The Making of NOMADLAND: SEE YOU DOWN THE ROAD
- 3 years ago
The Chicago Sun-Times:
‘Nomadland’: Settle in for an instant masterpiece about the vagabond’s life on the road
Frances McDormand keeps up her streak of excellence as a no-nonsense widow living in a van down by the Amazon center.
“One of the things I love most about this life is that there’s no final goodbye. I’ve met hundreds of people out there and I don’t ever say a final goodbye. Let’s just say, ‘I’ll see you down the road.’ And I do. I see them again.” – Wisened veteran traveler of the American highways in “Nomadland.”
If we were to carve out a Mount Rushmore of actresses who have created many of the most memorable and formidable characters in film history, we’d have to make room for Katharine Hepburn and Bette Davis and Frances McDormand and I’m going to stop right there because there are literally dozens of other worthy candidates — but definitely Frances McDormand, right? Marge Gunderson in “Fargo” and Mildred Hayes in “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” and Jane in “Friends With Money” and Sara Gaskell in “Wonder Boys” and Elaine Miller in “Almost Famous” and Abby in “Blood Simple,” etc., etc.
Yep. We gotta save a place for Frances McDormand.
McDormand has two best actress Academy Awards (for “Fargo” and “Three Billboards …”) and a total of five acting nominations, and she will surely be nominated for her epic and soaring yet beautifully grounded work in writer-director Chloé Zhao’s transformative “Nomadland,” an instant American masterpiece that feels like something John Steinbeck might have written had he worked in the early 21st century. It’s a crumpled-postcard road movie about the aftermath of an American Dream gone sour, when you find yourself so deep into your life you can see the last horizon, but you still have miles to go before you sleep — and you have only a vague idea about how you’re going to navigate that journey.
‘Nomadland’: Settle in for an instant masterpiece about the vagabond’s life on the road
Frances McDormand keeps up her streak of excellence as a no-nonsense widow living in a van down by the Amazon center.
“One of the things I love most about this life is that there’s no final goodbye. I’ve met hundreds of people out there and I don’t ever say a final goodbye. Let’s just say, ‘I’ll see you down the road.’ And I do. I see them again.” – Wisened veteran traveler of the American highways in “Nomadland.”
If we were to carve out a Mount Rushmore of actresses who have created many of the most memorable and formidable characters in film history, we’d have to make room for Katharine Hepburn and Bette Davis and Frances McDormand and I’m going to stop right there because there are literally dozens of other worthy candidates — but definitely Frances McDormand, right? Marge Gunderson in “Fargo” and Mildred Hayes in “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” and Jane in “Friends With Money” and Sara Gaskell in “Wonder Boys” and Elaine Miller in “Almost Famous” and Abby in “Blood Simple,” etc., etc.
Yep. We gotta save a place for Frances McDormand.
McDormand has two best actress Academy Awards (for “Fargo” and “Three Billboards …”) and a total of five acting nominations, and she will surely be nominated for her epic and soaring yet beautifully grounded work in writer-director Chloé Zhao’s transformative “Nomadland,” an instant American masterpiece that feels like something John Steinbeck might have written had he worked in the early 21st century. It’s a crumpled-postcard road movie about the aftermath of an American Dream gone sour, when you find yourself so deep into your life you can see the last horizon, but you still have miles to go before you sleep — and you have only a vague idea about how you’re going to navigate that journey.