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Small Axe (Steve McQueen mini-series)

alsoknownas

alsoknownas

some bloke
This looks like it could be essential viewing! Art installation wrangler turned director McQueen (Hunger) is bringing his take on several generations of Caribbean experience in London to our small screens. To include a potentially epic Lovers party faithfully reconstructed in one episode! :cool:

‘Lovers Rock’ Review: Steve McQueen’s ‘Small Axe’ Film Has One of the Best Dance Parties Ever Filmed

Set across a single night in 1980 and loaded with a soundtrack from the eponymous reggae music, “Lovers Rock” is a paean to an energized youth culture taking control of its surroundings, despite the social unrest around them. Experienced on its own terms, this delightful snapshot of boozy dance-floor seduction plays like an artist unleashing years of repressed good vibes by applying his lyrical style to pure, unbridled bliss for almost the entirety of its 68 minutes.
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As each episode get's reviewed this is looking more and more intriguing. I'm looking forward to seeing it.

‘Red, White and Blue’ Review: John Boyega Gives Career-Best Performance as Activist Policeman

While Steve McQueen’s five-film anthology “Small Axe” presents a collage of complementary stories from London’s West Indian community, “Red, White and Blue” plays like a breaking point. The two installments revealed earlier on the festival circuit, “Mangrove” and “Lovers Rock,” both showcase a self-sufficient community navigating the existential threat of institutional racism, but the protagonist of “Red, White and Blue” aims to improve the system by joining it.

Needless to say, that’s no easy task for Leroy Logan (John Boyega), who doesn’t exactly find a welcoming crowd when he becomes the sole Black officer in the Metropolitan Police Force circa 1983, and “Red, White and Blue” finds him at constant odds with his idealism.
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Reno said:
I'll give it a look, seems promising. I'm not a huge fan of McQueen's films, I only really liked Hunger, so maybe that will get me back on board.
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It is fair to say that Hunger is the definite killer film on his resume.

He's one of the few artists I ended up seeing a lot of back in the day when he was doing installations. Kept running into them by coincidence, not seeking them out as such. Always had a strong personal voice.
 
Pickman's model said:
I don't suppose it will cover Leroy Logan's curious support for the homophobic Christians of truce, who he brought to hackney about 14 years ago

E2A forgot uckg involved UCKG Joins the Truce
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Who knows with McQueen? He seems simultaneously arch establishment and subversive.

I've always assumed that he himself is gay (because of his early video sculptures) but I'm not certain that's the case?
 
alsoknownas said:
Who knows with McQueen? He seems simultaneously arch establishment and subversive.

I've always assumed that he himself is gay (because of his early video sculptures) but I'm not certain that's the case?
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McQueen is married to a woman and he has kids. I don't think a gay man would make a film like Shame.
 
GarveyLives said:
Franco Rosso's 1973 documentary, 'The Mangrove Nine', is a more authentic account than anything that McQueen is likely to be able to produce:

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GarveyLives said:
Menelik Shabazz's 2011 documentary, 'The Story of Lovers Rock, is a more authentic account than anything that McQueen is likely to be able to produce:

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It's a good thing if we're getting multiple perspectives. It's one of the things we need more of really - depth of material around black experiences. I pay full and utter respect to people like Ové, Onwurah, Shabazz, et al. but it can feel a bit like there hasn't yet been a baton change from that generation of filmmaker. Not sure if that makes sense.

As for 'authenticity', McQueen is an unpredictable artist. His depiction of the nexus events in the Irish struggles seemed as 'authentic' as has been otherwise achieved.
 
Reno said:
McQueen is married to a woman and he has kids. I don't think a gay man would make a film like Shame.
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Fair dos. I'm really just going off of the projection films he made of himself naked rolling about with some other dude :D

eta - They were put on as part of 'Coming Out' - Gender & Sexuality collection, so you can perhaps see how I made the presumption.
 
