Nomadland (Chloé Zhao, 2020)

[therewillbeblus]

To a certain extent arent most movies aiming to get you close to the characters in some way?

Yes, I thought I clarified that consistent manipulation vs. this one's inconsistent manipulations upthread, but I'll say again more succinctly that for me the juxtaposition between the authenticity here and the dramatic impositions shattered my investment in the film. The film used uneven methods by design but by aiming to get deeper into the realism, breaking into practically documentary territory, it only reflectively undressed the sentimental manipulations more, including the endless meditations of experienced actors taking a vacation into this land just like us. For me there's a difference between taking that vacation in a film and becoming aware of it (i.e. Brechtian), and then a weird middle option where the director tries to have their cake and eat it too, which can be successful but here I felt disbanded continuously just as I was getting involved, on a repetitious cycle. That's why even though The Rider wasn't very affecting for me personally, at least that earlier film felt uniformly involving.

[Persona]

I liked this but in a very mild way.

The score was pretty maudlin. The script is pretty standard (though not in standard settings and with a lot of docu-stuff inserted). But I like Zhao's sensibilities, the cinematography was nice, and McDormand was good. So, uh, yeah. 3 stars.

[Fiery Angel]

Framing the Wide-Open Spaces of "Nomadland"

[furbicide]

Stories about films running into censorship problems in China are a dime a dozen, but Filmmaker Magazine's role in this is ... somewhat eyebrow-raising, to say the least:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/06/worl ... china.html

The quote in which Ms. Zhao said there were "lies everywhere" in China first appeared in 2013, in an article in the New York-based magazine Filmmaker. It was still in the article as recently as October, according to archived versions of the webpage. But by mid-February, the quote had been removed and a note added, saying that the article had been "edited and condensed after publication."

A few on Twitter are pointing to this as evidence of the Western press being "gotten to" by the CCP, but this has Disney fingerprints all over it for mine. I don't think it's too wild to speculate that a bit of leaning-on may have occurred (or, equally disturbingly, that it wasn't even needed because Filmmaker already knew what side their bread is buttered on).

[Brian C]

It’s evidence that the Western press has been “gotten to” by the CCP either way, right? Seems really strange to make this a “Disney is the REAL enemy here” story, even if you’re right that they were the middleman.

[knives]

Variety had a great story on this recently as well that digs into the difference in view of national identity with the Chinese and how Zhao is viewed in their class system.

[furbicide]

It’s evidence that the Western press has been “gotten to” by the CCP either way, right? Seems really strange to make this a “Disney is the REAL enemy here” story, even if you’re right that they were the middleman.

If Disney are concerned about the roll-out in a given market (for whatever reason) and Disney are the ones heavying a magazine to rewrite history, then I'm not sure how you could conclude otherwise. That's no defence of CCP authoritarianism – and China's apparent erasure of Nomadland over one unrelated comment by the director years ago is indeed chilling – but it seems likely to me that they had nothing directly to do with Filmmaker Magazine's editorial decision, even by degrees of removal, and that this was an entirely pre-emptive call (one that seems to have totally failed, in any case).

[Brian C]

Finally saw this film tonight and I can see a lot of where TWBB is coming from, although I don't think "exploitation", as such, is a concern I would have with the film. But the Strathairn scenes really were annoying to me; they seemed out of place, as if cut in from a different, more banal movie. The underlying drama just wasn't very interesting, in contrast to the more 'nomadic' sections of the film, which I thought were all very lovely.

I don't think having a movie star like McDormand in the central role is an issue. She's playing a character, obviously, but she blends in well enough for me that it didn't really matter much whether she was playing a character or if it was just Frances McDormand hanging out on the fringes of society (if that makes sense). It's not until you insert a second movie star (Strathairn) that it starts feeling unnatural, and more like scripted drama. I like Strathairn a lot, but to me the air got sucked out of the movie as soon as he showed up on screen (I don't think I knew he was in it until then). It just broke the spell of the film up to that point to have a second recognizable face, because it clearly foreshadowed a more conventional direction. Which is of course exactly what happened.

