An interview with Down To The Bone writer-director Debra Granik.

By Jeremiah Kipp.

Hugh Dillion and Vera Farmiga in Debra Granik’s Down to the Bone.

Drug addiction is one of the more challenging subjects to represent on film, usually falling into the trap of being sentimentalized redemption or a miserable junkie hell. Neither portrayal captures the struggling reality of living with a problem from day-to-day, or the authenticity of a human being who, in the midst of addiction or recovery, is trying to balance other real-life concerns such as a family, job, or children. When Debra Granik’s debut feature Down to the Bone premiered at Sundance in 2004, it was praised for its humanism, its sensitivity, and its even-handed ability to tell the story of working class drug addict Irene (Vera Farmiga), warts and all.

Down to the Bone was awarded Sundance’s highly prized Best Director award, and a Special Jury Prize for the remarkable performances. Despite those accolades, a film about the cyclical nature of addiction, going through hurtles of recovery and relapse, isn’t an easy sell. There’s no feel-good answer for these characters, or feel-bad warning. Perhaps that’s because Granik drew inspiration not from other movies, but from actual recovering addicts she met, interviewed, and befriended over the course of many years.

While a film student at NYU, Granik met the woman who eventually became the basis for Irene. Through a series of video journals, Granik found her way into the compelling life of someone going through life-defining struggles and changes. Eventually, she cast the real Irene and her boyfriend Rick as dramatized versions of their selves in a narrative short entitled Snake Feed. This 23-minute short won an award at Sundance and inspired Granik to develop Irene and Rick’s story in a larger format, as Down to the Bone.

With the aid of fearless indie producers Susan Leber—who also helped woman filmmakers realize their visions on Ilya Chaiken’s Margarita Happy Hour and Alexandra Brodsky’s Bittersweet Place—and former Atom Films programmer Anne Rosellini, Granik was able to not only make Down to the Bone on her own terms, she also assembled a strong team of collaborators around her. The craft of the film is remarkable, insightfully photographed in a neo-realist style by Michael McDonagh (who recently shot Michael Almereyda’s documentary about Sam Shepard, This So-Called Disaster) and tautly edited into a rich mosaic by Malcolm Jamieson, with achingly honest performances by Vera Farmiga in the lead role, Clint Jordan as her frustrated husband, and Hugh Dillon as her sponsor and occasional lover Bob.

What makes Down to the Bone resonant is Granik’s compassion for these individuals, even as they screw themselves up and make life difficult for those around them. It’s unlikely that this film could have been made outside of the bare bones world of filmmaking outside the mainstream. That’s the high and low of creating movies this way; complete autonomy to tell original stories, and the misery of having no money to do it and no large-scale distribution at your fingertips. It’s a testament to the courage of that handful of producers, publicists and distributors (in this case, Laemmle/Zeller Films) that Down to the Bone is receiving a limited theatrical release, opening on November 25.

Down to the Bone director Debra Granik.

Filmmaker: You based the main characters of Down to the Bone on a real family. Do you consider your previous short film Snake Feed a documentary about the family?

Debra Granik: No. There’s a very important distinction that should be made here. I had known this family for a number of years and culled from that material when we made the short. But Snake Feed was filmed it as a narrative fiction, not as a documentary. However, that being said, the family played themselves, the film was shot in their home, and all of the props are theirs. The story that plays out in this fictional film is taken from experiences they have lived through. With this kind of hybrid work, it always requires a great deal of clarification because you don’t want to misrepresent it. You don’t want people to think you’re presenting the work as a documentary, which we weren’t.

Filmmaker: How did you meet the family that Snake Feed, and subsequently Down to the Bone, was based on?

Granik: I was doing an assignment for NYU at the time, which was a 7-minute documentary portrait. I had my heart set on two men that ran a hotel in upstate New York, but when I arrived to make the documentary, it fell apart. The only person left in the hotel was the housecleaner, so she became the subject of the portrait. I got to know her through this chance encounter, and ended up taping her for many subsequent video journals.

She introduced me to her family, her two sons, and her boyfriend. She was at a tenuous and suspenseful crossroad in her life, being newly sober. Her boyfriend was in the midst of a pretty bad relapse. They also had children in tow, making it a very complicated set of circumstances. I was compelled about what was going to happen to her and how she was going to get through, and stayed with the story for quite a few years.

The short film did well on the festival circuit. Along the way, I’d get questions like, “Do you have more? Do you have a feature length version? Was that short part of a larger project?” With that encouragement, we made it so. I collaborated with that same couple to flesh out the story in a longer format.

Filmmaker: What was the process of honing in on the script for Down to the Bone?

Granik: Honing is a good word. We chipped away at that first draft, which was as thick as a phonebook. The first step was to limit the span of time that the story would cover. Literally, we had to strip out a lot of anecdotes. There was a huge amount of material that dealt with his life, his own children. He was an extremely interesting character, but I had to make a decision

Vera Farmiga and Jasper Moon Daniels in Down to the Bone.

Filmmaker: Whether it was her story or his story.

Granik: Yeah. [Bob and Irene] are still inextricably linked but if you’re making one film, you had to cant it towards one of the characters. We chose to follow her story.

Filmmaker: What enabled you to make the film once you felt the script was ready?

