Steve McQueen's Small Axe series of films for the bbc

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/small-axe-series-review-steve-mcqueen-b1722387.html

First one aired last night on BBC one in the big Sunday drama slot.

Yeah enjoyed it.

Probably should have been more familiar with the story. &do wonder how simplified it was to make it a tv narrative.

Cop was pure evil. Or maybe systematic racism was.

Surprised myself by being right that the fleeting shot I got of CLR James was played by Derek Griffiths.

Would be good if this triggered more black drama being shown on BBC.would be good if there was a constant percentage of tv made for a BIPOC oriented audience without ghettoising or tokenising the tv schedule. Have wondered why there hasn't been a black magazine show I've been aware of in years too. I remember Ebony being on regularly in the 80s. Is it just not a medium the target audience would watch in that way would be good to get some more black history shows on too. Show there is more to black history.

Anyway looking forward to the rest of the series

not seen last night's one yet, but it looked less 'cinematic' than his usual stuff. which might not be a bad thing tbh.

id like more bipoc oriented tv too, rather than tokenistic 'colour blind' casting for the sake of it in other shows. its what they used to do in the 80s/early 90s IIRC.

i thought it was quite good, though definitely not filmed in the style of his usual work. much more 'sunday night drama on the bbc'. i found it a bit blunt as far as the storytelling, not much nuance at work. they made the character of frank crichlow a bit one note and just a hothead. his story IRL is def sympathetic, as the details at the end show, but idk if he was that sympathetic here, dramatically. and pulley, who im sure was a grade-a tyrant, is a bit on the nose too. but its good that a drama on this made it to tv.

Loved Mangrove (more than pretty much any individual movie this year), can't believe there are four more still to come.

These are going to be on Amazon Prime in the US apparently. One episode a week starting yesterday.

That's how I watched it (thanks Mom)

Posted on the bbc thread, didn't realise there was a dedicated one: Lovers Rock was the best thing I've seen on the bbc in years

I thought it was going to be a history thing again like last week. Thought they were portraits of certain figures so this would have a lot of Dennis Bovell in. Worked quite well as what it was. & apparently Bovell was in the background in th edance room scenes. you see him in a light suit jacket with a dance partner.
Did think that the girls were going to turn out to be a pair of the singers from the recording scene. I don't know much about the area apart from the importance of Bovell in its development so couldn't name artists.

Slightly surprised by the thrash scene, was that a thing. Moshpits at reggae dj sets?
Also not quite sure when it was set, was Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting a golden oldie in the set?

some really nice little details throughout. The telescopic cross thing was quite funny.

lol its not a thrash scene, just guys dancing together, bros being bros, etc. the song in that scene is a harder dub thing than the sweeter melodic lovers rock stuff played elsewhere.
its in the 70s so stuff like carl douglas and that disco song were just part of the time. not reggae obv but just house party favourites. dance songs.
i liked last night better than mangrove. much more of a mcqueen film. mangrove was prosaic in comparison.
this wasnt really about anything major, just nicely observed little details, intimate stuff, really enveloped you in the atmosphere, its on little world.
the thing i didnt like so much was the slightly surreal, stagey scene of everyone in the party singing to silly games. i get that its meant to take you out the scene somewhat, but im not sure to what end, and it was just way too long. i love that song, but its not well-deep to merit that kind of accappella treatment, esp as we already heard it once before. but maybe that was a wong kar wai type thing going on (i hate WKWs use of the same piece repeatedly too).

I've only watched Lovers Rock but I think that was my fave thing of his since Hunger.

