Winter's Bone (2010 is another film that I went to the trouble and expense of seeing in a theater. It was one of the best movies I'd seen in a very long time (this means films that come out during the year, as opposed to wonderful older films that were released, not infrequently, before I was even born).
Last night what leaped out immediately in The Hunger Games's first scenes was how much in common it had with Winter's Bone. I don't even mean that both films were originally novels -- Winter's Bone (2006) by Danielle Woodrell, and The Hunger Games (2009) by Suzanne Collins.
First, both films star the young actress Jennifer Lawrence, who plays the same role in both films. She's an adolescent, shouldering responsibilities heavy beyond her years (as our contemporary, U.S. culture sees things), for a fatherless family, whose mother, clinically depressed, has effectively checked out from taking care of any business. Ree Dolly's Winter's Bone community is the Ozarks. Katniss Everdene's is part of District 12, located in Appalachia. The Ozarks and Appalachia are the two parts of a single physiographical province. Though their dialects have differences they generally share culture and generational economic depression.
Both Ree and Katniss are competent -- they hunt and kill animals, prepare the meat for their siblings' meals, they know their way around the country, they are fiercely loving and loyal to their families, and integral, well-known and respected quantities in the larger community. Ree has to deal with that support turning on her, just as Katniss has to deal with the other tribute from District 12, Peeta, and whether she can trust what he says and does.
At the conclusion of both films, after successfully surmounting prolonged physical and emotional ordeal, Ree and Katniss face the uncertain future of re-integrating into family and community that they had to leave behind in order to save.
Clearly all these similarities between the movies are merely what happened. The authors of the books surely were not working with knowledge of each other's work, as they publish in such different categories -- Collins as sf/f YA and Woodrell as adult literary fiction, just as the movies made from the two books were marketed one as sf/f YA adventure and the other as an adult, independent, almost art house film.
What didn't just happen was this. The producers and director of The Hunger Games saw that *Jennifer Lawrence in Winter's Bone had the role of Katniss Everdene down solid already.
Ultimately, for me, Winter's Bone was a much more satisfactory film in every way than The Hunger Games. Among its problems The Hunger Games hardly touched the gifts and sponsorship that were so important to Katiniss and Peeta's survival, though so much is made of it in dialog at the start. They montaged the killing of children by other children for the Capitol's entertainment -- which is fine; we've got way too much reveling in graphic, prolonged blood and gore victims on the screen, both large and small. But Cato, and his technical skills, for instance is so missing in action as to not even be a character. That Rue was from an agricultural District was not told us. There was so much that the makers of the film depended on us to know from the book, that it felt like cheating. Which means, in the end, this isn't even a good adaptation, much less a quality movie. They cheated, right down to getting themselves an actress who had been taught the role by others -- though this isn't a criticism of the actress or how she played Katniss. I never got tired of looking at Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss, any more than I ever got tired of looking at her as Ree Dolly.
But I still wonder about the black characters in The Hunger Games. Cato and Cinna are the sort of names that owners so often gave their slaves, particularly English speaking owners. Probably the author used those names because she thought they were another reference to the days of the Games in the Republic and Empire of Rome. She's got a few dotted throughout the text. But one wonders why only her black characters got those those names, particularly when the movie, at least doesn't show any black citizens in Capitol. Rue, of course, isn't among those names. But she is a young girl of color who does die in the place of the White Girl Savior.
Ultimately, for me, Winter's Bone was a much more satisfactory film in every way than The Hunger Games. Among its problems The Hunger Games hardly touched the gifts and sponsorship that were so important to Katiniss and Peeta's survival, though so much is made of it in dialog at the start. They montaged the killing of children by other children for the Capitol's entertainment -- which is fine; we've got way too much reveling in graphic, prolonged blood and gore victims on the screen, both large and small. But Cato, and his technical skills, for instance is so missing in action as to not even be a character. That Rue was from an agricultural District was not told us. There was so much that the makers of the film depended on us to know from the book, that it felt like cheating. Which means, in the end, this isn't even a good adaptation, much less a quality movie. They cheated, right down to getting themselves an actress who had been taught the role by others -- though this isn't a criticism of the actress or how she played Katniss. I never got tired of looking at Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss, any more than I ever got tired of looking at her as Ree Dolly.
But I still wonder about the black characters in The Hunger Games. Cato and Cinna are the sort of names that owners so often gave their slaves, particularly English speaking owners. Probably the author used those names because she thought they were another reference to the days of the Games in the Republic and Empire of Rome. She's got a few dotted throughout the text. But one wonders why only her black characters got those those names, particularly when the movie, at least doesn't show any black citizens in Capitol. Rue, of course, isn't among those names. But she is a young girl of color who does die in the place of the White Girl Savior.
I'm probably trying to make something of nothing. Yet these sorts of things do enter my mind while reading novels and watching movies. I do feel more comfortable with and more interesed in creations like Treme and Red Hook Summer, in which white faces aren't what are so predominantly in our face, so to speak. IOW, these kinds of works feel more 'real' than these fantasy-science fiction creations -- in the same way that the wholly white Winter's Bone did.
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* For playing Ree Dolly, Jennifer Lawrence received the Oscar nomination for Best Actress; the film itself has been awarded many honors and prizes in many categories. What are the odds the same thing happens with The Hunger Games?
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* For playing Ree Dolly, Jennifer Lawrence received the Oscar nomination for Best Actress; the film itself has been awarded many honors and prizes in many categories. What are the odds the same thing happens with The Hunger Games?
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