And I think it's indicative of the probability that Zhao perhaps didn't have a very strong idea of where she wanted this movie to go, ultimately. After a beautiful setup that really felt very genuine and moving to me, there's not really a lot going on with Fern for the rest of the film outside of the Strathairn flirtation and the rather unproductive visit to her sister's. I'm not much concerned with whether Fern is living this life by choice or not - kinda the whole point to me is that people have their reasons and it's not necessarily a curse to have this lifestyle - but the flip side of that coin is that her connections outside of this lifestyle aren't very relevant. And they're not to her - not really. She ends up blowing off both the sister and Strathairn so why waste so much time with them?

And it's telling to me that the film doesn't have much interest in the relationships she builds inside the lifestyle, aside from the friends she makes in Arizona at the outset. For example, when she's working at the sugar factory in Nebraska, what's that environment like for her? We see her shoveling some beets and that's about it, but why isn't there more interest in the people that she crosses paths with there? The feeling seems to be, roughly, "look, we already showed you some nomads, and they're all too much the same for meeting more of them to be interesting." Hmm ... maybe I see the point about exploitation after all.

Hillbilly Elegy is an interesting comparison, although I haven't seen the film, but what came to mind for me was Sean Penn's Into the Wild. In the first half of that film, as McCandless makes his way across the country, we get a good look at people along the way that are living pretty similarly to the ones in Nomadland. Penn uses (mostly) professional actors, but to me his film felt a lot more interested in the people and saw them more clearly nonetheless, even if they were more incidental to the narrative. The first third or so of Nomadland was thrilling to me, but I feel Zhao loses the thread as she becomes more preoccupied with trying to shoehorn some plot - threadbare as it is - into a movie that maybe didn't really need one.

[therewillbeblus]

It seems worth mentioning again that I quickly walked back from the "exploitation" reading, as I was intending to aim it at the filmmakers'/audiences' desire to blend cinematic empathy with real contact too tightly, in a 'have your cake and eat it too' failure. I actually thought Strathairn fit naturally in this world and it was McDormand that continually took me out of the movie- I wonder if Strathairn solo would have worked, but I'm not sure McDormand would have on her own for whatever reason (and I really like her a lot as a performer). I think Zhao's heart is in the right place, and I believe her when she says that she hopes this movie brings people out of judgment and closer to empathizing with neglected populations. I just also believe Ron Howard would say that, and I'm not sure either film worked at what it was intending to do. Either way, my main issue is that the great moments with nonprofessionals shone a light on McDormand and disrupted the flow of artificial involvement that I am very much ready to get behind when the strong ingredients of melodrama and realism don't clash bitterly and ruin the meal.

[Brian C]

RE: exploitation, I kinda came around to thinking that you weren’t so far off the mark and maybe it didn’t need walking back.

To make my own thoughts more clear, I think Strathairn could have possibly worked on his own, and I was on board with McDormand on her own. One professional actor can blend in and anchor the movie. But after introducing a second star, then it seemed inevitable to me that the movie would become *about* their interactions and less about the nomads. Which pretty much happened. It just made the world of the film a lot smaller.

[Never Cursed]

And it's telling to me that the film doesn't have much interest in the relationships she builds inside the lifestyle, aside from the friends she makes in Arizona at the outset. For example, when she's working at the sugar factory in Nebraska, what's that environment like for her? We see her shoveling some beets and that's about it, but why isn't there more interest in the people that she crosses paths with there? The feeling seems to be, roughly, "look, we already showed you some nomads, and they're all too much the same for meeting more of them to be interesting." Hmm ... maybe I see the point about exploitation after all.

This here is one the biggest problems I had with the film. I can hear both sides of the "exploitative" debate, but for me it is secondary to the flat, apathetic, noncommittal lack of interest in basically everything that Fern does, and how it robs her (and the film) of an arc or meaningful place-to-place differentiation. As an example (and to harp on a point made elsewhere), I don't care that the film uses Amazon in the way it does so much as I care that it has nothing to say about Fern's labor or her fellow workers there or anywhere. Why make a road movie that won't engage with the people or places its protagonist encounters on the road?