Nomadland

Abstract The three sections of this chapter reveal differing narrative approaches on the part of the filmmaker: accounts of their lives given by nonfictional “characters,” the filmmaker’s rendering on screen through staging and shooting of Fern’s walk through the RTR encampment, and vignettes of the natural world included in the film. The heartfelt telling of stories by several of the people from the Nomadland book tends to be shot very simply, in CU, and at one point in a sequence set around a fire, which bolsters the sense of primal storytelling. Scenes of interaction between Fern, played by actor Frances McDormand, and nonactors such as Swankie are also shot simply so as not to inhibit those involved. Zhao’s precise approach to shooting elsewhere is illustrated by Fern’s morning walk, in which camera, pacing, staging, and background action—elements shown in accompanying screenshots—are meticulously coordinated. The mesmeric quality of the filmmaker’s imagery from nature, again shown in accompanying screenshots, forms an aspect of the filmmaker’s cinematic address that punctuates and informs the human interchanges she traces throughout her film while demonstrating the agility of dramatic narrative in the context of the art of the filmmaker. Finally, the author posits the contention that a filmmaker’s cultural foundations may inform the sensibility manifested in their approach to dramatic narrative and its representation on screen.