The movies have the capacity to act as a conscience, sometimes as a collective conscience…So it is with Nomadland–a film making its way through the festival circuit, picking up awards (Golden Lion, Venice; People’s Choice, Toronto), and scheduled for general release in December of this year.
The professional actors, there are only two, Francis McDormand and David Strathairn, are part of a larger cast that includes, Linda May, Charlene Swankie, Bob Wells, and many others who are Nomads as described and written about in the book, Nomadland: surviving America in the twenty-first century, by Jessica Bruder, who teaches writing at Columbia University’s Journalism School.
The movie reflects the confluence of three exceptional talents. It’s a remarkable exploration of a sub-division of American society by an extremely sensitive observer, writer and story teller in collaboration with an actor of immense skill and social sensitivity, and a screen writer/director who saw the opportunity to create a movie of exceptional quality.
Nomads have something in common with the Roma of Eastern and Western Europe, however their lives are shaped by a unique set of circumstances that reflect a level of contemporary self-awareness coupled with a kind of American ingenuity. Some are on the road by choice, others due to circumstances beyond their control. Into the melting pot of transient communities the Nomads come together and share their stories. In meetings that seem to emerge in impromptu fashion, camp occupants assemble to hear stories and advice. Bob Wells, who appears in the movie, serves the Nomads as a sort of counselor-cum-therapist who also dispenses practical advice about living out of your RV, camper, trailer or car, and about staying safe. There are sessions about how to fix a flat tire, what to do in case of an emergency, general vehicle maintenance. In many ways these people are living practical lives that are truly purpose-driven.
This is a movie and a book not just about survival. There is a Buddhist current that is carried by the score and informs the stories of the Nomads. Many of them, if not all, find themselves on a search for enlightenment in the manner of Gautama Buddha who said, “it is better to travel than to arrive.”
There is a modern philosophical foundation for Nomads. Jack Kerouac provides it with his books, On The Road, Dharma Bums and Big Sur. The need to move, to get away from the complacent, sedentary lives Post War Americans were living. There is something very American about being on the road. The scale of the Country is the result of countless road trips.
For the most part Nomads are post-retirement or near retirement age, and have come to terms with the fact that their savings, if they have any, and their social security benefits are not sufficient to sustain their former geographically anchored lifestyles. There are also many younger Nomads who have taken up the life for reasons that are both economic and romantic in the Kerouac tradition.
So they travel from camp to camp and one grueling seasonal job to another…from the sugar beet harvest in the Dakotas to Amazon fulfillment centers the size of multiple football fields. Hard physical labor where Advil dispensers are as ubiquitous as sanitizer stations in supermarkets. Most have seemingly made peace with their lives and try to encourage others to do the same.
Nomadland, the movie, though, isn’t a calmative. It takes in tragedy. The principal actors, McDormand and Strathairn, play characters who emerge from personal crises only to create a new one in their failed relationship. Classic tragedy evokes characters defeated in life by circumstances beyond their control. In Fern’s (McDormand’s) case, it is the loss of her husband and home when her town’s major employer shuts down leaving a community without the means to survive. The movie revisits that town, when Fern returns to (what this viewer assumed was) her old house, which is slowly being reclaimed by nature. Dave’s (Strathairn’s) original tragedy is a failure wrapped up in his experience of being a father.
Aware that movies need dramatic arcs, the screenplay writer, director, and editor, Chloe Zhao has imagined a relationship between Fern and Dave. The film lets us into that relationship obliquely, as we pick up on how Dave helps Fern negotiate the pitfalls of life on the road, even as she resists becoming emotionally or physically involved with him. Fern does, however, acknowledge Dave’s efforts even if belatedly.
The movie focuses on the personal decision process–how individuals make choices sometimes without seeming to choose. There is a striking symbiosis here in both the book and the movie. Parts of American culture act as a scaffolding on which and to which Nomads cling for life support.
Despite their deracination, they seem able to surf through most of their troubles, drawing on a kind of positivity to replenish their emotional gas tanks. Friendships, freedom, common lifestyles, stoicism–all served to bind communities of Nomads together even as individuals go their separate ways across the country. Bruder asks, “Are we seeing the emergence of a modern hunter-gatherer class?” That question lingers at the end of the book and at the end of the movie. I am reminded of that underground depicted in the first Star Wars movie–a barroom club scene populated with misfits.
Modern Nomads have not eschewed the use of smart phones or social media. On the contrary they use them to collate and distribute a vast trove of information– about seasonal work, camp grounds, maintenance on-the-fly. They conjure up a kind of vast support group, which implicitly affirms Nomads lead a special life that’s defined by freedom as well as by dispossession.
Bruder elaborated on this theme when I emailed her some questions, asking how many Nomads she thought there might be; whether there was some political consensus among them; were there African American Nomads; were Nomads territorial as some tribes are?
As for the numbers…“I would guess in the low hundreds of thousands, but that’s definitely not a scientific calculation…” According to Bruder, Nomads “didn’t have a lot of faith in the system or expectations that it would improve…there was a feeling that being off the grid made them conscientious objectors to much of mainstream society.” Throughout Bruder’s years of research traveling with Nomads she encountered very few African Americans living the Libertarian life. She suspected that might be due to the risk of encounters with racist lawmen and inhospitable strangers. Bruder forwarded me an article from the NYT published June 10, of this year: “2020 Is the Summer of the Road Trip. Unless You’re Black” The reporter noted the anxiety African Americans experience in daily life tends to be greatly magnified when they go on the road:
Brian Oliver, founder of a non-profit that works with black male students and encourages them to travel…revealed his own experience, said, ‘It’s crazy to try and describe the kind of threat and fear you feel at the prospect of getting lost, losing signal and not really knowing where you are.’
The new “Green Book,” which was published through the 60‘s, has migrated to Facebook where there are Groups devoted to African American travelers. White Nomads, by contrast, face little discrimination and function fairly seamlessly within the larger society, particularly in urban areas. They seem to have updated a dictum made famous by Tim Leary in the sixties when he urged people to “Turn on, tune in, drop out.” The Nomad variation is: Turn off, tune in, drop out.