Keys has passion, advice and aplomb on ‘Alicia’
Alicia Keys has plenty of kindly, uplifting advice on ‘‘Alicia,’’ her seventh studio album.
‘‘Once you free your mind / There is beauty in everything,’’ she sings in ‘‘Time Machine.’’ In ‘‘Authors of Forever,’’ she counsels, ‘‘We’re all in this boat together / And we’re sailing towards the future / and it’s all right.’’ She dedicates two songs, ‘‘Underdog’’ and ‘‘Good Job,’’ to hardworking everyday people, closing the album with lyrics that clearly apply to front-line workers during the pandemic: ‘‘The world needs you now / Know that you matter.’’
The album, which was released Friday, also reveals misgivings, recriminations and regrets alongside Keys’ undiminished musicality. For each of her albums — as announced in titles such as ‘‘The Diary of Alicia Keys’’ (2003), ‘‘As I Am’’ (2007) and ‘‘Here’’ (2016) — Keys, 39, has insisted she is revealing herself further. In recent years, she has often appeared in public without makeup, refusing to glamorize herself.
‘‘Alicia’’ arrives in the wake of her memoir, ‘‘More Myself,’’ published in March. In her book, Keys describes herself as an artist whose determination to make her own way has meant overcoming her instinct to please others.
‘‘I am strong and fierce and brave, no doubt,’’ she wrote. ‘‘Yet I’m also someone who has found myself on the bathroom floor, boohooing and feeling vulnerable.’’
Aspiration, self-esteem and strength, especially women’s strength, have been central messages for Keys in hits like ‘‘Superwoman’’ and ‘‘Girl on Fire.’’ In her songs and TV stints — lately as a coach on the ‘‘The Voice’’ and the poised host of the 2019 and 2020 Grammy Awards — Keys has defined herself as a benevolent big sister and an earth mother with a social conscience.
In 2001, when she emerged as a 20-year-old prodigy who was equally
Bruder’s book “Nomadland: Surviving America in the 21st Century,” and many of the drifters encountered by Fern are the real people from Bruder’s pages or those Zhao met along the way. “Nomadland” is a portrait of modern-day independence on the American frontier.
“America is as diverse as its landscape,” Zhao said in an interview by Zoom. “One thing nice to see is just how much a conversation about how to poop in a bucket can bring together people from all walks of life. If you’re going to have a discussion about how a human being can use a bathroom in a van, none of that stuff matters.”
“There is a way for us to connect,” she continued. “Making the film gave me that hope. I know it’s tough these days, but I have that hope.”
Like Zhao’s previous films, “Nomadland” is naturalistic, rough-hewn and soulful. Her acclaimed 2018 breakout, “The Rider,” about a Lakota cowboy, was made with non-professional actors on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. “Nomadland” is a modest increase in scale for Zhao, introducing Hollywood stars into her Western neo-realism. But a much bigger leap is coming; she’s currently in post-production on “The Eternals,” a $200 million Marvel movie scheduled for release in February. Featuring the franchise’s first LGBTQ character, the cast includes Gemma Chan, Brian Tyree Henry, Kumail Nanjiani and Angelina Jolie.
Zhao, 38, has quickly covered a lot of ground. Born in Beijing, she attended boarding school in England, then college in Massachusetts and film school in New York before moving to Pine Ridge and later to California. The romance of the road in “Nomadland” is something she knows from experience.
“Every year or so I feel the urge to hit the road,” Zhao says. “There is something about taking a shower at 5:30 in the morning at a truck stop. You walk outside and you see the big trucks coming in and you see the sun rising over the mountains. I forget about all the problems. I forget about all the things that I think define who I am, and just feel that transience, people coming in and out and existing.”
During the filming, Zhao and Mcdormand often lived in their own vans. Zhao named hers Akira. Many of the nomads of “Nomadland” were able to drive to the drive-in premiere. The amount of honking, Zhao chuckles, made her worry for the neighbors around Pasadena’s Rose Bowl.
The response to “Nomadland” is owed in part to the excitement around Zhao as a filmmaker — a rise that could have historic reverberations in an unusual awards season. Just the fifth woman to direct a Golden Lion winner, she could become the first Asian woman nominated for best director at the Academy Awards.
But “Nomadland” has also resonated for how it speaks to the moment. The film, much of it shot at golden hour on high plains, is lyrically tender about mortality and making the most of life when you can. Taking a line spoken in the film by the itinerant evangelist Bob Wells, “Nomadland” is dedicated “to the ones who had to depart.”
To Zhao, that’s a tribute not just to the deceased but to anyone we’re separated from.
“It's speaking to: We're all connected,” she said. “We’ll all see each other again someday.”