David R. Walker

Archive for the ‘Chloe Zhao’ Category

93rd Academy Awards took place on Sunday 25th April 2021 at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, the Union Station in Los Angeles, California and at The British Film Institute in London, United Kingdom

Best Picture: Nomadland

Best Director: Chloe Zhao – Nomadland

Best Actor: Anthony Hopkins – The Father

Best Actress: Frances McDormand – Nomadland

Best Supporting Actor: Daniel Kaluuya – Judas and the Black Messiah

Best Supporting Actress: Yuh-Jung Youn – Minari

Best Original Screenplay: Emerald Fennell –Promising Young Woman

Best Adapted Screenplay: Florian Zeller and Christopher Hampton – The Father

Best Cinematography: Erik Messerschmidt – Mank

Best Costume Design: Ann Roth – Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Best Make up & Hairstyling: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Best Visual Effects: Tenet

Best Film Editing: Mikkel E. G. Nielsen – Sound of Metal

Best Sound: Sound of Metal

Best Production Design: Mank

Best Documentary Feature:  My Octopus Teacher (South Africa)

Best Documentary Short Subject: Colette

Best Live Action Short Film: Two Distant Strangers directed by Trevon Free and Martin Desmond Roe

Best Original Score: Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross and Jon Bastiste – Soul  

Best Original Song: Fight for You – Judas and the Black Messiah

Best Animated Feature Film: Soul

Best Animated Short Film: If Anything Happens I Love You

Best Foreign Language Film: Another Round – directed by Thomas Vinterberg (Denmark)

Nomadland

Director: Chloe Zhao

Cast: Frances McDormand, David Strathairn

Beijing born and London and Los Angeles educated Chinese American director Chloe Zhao has made an extraordinary film Nomadland about the vanishing frontier, about the concept of homelessness and leading a nomadic existence, shot in some extraordinary locations in America including Arizona and South Dakota.

Backed up by an extraordinary performance by two time Oscar winner Frances McDormand (Fargo, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) as the widowed Fern, who repels from any form of human commitment and prompted by the sudden death of her husband and the economic collapse of their hometown, Empire, Nevada after a major factory shutdown in 2011 as a result of the aftereffects of the 2008 financial crisis, Fern bravely embraces all the hardship and wonder of the nomadic lifestyle in the vast outback of America.

Frances McDormand is in every scene of Nomadland under the expert direction of a genius director Chloe Zhao who has made a beautiful picaresque tale about loss, hardship and the human desire to explore. Fern is completely against settling down in a property but prefers her nomadic lifestyle driving around America in an old van kitted for human habitation, picking up odd jobs at various locations including ironically the pantheon of American capitalism, the giant online shopping and delivery company Amazon.

Fern’s journey is peppered with intimate encounters with real nomad travellers, as they briefly discuss their life and their journey whether it’s towards love or death.

The most extraordinary encounter is the scene with herself and a young guy from Wisconsin who is trying to write to his love in another state and Fern suggests a Shakespearean sonnet, number 18 – Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s Day? Fern recites the entire sonnet as Zhao expertly edits a beautiful montage of gorgeous scenes, bringing an elevated harmony to a life which is essentially that of a pioneer.

Nomadland is beautifully shot, brilliantly edited and superbly acted by both Frances McDormand and her male counterpart Dave played by Oscar nominee David Strathairn (Good Night and Good Luck) a fellow nomad who ultimately decides to settle down with his son and grandson in a beautiful home in South Dakota, a betrayal to Fern who sees giving into a static life as relinquishing her nomadic life and more significantly her freedom, her ability to travel wherever and not be tied down to a fixed abode.

In Nomadland, director Chloe Zhao chooses to focus not on Millennials or 40 somethings but on the elderly, on the sixty somethings that are grappling with the death of a spouse or a child, to that age group which has suffered loss and have been turfed out of the capitalist cycle, that have been disposed of and are ultimately dispossessed.

Nomadland is a gorgeous, fascinating film, complex, intimate and ravishing, held together by a superb performance by Frances McDormand who makes Fern the embodiment of all that bitterness of a ruined town like Empire, Nevada which becomes symbolic of a vanishing frontier.

Nomadland gets a film rating of 9.5 out of 10 and is highly recommended.

Took place on Sunday 11^th April 2021 at the Royal Albert Hall in London, England

Best Film: Nomadland

Best Director: Chloe Zhao

Best Actor: Anthony Hopkins – The Father

Best Actress: Frances McDorman – Nomadland

Best Supporting Actor: Daniel Kaluuya – Judas and the Black Messiah

Best Supporting Actress: Yuh-Jung Youn – Minari

Best British Film: Promising Young Woman

Best Original Screenplay: Emerald Fennell – Promising Young Woman

Best Adapted Screenplay: Christopher Hampton and Florian Zeller – The Father

Best Costume Design: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Best Visual Effects: Tenet

Best Foreign Language Film: Another Round directed by Thomas Vinterberg (Denmark)

Took Place on Sunday the 28th February 2021 in Los Angeles and New York and hosted virtually by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association – Here are the 2021 Golden Globe Winners in the Film Categories:

Best Film Drama: Nomadland

Best Film, M/C: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm

Best Director: Chloe Zhao – Nomadland

Best Actor Drama: Chadwick Boseman – Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Best Actress Drama: Andra Day – The United States vs Billie Holiday

Best Actor, M/C: Sasha Baron Cohen – Borat Subsequent Moviefilm

Best Actress, M/C: Rosamund Pike – I Care a Lot

Best Supporting Actor: Daniel Kaluuya – Judas and the Black Messiah

Best Supporting Actress: Jodie Foster – The Mauritanian

Best Foreign Language Film: Minari – Korea

Best Original Screenplay – Aaron Sorkin – The Trial of the Chicago 7

Best Animated Feature: Soul