Viewing notes

• Cattle market scene...
• Subtle tracking shot of R as she enters the cattle market 

  Aligns audience with her as main character
• Cutting to the insert shots of animals being sold off

  Animal motif signifying sense of place with agricultural roots of Ozark community, iconography for the western genre
• Shot in Missouri 


  Authentic location of ‘forgotten America’, extras are all locals
• Warm toned colour palette (reflects rural setting) and the iconography of cowboy hats men are wearing 


  Western, passive audience relying on generic knowledge 
• LS of the Ozark men shot through bars of seating acts as barrier between viewer and film/ R and the rest of the community


  Theme of being an outsider, alienated relationships –communal, familial, detachment from mainstream America
• POV eye-line match R looking into the crowd (subjective access) 

  Smith’s cognitive theory, aligning the viewer with R
• TM gets up to leave, sudden shift to cool tones 

  Expected genre conventions subverted, generically ambiguous, discomforting the viewer, forced into a more active role
• Diegetic sound of the cows yawping becomes amplified and disjointed


  Viewers discomfort furthered
• Tracking shot as R walks along the bridge 


  Places us with her through the spatio temporal alignment, briefly encouraging passive viewing once again as we can identify with the protagonist
• Cool, white backlighting streaming through behind her 


  Connotes sci-fi genre instead of western themes we’ve seen up until now, further subverting audience expectations, move to active viewing
• Ree beaten up scene...
• Dark/hard to see, lasting brutal diegetic sound of Ree screaming (realism)


  Viewer removed/outsider, anxiety
• L/A handheld camera insert shots of cool fluorescent lights flickering + cattle equipment 

  Reminder of sense of place, unease
• L/A on group positioned around R, H/A of R on floor 

  Dominance of Ozark people, R vulnerable/at their mercy (like prey - transformation into beast) 
• Women beat Ree up as men refuse to 

  Active audiences preferred reading –men didn’t want to damage T’s property, intimidated by him, plays into patriarchal society
• Reaction shots when TM walks in 

  Est. his dominance, forced gender roles of men in Ozark community to be violent and threatening in order to survive (reinforced with T)
• Western iconography of hats, cattle, barn, costume of chequered shirts 


  Reinforce sense of place, importance of community’s closeness with nature as forgotten rural America had to be resourceful and adapt to survive 
• “You boys give her a hand” R needs saving, masculine role of men to aid her and the exchange of R as property from one man (TM) to another (T) 


  Plays into fixed gender roles and patriarchal society
• Daddy's bones scene...
• LS shows three women walking to boat 

  Quest iconography, Ree coming to end of journey, connotes fairy tale of three witches/female heroines 
• Shifting observational handheld camera (used 95% of film) from behind trees tracks three women; Ree, Mirab and her sister, as they paddle towards Jessop’s body 


  Outsider theme, connotes significance of scene as we’re not aligned with R, active audience alert 
• Sudden shift in colour palette from rural, warm tones (agricultural background of Missouri) to stark, uninviting cool tones 


  Connote horror (active audience), exaggerate unease as makes it hard to distinguish what's going on
• Eerie diegetic sound of tipping of boat is only sound 

  Realism genre, heightening tension, alert to every movement and creak
• CU holds on R’s hand, M gets out chainsaw to saw off J’s hands, pleonastic diegetic sound accompanied with amplified sound of R’s breathing 

  Deeply unsettling, realism and evoking Hill Billy horror genre (Texas chainsaw massacre)
• McDonough’s camera tilts up to L/A CU of R’s expression of pure distraught, ominous non-diegetic drone soundtrack plays 


  Preferred reading interpret Ree’s actions as feminist heroism as she’ll go to extreme lengths to save family (importance of kin in Ozark community)
• Subverting Mulvey’s theory of women traditionally being passive spectacles in films (R active) 


  Calls more to the final girl archetype of horror, forces active audience to infer that she’ll succeed by drawing from their generic knowledge
• Further reinforced by lingering CU on R, stunned, backlit by the blue moonlight 


  She has survived and completed her mission, the audience share relief and move back to passive viewing