There is a current that moves: Emotion, instinct and directing with feeling

When I hear the word movement, I don’t only think about material form in motion. 

I think about the feeling in my body that surges like a holy tide when I am truly moved, by great creativity, by raw humanity, by delicate words that seem to crash onto earth from somewhere far beyond logic.

There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action…a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.” - Martha Graham.

I think of the choreographer Martha Graham and her description of the current that moves through us, demanding expression. Movement is motion, but really, it is emotion. It is the force that drives us forward, the invisible energy that passes between people when something real is happening; it is one thing turning into another.

Filmmaking is this act of alchemy. Life moves from performer to lens, from lens to audience, everyone making it their own along the way.

The most powerful movement on screen must surely be this magnetic charge of attention between us all.

Above: Georgia Hudson’s Temper (Nowness, 2020), where a drifting lens traces emotion through physical space.

Where Trust And Instinct Matter

Shaping movement sounds abstract, but working with invisible things really means working with people. Their instincts, fears, histories, their lightness and their potential. Emotional movement on camera comes from chemistry. From reaction. From trust. From tension. These aren’t things you force; they’re things you feel, they’re the things you meet.

That special on-set silence that occurs when the story, the camera and the performer connect, you hear the blood in your veins, and the tiniest emotional shift becomes epic.

When we work, my whole system is listening, my gut, my nerves, my disgust and my delight. I have to trust my responses. Once you have learnt the technical aspects of directing, you can put them down and allow the process to become intuitive. That special on-set silence that occurs when the story, the camera and the performer connect, you hear the blood in your veins, and the tiniest emotional shift becomes epic. You know you have real magic by the flush of life that moves through your own body, not just the visuals on the monitor.

Filmmaking takes immense vulnerability and courage from everyone involved. As a director, my job is to make sure my talent, my crew and our environment feel secure and aligned. That safety allows everyone to travel far out into the unknown and bring something wild back. In my opinion, rehearsals can’t be repetition, and direction can’t be too specific, because there is no perfect, fixed idea to realise. It is the electricity of brand new life that is looking to be made vivid.

Above: Poster for Andrea Arnold’s Bird, reflecting its intimate, character-led focus.

Embodying Story Through Movement

In my latest film Body Song, I cast Violet Savage, a dancer with no acting background, as the lead. I had given a stupidly hefty monologue to perform with no real direction notes. Her audition was so raw and unusual that it made my skin flush cold. I was moved. It wasn’t logical, it was mysterious, I rewrote the role for her.

I’ve always been drawn to working with dancers. They know how to drop out of thought and into sensation. They understand rhythm, breath and gravity, and they have great discipline. This openness creates a responsiveness the camera can meet, and that balance of fluidity and form is the perfect polarity for creation.

A drifting camera can feel like a ghost, or a memory, or a child watching quietly from the edge of the room.

In my documentary Temper (Nowness, 2020), the emotional depth we uncovered in our interviews played out against twisting camerawork. The lens roved through corridors, homes, streets and train lines, like a force searching its way through the outer architecture of the psyche. This interplay between inner and outer worlds created a merging of movement that intended to hand the film back to the audience, offering a sensory immersion.

A drifting camera can feel like a ghost, or a memory, or a child watching quietly from the edge of the room. When the camera moves like that, the experience feels personal, instinctive and familiar. It is the same as when the performance or the content is honest and alive, it creates the tension of participation, the intensity of unfiltered presence.