Simon, can I ask: did you use a VPN or is there a way to watch these in Canada?

pirate bay has files

BTW EWverybody was Kung Fy fghting dates back to 1974 so it is inevitably going to be a golden oldie. I don't know what year this was supposed to be because I read something saying it was 80s and I could have seen it being anytime between like 78 and a few years later. Nopt sure when peak Lovers Rock is because its not a scene I've really immersed myself in.
Seemed to be very popular with a lot of people at the time though. Hence the singalong bit which I would think miight possibly be a shared memory. I was too young at whatever time that was to tell. I was also listening to more whote indie and psychedela nd stuff though I was listenig to David Rodegan from some time iun the late 70s.
Still not sure a moshpit scene is something real. Punk had happened and I wonder if it was something borrowed from that, seemed to go against style otherwise.
Dennis Bovell had been involved with some vestiges of that anyway. I looked him up before the show started so I could put a face on him, IMDB had him listed as playing somebody. I assumed a named role might have some dialogue but didn't seem to , but did see what appeared to be part of his face on a dancer. THink I've seen him i other things too cos face is quite recognisable. Did just think he might be a biographical figue=re in this before watching it. Since he was one of the major behind the scenes creator in the music style as well as producing things like The Pop Group's Y and Slits and stuff.

ha yeah I suppose I could just pirate it

nice, music-focused interview here (mentions the Bovell cameo too): https://slate.com/culture/2020/11/lovers-rock-songs-steve-mcqueen-interview-silly-games.html

They're on Amazon Prime internationally, no?

i've been dying to see, well all of them, but especially lover's rock since reading the rave reviews from NY film fest in june? july?

have not seen since came out 10 or so years ago but there was a documentary called the story of lover's rock which gave a pretty decent overview/intro to what the scene was if interested

now remembering that soul/jazz compilation reggae disco hustle of the overlap of disco and lovers rock. feels like weather should be nice to watch lovers rock and listen to that music style

according to an interview with McQueen over on Slate, the singalong to Silly Games (and then after without the music) was a spontaneous thing that just happened, so McQueen kept it in.
you can clearly hear Dennis Bovell in the voices during the acapella section, and he is featured dancing at the start of the track.

Soul Jazz have a "pure" lovers comp called Harmony, Melody, & Style that's p good iirc. Greensleeves has a good one too: This Is Lovers Rock. Though this might be my favorite "comp": https://www.mixcloud.com/SoulCoolRecords/grievous-angel-vs-john-eden-lovers-rock-mix-vol-1/

They're on Amazon Prime internationally, no?

not in Canada

I didn't spend too long looking, but afaict it's only in the US

ah balls, sorry rob. you’re right. it looks like a number of territories picked up rights but not canada. i *still* don’t really understand how international rights acquisition works for the big OTT platforms. must make an effort to find out.

no worries! It is extremely confusing: earlier on a different thread someone mentioned a couple of hbo max shows (possibly BBC co-productions?) that I was annoyed to realize are not on the Canadian service I pay stupid $ for, pretty much exclusively to get hbo content.

Holy fuck the ending of red white and blue hit me for six.

I saw the real Leroy Logan interviewed during Black History Month and talking about Onyeagba choosing to play him. I think he'd met him beforehand. Something like Logans son being up for the Attack The block role that was onyeagba's springboard to further work.

Interesting seeing leeeee John as a best mate. Would have preferred it if he was wearing a Regal shirt as he always seemed to be in on Pop Quiz etc.

Was that Mucky Taylor from Only Fools and Horses or would he be way too old. Guess he'd be Nicholas lindhursts age.

Quite enjoyed it though.

tbh mangrove and RWB are mediocre as films, but the issues they present are def powerful.

boyega was good but seemed a bit young. he has the star power, but not sure he has the depth. he also sounds like a guy whos a modern londoner, not an 80s londoner.

Finally caught Lover's Rock and oh boy. Magnificent. That singalong scene, fuck.

the alex wheatle one was very good. though it got a bit lost when it ended up a documentary for the new cross fire (recommend a short doc on that which is on the bfi player). and then the brixton riots seemed to get shoehorned in there too. these films are great in one sense, yet they never feel self contained. not sure why end of year polls are featuring them as stand alone films, not just cos they arent cinematic, but because it seems like this series has to be taken as a whole.

