Debra Granik doesn’t mind doing interviews. When I sat down with the Oscar-nominated filmmaker (“Winter’s Bone”), I was just one of many people that afternoon asking her about her new documentary, “Stray Dog,” which comes out on July 3. “It’s always interesting,” she said of speaking with journalists. “No matter what, in every conversation either there’s a question you can’t readily answer, or you put a connection together you hadn’t previously. But I was also thinking that Ron would find these conversations extremely interesting as well.”She’s referring to Ron “Stray Dog” Hall, the burly Harley-riding Vietnam veteran who’s the subject of the film. Hall met Granik when she cast him, a non-actor, in “Winter’s Bone,” a drama about a young women (Jennifer Lawrence) searching for her missing father in her close-knit and poverty-stricken Ozarks community. In the following years, while other projects remained in development, Granik returned to Hall, going to visit him at the RV park he operates and calls home. Seeing him in his natural environment, she was immediately attracted to the “scrappy survival of American poverty” and “desire to make it work with very little material accumulation,” traits that resonate outside his small community. “This man standing in front of me was one of those junctures of a lot of American themes of contemporary life,” Granik realized.She noticed the Vietnam War tattoo on Hall’s arm and the array of patches that decorate the leather vest he wears like a uniform. A portrait of the man was beginning to come together, and when he mentioned that he was going on a motorcycle pilgrimage to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., Granik jumped at the chance to document the journey.If one thing is clear in “Stray Dog,” it is that neither poverty nor biker culture defines Hall. His ultramasculine presence is countered by his tenderness toward those around him, not to mention his sense of duty toward those in need. The film follows him to therapy sessions and watches him worry about his newly pregnant granddaughter’s future. In one scene, while visiting the mother of a deceased veteran, he notices that her kitchen floor is caving in and decides to rebuild it, just because it needs to be done.“One of the ways Ron chooses to keep his sadness and demons at bay is by needing to be needed,” Granik said. “Ron feels self-worth when he feels that he has been able to solve something, or do something small for someone, or anytime that he recognizes that he was somehow kind or empathetic.”The biggest challenge for Hall comes midway through the film. His new wife, Alicia, whom he met during a trip to Mexico after Granik began shooting, wants her twin sons, Angel and Jesus, residing in Mexico City, to come live with them in the United States. When they arrive, they speak little English and are not accustomed to the ways of the rural heartland. But Hall works hard to acclimate them. His two new stepsons are no different from the bikers he rides with or the tenants in the RV park who can’t make rent that month. Everybody is struggling, and the only way to survive is to help one another out.“There are numerous aspects about biker culture, and ‘Sons of Anarchy’ does exist,” Granik said. “But at the same time, why does it work for people? Because there are bonds, and brotherhood, and ways of feeling meaningful within a group, ways of finding a really profound level of companionship.”"Stray Dog" opens at the Film Society at Lincoln Center on July 3.
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