Will and his teenage daughter Tom live off the grid in a Portland park, until a jogger spots them and social services step in. They try a new life, but Will cannot settle. Watch how Granik lets a quiet story speak through small gestures.
Leave No Trace is a 2018 drama film directed by Debra Granik. This breakdown covers 4 techniques (1 narrative, 1 cinematography and 2 psychology), each with the scene where you can see it. If you like how it is made, Winter's Bone uses several of the same techniques.
Watching events from a measured distance with no swelling music, tear-jerking close-ups or showy camera moves. The film trusts what happens to carry the weight on its own.
How this film uses it
Granik keeps the film at a respectful distance. There are no big speeches about Will's trauma and no pushy music. You learn what he cannot say from his survival habits and from the moments he decides to leave.
Where to see it
The detention. Park rangers find Tom and Will in the woods, and the two are taken in by social services.
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.
How this film uses it
The film moves through places that are cheap and overlooked, such as a Christmas tree farm and a mobile home community. Each place offers them a possible life, and each tells you what it costs to belong there.
Where to see it
The mobile home community. Local residents take Tom and Will in, and a former Army medic treats Will.
Showing a character coming to recognize their own worth or voice, often through contact with someone who contrasts with them. The change is internal before it is visible.
How this film uses it
Tom begins as her father's shadow. Through the film she finds that she wants things he does not, such as people and a roof. By the end, she makes a choice that is hers alone.
Where to see it
The roadside parting. Tom goes back to the community and Will returns to the woods.
Showing a character who holds feelings down until they leak out or burst. The performance lives in what is withheld, and the release lands harder for the wait.
How this film uses it
Will is a veteran with PTSD who cannot say what is wrong. His feelings come out as behavior, such as leaving a safe place without warning. Ben Foster plays him with very little said, and the unsaid is where the pain sits.
Where to see it
The sudden departure. Will decides to leave the Christmas tree farm and they head toward Washington state.
Questions
Leave No Trace: quick answers
What filmmaking techniques does Leave No Trace use?
CineCode breaks down 4 techniques in Leave No Trace (2018): Observational Restraint, Working-Class Geography, Personal Awakening Arc and Repressed Emotion.
Who directed Leave No Trace?
Debra Granik directed Leave No Trace, released in 2018. CineCode also covers Winter's Bone (2010).
What films are similar to Leave No Trace?
Films that share techniques with Leave No Trace include Winter's Bone (2010), Somewhere (2010), You Can Count on Me (2000), Shoplifters (2018).
