Chloe Zhao was born in China but studied filmmaking in the United States. The mythic, poetically rugged expanses of America, where Zhao now...
Chloe Zhao was born in China but studied filmmaking in the United States. The mythic, poetically rugged expanses of America, where Zhao now lives, inspired her acclaimed Songs My Brother Taught Me and her second movie The Rider. Zhao’s third feature Nomadland has propelled her into the mainstream – and the front of the Oscar race.
Nomadland has been nominated for six Academy Awards, including for Best Picture and Direction. The 108-minute adaptation of Jessica Bruder’s non-fiction book Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century builds on themes explored by Zhao in her previous films.
Her assured debut Songs My Brother Taught Me (2015), about the experiences of two Native American siblings struggling to get by, was marked by elements that would recur in Zhao’s subsequent works – characters drawn from the margins of American life, an observational and naturalistic style, handheld camerawork and the relationship of people with their landscapes.
Americans both historically displaced and forsaken by late capitalism also feature in The Rider (2017), about a rodeo cowboy who suffers a grievous injury. Working with a real-life family who play versions of themselves, Zhao unerringly sketches a portrait of personal courage and redemption in a part of America that is on the verge of falling off the map.
Both films explore the idea of home and belonging, and both feature...
