By Iain Blair

British director/writer/producer Steve McQueen burst onto the international scene in 2013 when his harrowing 12 Years a Slave dominated awards season, winning the Academy Award for Best Picture. Now McQueen is back with Small Axe, the BBC-produced anthology of five feature-length stories about London’s West Indian immigrant population and its struggles.

The series, streaming on Amazon Prime, comprises five titles —  Mangrove, Lovers Rock, Alex Wheatle, Education and Red, White and Blue — all set from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s, and all based on true stories except for the joyous, all-night party film Lovers Rock.

McQueen, who teamed with writers Courttia Newland and Alastair Siddons, called on director of photography Shabier Kirchner (Bull, Skate Kitchen) and Oscar-winning editor Chris Dickens (Slumdog Millionaire, Les Misérables).

I spoke with McQueen, whose other features include Widows, Shame and Hunger, about making the films and his workflow.

Your first five films were pretty harrowing, dark and heavy. Do you feel you’ve really lightened up this time, especially with a party-dance film like Lovers Rock?
Yes and no. I just want to tell the truth, and I’d never put blinders on. We don’t live in a bed of roses most of the time, although sometimes it is. Look at the state of the world today, with COVID and all the social and political tension. It’s not to say there aren’t rainbows out there, but you have to be realistic about what’s going on.

Lovers Rock

What were the main challenges in pulling it all together?
Getting the period and look right and finding locations. We shot most of it in London, but it’s not easy finding period locations, so we moved to Wolverhampton for a couple of the films — Education and Red, White and Blue — as they had a ‘60s civic center and some ‘70s buildings that were all original.

Each film had to have a different look and feel, and we had to discover what that was, but then they also had to have the feel of a piece. So working with production designer Helen Scott (A Very English Scandal, Fish Tank) and costume designers Jacqueline Durran, Sinead Kidao and Lisa Duncan was also key.

Red, White and Blue

Your go-to cinematographer is Sean Bobbitt, but for this you used a new DP, Shabier Kirchner. How did that work?
Sean wasn’t available, so I used it as an opportunity to find an up-and-coming talent. When I saw Shabier’s showreel and his style and work, I was impressed and felt he’d be the perfect guy to shoot this.

He’s from Antigua, and he’s a sailor and a skater and has this amazing sense of balance in how he shoots, which you can really see at work in all the party scenes in Lovers Rock. But he’s also great at handling drama. We shot with ARRIs, and I wanted some of it to have the texture of 35mm and the feel and texture of the time and the place, but not be too grainy. I also didn’t want to shoot in a wide-screen aspect ratio if it was a more intimate piece, like Red, White and Blue, which we shot in 35mm. And then Shabier shot a mixture of 35mm, 16mm and digital for the others, and we used various frame ratios to get the look we wanted.

How early on did you start integrating post and the visual effects?
They both basically came later, but we started doing an assembly as we shot, and then Chris Dickens, the editor, came on after we’d wrapped.

Mangrove

Where did you post?
We posted all of the films at Lipsync, and they did everything — including all the sound, mixing and visual effects. They really helped me get through it, and I don’t mean just in terms of finishing my movie, but in dealing with the pandemic. We were editing remotely, and I was at home in Amsterdam where I live, and Chris was in London, so we all — me, Chris and the Lipsync team — became like this very close family.

Do you like the post process?
I love post as you’re sitting there with your editor and actually making the film and discovering all this stuff as you go. I love being on set, and really there’s no part of the filmmaking process I don’t like, but post is where it all happens. I edit at home, so it’s just very civilized, and I can be with my family.

You usually edit with Joe Walker. Talk about editing with Chris Dickens. How did that work?
Joe was off doing Dune, so I was very fortunate to hook up with Chris. As I said, he wasn’t around for the shoot, so he had to catch up. We started cutting in London together, and after COVID hit I moved back home to Amsterdam. Then we just put our heads down and got on with it, as there was a lot of material to deal with. But I was very driven, and I knew exactly what I wanted.

Lovers Rock

What about the VFX? What was entailed?
Nothing crazy. It’s not Star Wars (laughs). We had a lot of clean-up, mainly.

Can you talk about the importance of sound and music, especially in Lovers Rock?
They’re always so important in all my films, and particularly in Lovers Rock where it’s all about the senses – touch, smell, perfume, food, music, dancing, movement. And it’s also all about the visuals – the clothes, even the wallpaper. I wanted to create this celebration of all that, and [choreographer] Coral Messam did an amazing job of making it all flow organically with the ritual dancing and tracks like “Silly Games” and “Kung Fu Fighting.”

Where did you do the DI, and how important is it to you?
It’s so crucial, and we did it at Company 3 London with colorist Tom Poole. He’s my usual guy. He’s mad and amazing! He’s all about the narrative and the temperature. I don’t think colorists get enough credit for the great work they do, and Tom is a pain in the arse – but in a good way. He always pushes you to get the very best, and he’s so passionate about the work. We spent a lot of time tweaking stuff and playing around with the palette on each film, and I’m so happy with the way they all turned out.

Alex Wheatle

When you started the process, what sort of film anthology did you set out to make?
I wanted to have a real go at capturing the black experience in England from 1968 until about 1984 — talking about everything from family and love to childhood tribulations, education, racism, struggles — all the major stuff.

But I also wanted to talk about the joys of a party, music and food, falling in love, and I first began thinking about all this when I did my first film, Hunger, 12 years ago. Back then I conceived of it as a TV series, but as it developed, I realized the best way of dealing with all these stories was to make five separate films that could stand alone as original pieces but at the same time be part of an anthology and a collective.

While this is a period piece, when the Cannes Film Festival selected two of the films — Mangrove and Lovers Rock — you dedicated both to George Floyd and all the other black victims of racism and violence.
I’m glad you said that because, yes, they’re all period pieces that take you back to a specific time and place and comment on that, but they’re also commenting on where we are now and what’s happening today.

They’re very much about the present to me, and movements like Black Lives Matter. The title Small Axe refers to an African proverb that goes, “If you are the big tree, we are the small axe,” which means together we are strong.

Industry insider Iain Blair has been interviewing the biggest directors in Hollywood and around the world for years. He is a regular contributor to Variety and has written for such outlets as Reuters, The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times and the Boston Globe.