SOCIAL CONTEXT

• The film is set in the Ozark Mountains, Missouri
• The community is blighted by rural poverty, lack of oppurtunity and a sense of separation from mainstream USA infrasructure.
• The culture is secrative and inward looking, emphasis on family loyalty based around patriarchal power but dependant upon strong, resiliant women.
• The landscape of the Ozark region is bleak and unforgiving - much like AMERICA.
• The Ozark region is the 'forgotten america', not portrayed in the media and socially marginalised.
• The landscape is alien to the auience, winters bone offers an inverted from of the mythologized American landscape of the western genre. It challenges Hollywoods paritality for 'non spaces' in setting.