Lover's Rock felt self-contained, I'll certainly be putting that on my 2020 film ballot

I don't know Wheatle outside of this probably should. Wondered how glossed and shortened some of these subtext were. Dread cellmate bit for one.
Also not sure how old he was supposed to be at certain points. Looking him up I saw he was in the sound system crew from the age of 16. Not sure if that showed.
Also looked like he was in the same room when he had the police raid as when he moved to what I assume was a half way house or something. Maybe all rooms that size look the same on tv.
Just surprised he'd stay there longer than he needed to if up to nefarious activity. Though maybe still difficult to find accommodation for a black youth at the time. Thought it probably better than 10 years or do earlier. I've had irish friends talking about no blacks no dogs no Irish being on landlords windows surprisingly late.
Riot looked way smaller than I imagined it.i sat listening to the news of the actual event on the radio in Walthamstow on the night and wanted to be on the other side of town for it. Assumed it was area wide. Not sure if I'd been to Brixton by then, was frequenting a pub out there by the end of the decade.but that was more about noise rock.
Quite enjoyed it again may get around to watching some of these for a 2nd time.
Has Mcqueen got any more of these planned or were these specific heroes of his.

i kinda wish there was something small, or someone linking these stories somehow, so theyre not totally separate.
yeah the riot looked small. dont remember it being that way from seeing news footage of it. but i guess they had a budget.
its def a very potted wiki history of wheatles life.
dont think mcqueen is that interested in the finer details though, its more about the big social aspects he is trying to show.

for those that haven’t seen it, Babylon is on Netflix (in the UK anyway). Great images of late 70s/early 80s Brixton and sound system/music culture from at the time.

Thanks for the tip, Fizzles.

I think Countryman was trhe other big Rasta film of the time but was more about people going Maroon like in Jamaica, still decent film.
& The Harder They Come should be familiar to most.

Babylon features Brinsley Forde and the music of Aswad back before they went commercial

babylon is a great film

Watching now.

Babylon is fantastic. Fave reggae film along with Rockers.

just catching up with this.. Lovers Rock.. how great was that????? i’m frankly drunk with it. I want to know what happens to everybody in it. scene after scene of such beauty and pleasure and violence and disappointment and ecstasy and boredom and joy. fuck’s sake. the bike ride home among the most transportingly beautiful things i’ve ever seen.

in terms of direction it's just astonishing. the shimmering shadow of her climbing in the window, the memory of everything that's happened, still clinging to her but seeming to vanish already in the sunlight. the giant secret inside that she can't even let herself smile about yet. the punchline of her mom's voice. the way we float from scene to scene, the toilet, seeing her friend, the white boys, the bouncer, her cousin the troubled skanker. how long you're allowed to stay and groove in everything. just take it in. no rush. the hat! the knife! christ!

of course it helps that 'silly games' is one of my favorite songs of all time. Paul Sci-Fi Soul put it on a mix for me one time. that singalong just broke my heart. it reminded me one one time at Frank's Lounge in Brooklyn - i think i'm remembering this right - when the music cut out (by mistake) near the peak of the night so all you could hear was the sound of dancing feet, and a conga drum, because there was nearly always somebody playing a conga, and everybody started clapping, and for awhile a chant sprang up - 'we don't need no music!'

:)

xpost beautifully put. The singalong reminded me of many joyful nights in small dancing spaces where a dj would drop out a track and we would just keep it going, keep it alive with soulclaps and our voices. Mancuso dropping out of Stevie's "As" one night at The Loft, mid-2000s, was something I'll never forget.

The big pots of goat curry. The man with the fold-up cross in the bus.

the fact that franklin's job is fixing cars but he seemingly can't afford one of his own. the way he's showing martha he's a real man, he's got a living, a workplace, then is immediately put in his place by this young white twerp boss.

^otm, also the unremarked upon code switch with his accent

i also noticed a bit of accent switching with the two girlfriends - tho i’m not sure it was intentional tbh

Oh no, the accent/code switching throughout was very definitely intentional, and was really striking in its effect.

Love your posts upthread, btw, so evocative.

thank you! this movie really affected me. or is it a movie? i was thinking about that. to get a movie financed for a cinematic release it would need a more structured script. i don’t think he could have done it. the only way is to make it a TV show. it lives in this inbetween space. i really would love to see these shots - and this soundtrack - in a movie theatre though tbrr

the format presumably gave him the freedom to make lovers rock the correct length

has a movie under 70 mins gotten major distribution in the last idk 50 years? maybe a couple kids movies

Cumulatively, despite a couple lags, the series is my favorite moment of ci-ne-mah this year. McQueen loves music and uses it so well, for example the use of Al Green's Bee Gees cover in Red White and Blue

I'd no idea Imagination's Leee John was best mates with LeroyLogan.

has a movie under 70 mins gotten major distribution in the last idk 50 years? maybe a couple kids movies

― stylish but illegal (Simon H)

aren't a couple of Hong films in the 70-minute range?

