scored at the 2005 Independent Spirit Awards with a pair of nominations–Farmiga for Best Female Lead, and director/writer Granik, writer Richard Lieske and producers Susan Leber and Rosellini collectively in the running for the coveted John Cassavetes Award.
As for what’s next, Granik is currently working on a couple of projects: a narrative feature adaptation of an undisclosed novel, with her producer Rosellini; and another not yet announced documentary which has the director in pre-pro with a journalist collaborator.
Fall 2014 Directors Intro
Lance Acord
Debra Granik
Rory Kennedy
Theodore Melfi
Bennett Miller
