American Cinematographer - February 2021 - 37
D
AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER ASCMAG.COM
irector Chloé Zhao has teamed up on three features with her partner,
Joshua James Richards, who serves as cinematographer. The first
two, Songs My Brother Taught Me and The Rider, star John Reddy and
Brady Jandreau, respectively - people the director met on a Lakota Sioux Pine Ridge reservation - who play fictionalized versions
of themselves. This mixture of real characters and scripted scenes
gives her films a unique authenticity. Zhao used a similar approach
on her latest production, Nomadland, which features struggling American senior citizens who live in vans on the road, but she added a fictional protagonist, Fern (Frances
McDormand).
Nomadland follows Fern as she travels through the West after losing her husband
and her home. She survives on odd jobs, meets a community of kindred nomads, and
continues alone on her healing journey through powerful American landscapes. With
its natural lighting and simply lit interiors, Richards' cinematography renders the subtleties of sunlit Badlands, sunsets, and dusks, and reveals the dignity of humble faces.
The picture earned Zhao the Venice Film Festival's top honor, the Golden Lion, and
Richards the Camerimage Golden Frog. Previously, Richards earned an ASC Spotlight
Award nomination for his camerawork on The Rider.
Zhao and Richards' collaboration could be viewed as an extension of a cinematic
movement that might be dubbed " New Naturalism, " in the spirit of the approach director Terrence Malick and cinematographer Emmanuel " Chivo " Lubezki, ASC, AMC
pioneered with The New World (AC Jan. '06) - an informal " dogma " that they later refined on The Tree of Life (AC Aug. '11) and subsequent collaborations. New Naturalism
is all about authenticity, and the rhythmic, poetic editing of Malick's films is designed
to eliminate any hint of artifice. For his actors, this implies working without a script,
encouraging improvisation, seeking happy accidents, and including non-professionals
in the cast.
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http://www.ASCMAG.COM
American Cinematographer - February 2021
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - February 2021
American Cinematographer - February 2021 - Cover1
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American Cinematographer - February 2021 - Cover3
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