FINALLY watched lover's rock
loved this so so much
balm for my bruised soul

Courttia Newland who wrote the Lover's Rock screenplay has an amazing novel out this week: A RIVER CALLED TIME. Everyone, get it!

A friend who knows me too well told me there'd be a musical bit in Lover's Rock that I'd love; as soon as "Kung Fu Fighting" started up, I knew that was what he meant. Not quite as ecstatic as Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose in BlacKkKlansman, but pretty close.

Reminded me of another song I used to love and that I didn't have saved on my hard drive, an oversight I'll correct: Eddie Holman's "Hey There Lonely Girl."

I loved the Kung Fu Fighting bit, and I loved that it kind of exploded my personal cliches around that song - that it's a song for lame white dads to dance to in the 80s, or for ironic hipsters to dance to anytime after that, with the unspoken (racist) assumption that those ironic hipsters were white. Now - all of that can be true, but those milieux can coexist with black Londoners also loving it, and being funny with each other about it, all at the same time.

and any number of other sorts of people, in various eras, getting into it! KFF is a funny song. It's basically about a meme. Everybody was kung-fu fighting. And then the song kind of becomes a meme itself, something to mimic and reproduce in your own context - your friends, your living room, etc.

I loved how they immediately went into their ritualistic dance moves when the song struck up (looking deadly serious and simultaneously laughing at themselves). It's a real I-was-so-much-older-then song for me: didn't like it as a kid, just an annoying novelty, and then, in the mid-'80s, when I had cause to start re-listening to a bunch of stuff from that era, it suddenly sounded great. I understand why someone might recoil from the song, but I like your post above.

Of the first three, I liked Red, White and Blue the best. Great performance from John Boyega. "Tired of Being Alone" was cut a little short, but Green's "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart" cover was used really well.

There was a song in Lover's Rock I can't identify--I've checked links and playlists, and I just can't locate it. The chorus goes "Tell me what you think of me, baby."

timestamp?

I don't know what that means...Is that like a Tunefind site? I checked there without luck. Maybe the title has no connection to the chorus and I keep missing it.

If you mean how far into the episode, just past the halfway mark--right after "Silly Games."

That's what I meant :)

The ending of Red, White & Blue was frustrating to me in the context of Mangrove having resolved the immediate case, and then captioned to note that dude continued to suffer police harassment until a big compo over a decade later. When they mentioned "Leee" having been on TOTP, I'd looked to see if it was Leee John and determined this was a true story too.

(Turns out that Leroy also continued to suffer (internal) police harassment for decades, eventually getting a big compo. So you can see why they'd not give the same resolution, I was just left hanging in the moment.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ynHFy1fIDE

sic -- sorry, I'm often slow when it comes to tech jargon; I realized what you meant a minute later.

Thank you! That's it. Example of what I mean: it's nowhere to be found on this Spotify playlist.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3d7NxwDUZkz31W06TiN4AH

Love it--I'd never heard it before.

it's mentioned on imdb here - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10551102/soundtrack

but that's missing at least the augustus pablo track ("minstrel pablo")

(i just searched for the first two lines of lyrics and got a hit on a japanese website, then googled the title to check / get youtube link)

Wait.. mend a broken heart is a cover?

I only discovered this very recently too.

I was going to respond to a hoy hoy's post, but last time I got fished into an explanation I got dinged. I'm a little gun-shy now.

Joe Biden, Senator from Citibank (oops, DELAWARE), to Run for President

Awww clem, I still like ya

Only watched Mangrove so far, looking forward to getting round to the rest

Malachi Kirby is uncanny as Darcus Howe, amazing performance

Thought Robbie Gee was excellent in Alex Wheatle...For a couple of years after I first saw Miller's Crossing, I'd sometimes ask someone "What's the rumpus?" My new thing is going to be "Come, let's trod."

