Southern Spaces presents this in depth review of Winter’s Bone and its’ relationship to Shatter Zone, a term coined in the 19th century meaning “a belt of randomly fissured or cracked rock that may be filled with mineral deposits.”

“Even more than Granik’s first film, Winter’s Bone is saturated with manifestations of the particular locale in which it is set and was filmed: language, imagery, music, and casting. It was shot on location in two Missouri Ozark counties, Taney and Christian. Taney County sits right on the Missouri-Arkansas border and Christian County directly above Taney. The homes that Ree’s and the other Dolly families inhabit are decorated with a dense array of mementos and decorative objects, many contributed by local residents. Granik mentions on the director’s commentary track on the DVD of the film that the many dogs of various shapes and sizes that wander through several scenes were the dogs attached to the houses and woodlots where the film was shot. The town near Ree’s family’s home where she takes her siblings, Sonny and Ashlee, to school is represented by Forsyth, Missouri, … Ree is not the only young person whose options appear to be pretty narrow: judging from the film, two main courses of study in the local high school are …” read the review

“… The term “Shatter Zone” originated in nineteenth-century geology, to mean “a belt of randomly fissured or cracked rock that may be filled with mineral deposits.” Its meaning shifted dramatically after World War II when it began to be used in political geography to denote borderlands, especially ones to which members of subject or refugee populations migrated in large numbers to escape the pressures of the state and/or the capitalist economies through which the state exerted itself …”