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I really enjoyed last nights programme. The soundtrack was brilliant and I especially loved the use of Symarip's Skinhead Moonstomp to 'accompany'' the accused stamping their feet in the dock, superbly done. Am looking forward to Lovers Rock but wary of 'Red, white and Blue'..
 
I enjoyed that a lot - in parts. The pace was a bit flat, which is a shame cos there were plenty of interweaving stories that could have given it some drive.
The central performance (I mean Parkes as Crichlow) was really well judged - weary and digging-in, dying and fighting at the same time. Worth the admission money.
 
Fozzie Bear said:
It’s good, but the dialogue in the first third is incredibly stilted and didactic.

Great cast and sets.
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Yes. As you say, the cast were killing it. All really committed and well measured. But it struggled at times to elevate above 'worthy'. Life's a bit dirtier than that, something McQueen has managed to scrape us into in the past.

Still, it is really powerful that that story is being given attention in people's living rooms at 9pm (or whatever it was) on the beeb. It's quite an important piece of communication in that regard.
 
I thought it was ok, and it is good those events are remembered and publicised.
There were some things which were not as I remember. The judge in the program was not as nasty and crabby as the real Justice Edward Clark was.

The jury selection scene showing a potential black juror being challenged and removed by the prosecution barrister as he rose to take the oath was inaccurate.
Jurors legally have to be challenged before they start taking the oath. The third potential black juror had started reading the oath in a strong Jamaican accent when the prosecution barrister challenged him and the judge told the juror to stand down. Defence Counsel Ian McDonald objected that he had already started taking the oath. The Judge retorted that he had not heard anything - everyone else in the court had.
Ian McDonald made a point of referring to that in his final summing up address to the jury saying that it showed how the judge was prepared to break the law in his efforts to get the defendants convicted.

Three of the defendants were found guilty of minor charges, but the jury recommended leniency in sentencing. They were thanked and dismissed by the judge but most came back the next day to hear the sentencing which was suspended sentences, though not because of the 'season of goodwill'!
The jurors went to the pub across the road from the court after the sentencing and met the defendants.They told the defendants they only convicted on the lesser charges as a a compromise with a couple of the older prejudiced jurors who wanted to convict on the more serious charges of riot and affray, and they were afraid that if there was a hung jury there would be a retrial with possibly a worse jury.. Three came to the celebration party at the Mangrove the following Saturday.
 
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I couldn’t help but compare it with Sorkins latest courtroom drama, Trial of the Chicago Seven. This actually got over the tension and importance of the trial properly and let the facts and characters speak for themselves. Vastly superior.
 
I watched it as it sounded interesting and I knew nothing about the case. Thought it was very well done, great acting and regardless of precise accuracy does a good job of outlining why the case was so important, even if they only got the most grudging of recognition that prejudice was at play. But it was a start.... not that we're anywhere near the finish, of course.
 
Interesting post, thanks @tony.c. The acting was excellent and I thought it was pretty good (as someone whom knew of the story/case), but these dramas I hope can be more powerful to those that may not already be aware of them and be quite enlightening. It also reminded how privileged I still feel to have been able to meet and have a quick chat with Howe at bookfair a few years ago now.

Lovers Rock on tonight.
 
What I realised from watching the mangrove 9 trial was that shockingly at age 51 and being a black woman with a black Jamaican mother that arrived in London in the early 60's.....I had not been taught any Black British history! I feel very disturbed by this fact.
Really looking forward to the lovers rock episode tonight.....'Silly games' reminds me of running around and playing on the street in summer in the late 70's/ early 80's in North London.
 
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alsoknownas said:
This looks like it could be essential viewing! Art installation wrangler turned director McQueen (Hunger) is bringing his take on several generations of Caribbean experience in London to our small screens. To include a potentially epic Lovers party faithfully reconstructed in one episode! :cool:

‘Lovers Rock’ Review: Steve McQueen’s ‘Small Axe’ Film Has One of the Best Dance Parties Ever Filmed
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Yes, I want to see this. Just finished watching Steve McQueen on PBS Amanpour interview. However, I don’t receive Amazon Prime.
 
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