Robeson on Old Man River -- the dirt.

Probably so, yeah.

“His life and legacy was the film I wanted to make the second after Hunger,” McQueen said, referring to his debut movie, about the IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands. “But I didn’t have the power, I didn’t have the juice.”

McQueen was speaking on stage in New York at the Hidden Heroes awards, organised by the Andrew Goodman Foundation, named in honour of one of three young civil rights activists murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi in 1964.

The director told the audience that he first discovered Robeson at the age of 14. A neighbour called Mr Milton used to give McQueen books and articles he thought might be of interest, and one day put a cutting about Robeson through his parents’ letterbox.

“It was about this black guy who was in Wales and was singing with these miners,” remembered McQueen. “I was about 14 years old, and not knowing who Paul Robeson was, this black American in Wales, it seemed strange. So then, of course, I just found out that this man was an incredible human being.”

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/nov/18/steve-mcqueen-to-make-film-about-paul-robeson

cool

i tried reading that "la review of books" article but the font was so horrendous (particularly on the letter b) that i had to give up! i wish i wasn't such an oversensitive crank. :(

no sign of the feature film yet, but hoping to see this McQueen-Robeson thing tonight

http://whitney.org/Exhibitions/OpenPlanSteveMcQueen

wish a director i liked more was doing a robeson biopic but oh well

actually there's no reason to have a biopic at all, but you can extend that to most every subject

Simon Callow reviews a pair of new Robeson books.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/02/08/emperor-paul-robeson/

Paul Robeson pic.twitter.com/gxFue7jJdf

— Noname (@noname) January 14, 2020

"you did it another way here in Australia, you had to build your accumulated wealth too ... you just came and took it!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0bezsMVU7c