ANDREA ARNOLD BORN IN DARTFORD, KENT (1961) Find out more about Dartford born director Andrea Arnold
STRAIGHT OUT OF DARTFORD BY SHANNON RANDALL
Andrea Arnold grew up in poverty, her mother only 16 when she was born, which translates into her work as all four of her feature films cover topics of poverty and social injustice. As people often do with such somber topics, Andrea’s style and films have been labeled as ‘bleak’. Despite the delicate subject matters, she doesn’t like this classification and profusely disagrees with the label. Her films represent reality for a lot of people and although there are dark and rather tough subjects covered, there is always an element of hope and appreciation of life countering.
She chooses to use ‘non-actors’ -people with no previous acting experience- which has a huge effect on the finished product. She was quoted as saying that celebrities take the audience out of the immersion of the film, whilst ‘non-actors’ add a layer of reality you can’t get elsewhere. American Honey -which I would argue was her most popular and well received film- hired 11 of these ‘non-actors’, all who were just normal kids, discovered by Andrea on the streets of America. Not only does this add an element of realism to her films, but it also expands the options given to teens living in poverty, as well as the chance for an opportunity to get into a creative career and to break that poverty cycle.
The reason Andrea Arnold is a director worth noting is due to the methods she uses in her work. Andrea is also known to let her
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actors form their characters without intervention. Directing American Honey she even filmed the entire film in chronological order which is known to be a tedious method of directing! Andrea is an unorthodox director who uses her past struggles and upbringing to shine a light on an often harshly judged sector of society and its people. This is not easy work to take on, especially using the methods she does and I believe she deserves admiration and recognition for this challenge!
