![]() ![]() I am fiercely independent and seldom ever ask others to help me, so it was exceedingly difficult to act like I needed Fern’s help. “However, my ex-husband died of brain cancer, so that made me emotional during filming. “I myself have never had cancer,” Swankie says. In the film, Swankie has cancer, an invented plot device. Her unobtrusive approach allowed the nonactors to avoid becoming overly self-conscious, even when sharing vulnerable moments, as when Wells speaks of the death of his son.īut Zhao did take a few liberties. ![]() In weaving the real-life nomads into the film as characters alongside fictional ones played by actors McDormand and David Strathairn, Zhao adopted a loose, intimate directing style, allowing the dialogue to flow organically. “I had been on the road living in the boonies for over 10 years,” Swankie says, “and movies were not high on my list.” She told Zhao the only thing she could focus on at the moment was the shoulder replacement surgery she desperately needed: “I had a lot on my mind and just wanted her to go away.” Anyway, she’d never heard of the actress who was set to star in the movie, Frances McDormand, and figured it would be “some little camcorder-type homemade film.” So when director Chloé Zhao approached her in 2018 about playing herself in a movie she was making called “Nomadland,” Swankie was deeply skeptical. Despite the hardships of living off the grid - from mechanical problems with her van to health issues - Swankie, a loner by nature, found the freedom of the nomadic lifestyle suited her. ![]() As America contends with its divided identity, ‘Nomadland’ both captures the zeitgeist and embraces the fantasy of leaving it all behind for life on the road.In her wildest dreams, Charlene Swankie never imagined that Hollywood would come calling - or even know how to find her.Īt age 64, struggling to make her rent, Swankie had moved into her van and joined a growing nomadic tribe of largely older Americans who, finding themselves adrift from the American economy, have taken to the road and move from place to place seeking seasonal work for generally low wages. Zhao embraces the paradox at the center of a story that both celebrates its character’s liberation and bemoans that sad state of affairs that put her on that track. IndieWire’s chief critic Eric Kohn named “Nomadland” the fourth best movie of 2020, writing, “The film develops an entrancing narrative about American alienation and the appeal of escaping society’s oppressive clutches. The safety of fiction filmmaking, in my opinion, actually pulls out a level of honesty and authenticity that I think would be impossible if this was a documentary purporting to truth.” Chloé really allows people to choose how they want to represent themselves. “You could see her listening to these individuals telling their stories, and then collaborating with them to fold their own narratives into the script. “You could watch her script adapt to the personalities and stories that came from those conversations,” Zhao’s directing assistant Hannah Peterson told IndieWire about the “Nomadland” creative process. Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal in Talks to Lead Chloé Zhao’s ‘Hamnet’ ![]() Zhao wrote the film’s script using Jessica Bruder’s nonfiction book “Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century” as a guide, but she also made sure to fold in the real life stories of the nomads themselves. While the film also stars “Good Night, and Good Luck” Oscar nominee David Strathairn in a key supporting role, the majority of “Nomadland” finds McDormand acting opposite real modern-day nomads, including Linda May, Charlene Swankie, and Bob Wells. McDormand stars as Fern, a woman in her sixties who rebounds from losing everything in the Great Recession by journeying through the American West as a van-dwelling nomad. Starring two-time Oscar winner Frances McDormand, the acclaimed drama won the Golden Lion at Venice and the People’s Choice Award at TIFF. I have to be excited by little things I discover along the way.” Zhao’s approach is just one reason the upcoming “ Nomadland” ranks among the best films of 2020. Someone once said to me that passion doesn’t sustain, but curiosity does. “I have to be in love with my subject matter and want to learn more about it. “I’m not the kind of filmmaker who just makes films,” Chloé Zhao told IndieWire earlier this year. ![]()
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