Granik: The first step was meeting two producers, Anne Rosellini and Susan Leber. They understood that when you’re making a film like this, you can’t wait around to be greenlit. No one is ever going to be supportive of making this kind of film for a variety of reasons. You willingly and knowledgeably say to yourself, “I cannot look over the cliff. I am just going to do it.”

The next step was finding a casting director that would take us seriously. In this case, it was Ellen Parks. She is a profound friend of independent films and will take risks with some stories she can get behind. That got the cogs rolling. We discovered a lead actress that massively inspired us, who is from the area the film was made. Vera Farmiga was willing to put her blood and soul into the film.

Enough positive things started to gel, and that helped us make the movie. It’s like that saying: if you keep showing up, you can do it. We kept showing up.

Filmmaker: I understand that your lead actors did quite a bit of research.

Granik: Some of them came with life experience that was pertinent. Others took it upon themselves to enter into the rehab program as part of the rehearsal process. The rehab centers were generous to us. When we filmed there, we didn’t shut anything down, and they permitted us to integrate ourselves in their facility.

Filmmaker: Was it unusual to work with both professional and non-professional actors in the film?

Granik: I am very stubborn. I always want to go for that and I love it. But from the perspective of editing and continuity, it can cause problems. There are vagaries and irregularities in your takes, and no two takes are the same. The upside is there’s no better way to keep it fresh, instead of always saying the same thing take after take. Our editor was great at forcing himself to work with that. When it fails, it fails miserably, but when it works, you can end up with something great.

Filmmaker: Let’s talk about the process of shooting. It seems like you were aspiring for the conditions of a documentary. Or perhaps I should say it was lifelike.

Granik: We weren’t trying to make it look like a documentary but we did use some documentary shooting techniques. Using a tiny crew and working very fast enabled us to move into locations like supermarkets or rehab centers and not have to close them down. When we shot, we would never precisely block the actors. Our cinematographer, Michael McDonagh, would move with them. The little kids might do something different every time, and he would swerve around to find them instead of saying, “Little boy, you have to stand on this piece of tape every single time.” Some people would call that a documentary style of shooting because you’re trying to keep up with life. Michael has committed himself to that approach and draws inspiration from the neo-realists.

Filmmaker: Was the final shot of the movie—that moment between Bob and Isabel looking through the glass—something you discovered or something that you planned?

Granik: That was not planned. I was having trouble ending it, wondering if she would go back in the house or go outside and meet him? That moment arrived at the end of a day of shooting. As you may know, shooting days in the winter are very short, but often end with a beautiful blast of moody, rose colored sky. The light hit the glass window, on either side of it. Michael and I were riveted and said, “Let’s just shoot it right here.” Those are the moments where you feel blessed.

Filmmaker: Was it a challenge telling a story about addiction, which by its very nature goes in cycles—like a wheel of fortune with ups and downs?

Granik: The traditional storyline in an American film is usually in the form of a V shape. I am oversimplifying, but we see someone tumbling down, they hit bottom, and then they rise up again and find redemption. Anyone who personally, tangentially or culturally knows anything about addiction is aware that it resembles an EKG. Up and down, up and down. Very few people ever get clean on the first or second attempt. For many people, it’s something they have to try over and over again. You get knocked down and ask all the ethical questions like how many chances do you give a person? When is the last chance? How many chances do they get? Can you imagine how difficult it is to fit that in a feature length film? But those are the questions that are worth asking.

Filmmaker: It seems like the way to center your story is to approach the characters with humanity. They are not sympathetic characters in the traditional sense, but one gets the impression you really love them.

Granik: Actually, one of my instructors at NYU said it was a problem that I love them so much, and that I may never get the proper distance required to make a rigorous script. But at that point I knew no other way to proceed. I did love the real people this story was based on, and they became a very big part of my life. With many films and documentaries with a disheartening subject, sometimes the fulfillment comes from getting to know the individuals and letting them get under your skin in a way.

Filmmaker: What happened between its awards at Sundance and now? Your film is finally getting a limited theatrical release. Why did it take so long?

Granik: The reason why boils down to the word “dark”. It is the scariest four-letter word in American storytelling and in this culture. Our film had a strong reception in Europe and achieved distribution, but that was not the case here. We received so many responses like, “We love the film, but we cannot do anything with it or we’ll lose our shirts. We’re sorry.” The intervention comes from people like Laemmle/Zeller Films. Every couple of years, some mavericks take on this challenge of distributing so-called un-distributable films. They take those films on a small run and allow them to see the light of day. Those efforts are what give a film like Down to the Bone a chance to have a life of some kind.

Filmmaker: It’s a challenge making films such as this one. What are the upsides?

Granik: At Sundance, an actor I admire had a cup of coffee with me. He knows Vera and appreciates her work. He told me, “You guys had so much freedom. It was like nobody was telling you what to do.” This is an actor who has been in $15-20 million dollar films. What dawned on me was that he was right. On this project, there was no one greater than our selves. It reminds you what slogans like “fiercely independent” really mean. Some days, this level of filmmaking feels like you’re in the ghetto with both hands tied behind your back. You’re unable to raise a penny. At other times, it feels like the only freedom there is exists on the margins of the filmmaking community.