Comparison · 3 shared techniques

Winter's Bone vs The Florida Project

Winter's Bone (2010) and The Florida Project (2017) share 3 techniques. Here is how each film uses them.

Winter's Bone (2010) poster

Winter's Bone

Debra Granik · 2010

The Florida Project (2017) poster

The Florida Project

Sean Baker · 2017

Shared

Same technique, two films

Working-Class Geography

Using specific working-class parts of a city, like its bars, docks and construction sites, to define the characters. The places show who they are expected to be and what leaving would cost.

Winter's Bone

Granik shoots the Ozarks with the detail of a documentary maker. You see the actual trailers, the actual woods and the actual way a poor rural community is put together. The location tells you more about Ree's world than any dialogue written to explain it could.

The Florida Project

Baker shoots the Magic Castle motel and its purple-painted exterior against the flat Florida light, as precisely as a documentary maker would. The budget motels, the strip malls and the dollar stores all sit around the Disney World tourism economy. That economy can't house the people who serve it.

Non-Professional Cast Authenticity

Casting real people from the community being shown, such as workers and local residents, with no trained actors in those roles. Their looks and behavior feel true in a way acting can't copy.

Winter's Bone

Granik cast many people from the actual Ozarks community, including the musicians, the neighbors and the people who fill the background. Having the real people there gives the film's social world a texture that professional extras can't copy.

The Florida Project

Brooklynn Prince as Moonee and many of the supporting players are non-professional actors. Baker cast from the actual communities that live in extended-stay motels. You can feel real experience in the performances, and it makes what the film observes feel like testimony.

Handheld Cinema Vérité

Shooting with a handheld camera so the frame shakes and moves with the action. This documentary-style look, called cinema vérité, puts you uncomfortably close to the character.

Winter's Bone

Michael McDonough shoots Ree's investigation with a restrained handheld camera. It stays close to her body without getting shaky. The camera feels more like a companion than an observer, and the documentary look tells you how seriously the film takes her search.

The Florida Project

Alexis Zabe shoots at child height with a handheld camera that moves with Moonee and never tries to organize her. The way it is shot commits the film to the child's point of view. You never get an adult's overview from above.

Different

Where they split

Only in Winter's Bone

Only in The Florida Project