My dog now understands Let’s Trod is how we go walkies now.

Loved Education--definitely my favourite. The teacher in me is such a sucker for a film like that.

Quick ranking/ratings:

Education - A or A+ (I'd need to see it again)
the middle three - A-
Mangrove - B or B+ (it's fine, I just found it the least personal of the five, and maybe a little too straightforward compared to the others)

Quite a series. A lot I never knew.

"Lazy Afternoon" was fantastic in Education. The goofball teacher doing "House of the Rising Sun" killed me. Thought it might have been a sly nod to School of Rock; the punchline to that scene was perfect.

I caught some interesting interviews with Leroy Logan over the last while. Definitely one where he refers to this series and how he knew John Onyeagba from his son being a rival for the role in Attack The Block. & how Onyeagba had specifically asked to play him.
Not sure if things like that would still be up on YouTube or anything think that was done as a webinar or Zoom performance by a London Borough during Black History Month. Interesting anyway.
Shame they didn't dress Leeeee in Regal gear since that's what I remember him in. May have been slightly later on Pop Quiz though but he always seemed to wear Regal shirts.
My brother who used to be a printer remarked on period accuracy of a printshop they ran into during the chase scene. That it was a weird thing to still have running or to recreate that thoroughly.

Wish there was more of this coming. Also wish I hadn't lost track of time and missed half the webinar interview with Steve Mcqueen he did for a New York source.

Every one of these deserves to be a 3 part series in itself. They are all crammed too tightly into one hour slots. Makes it feel like elements are being crowbarred in. Or maybe that's just McQueen and his not always smooth grasp on narrative, idk. Either way, I loved education the most tbh, that kid playing Kingsley was so great.

The first 12 minutes of this Zoomcast are on Small Axe. I quote Tracer Hand's "Kung Fu Fighting" post above. My lawyers are on standby--go ahead, I dare you, I double-dare you.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQMDNQJDMLI&t

Slowly going through these, caught Lovers Rock yesterday night and I don't think I'm going to stop thinking about it for a while.
This one wasn't without it's uncomfortable scenes, but compared to the relentless drama of Mangrove, I especially liked how comfortable McQueen was with simply holding back and letting the camera (and the music) do the work.
A good portion of the film is just people holding each other while they dance; tiny changes in their body language showing different levels of intimacy. Janet Kay's 'Silly Games', (very likely the most iconic of all the Lovers Rock songs), plays out three times: once in full, twice as acapellas sung by the cast (pure magic). Likewise, they wheel-up The Revolutionaries' 'Kunta Kinte Dub' no less than THREE times, with people dancing wildly throughout.
Felt like there were a lot of parallels with the early-80s cult classic movie 'Babylon' (which I caught for the first time the other week) in look and feel. Lovers Rock's portrayal of blues parties and soundsystem culture feels as realistic as they come. If anything, it's the most honest depiction of actually being at a house party that I've ever seen. It neither romanticised or dramatised it. That feeling of wandering from room-to-room looking for your mates, maybe wondering whether it was a good idea to have come in the first place, getting familiar with the revolving cast of faces at the party without getting to know everyone's names, and then slowly realising you're having quite a good time.
There were so many bits that I enjoyed, but one supporting character I really really liked was Martha's troubled cousin. His backstory was referred to only very briefly, but I loved the scene here he nicks someone else's beer and starts dancing over-emphatically in front of the soundsystem. Instead of telling him to cool down or fuck off, one of the crew gives him this sympathetic expression, hands him the end of his joint and takes him over to the mic so he can DJ (and from what it sounds, he turns out to be a decent vocalist!).
In 70-minutes Lovers Rock made me feel like I'd been on a full night out, with all its ups-and-downs, all its most exciting bits, tedious bits, snapshots of drama, snapshots of languishing and self-doubt.

This review on Letteboxd made me laugh:

"if i don’t get to smoke weed and dance and freak it with my pals and sing a rocky falsetto in the house of somebody i don’t know and keep an eye on a creep with a hat patterned like a yoshi’s island background sometime soon i’m gonna fucking die"

great review dl.