Ten Things With ‘Blitz’ Director Steve McQueen

Steve McQueen

The director of Blitz talks us through the choices he made to create his dreamlike love letter to wartime London

1 — Don’t look back

None of my films have been similar to any other film, from Occupied City to Hunger to Small Axe to Shame. I mean, they are all very, very, very different. And that’s not just because I want to be different, it’s because the subject matter asks for it to be like that. It’s all about subject matter, and then making work that can enhance what I want to talk about. With Blitz, I wanted to look through a child’s perspective. Like a Brothers Grimm fairytale, it’s very dark, but it’s almost like a dream — and I think that seeing these things through a child’s perspective is what gives it a dreamlike quality. Because I’m putting you in a situation where you’re experiencing things for the first time. It’s a landscape we’re all familiar with, but it’s at the same time it’s unrecognizable.

2 — Dare to be different

What’s radical about Blitz is that every single image on the screen has never been shown before. Every single image on the screen. You’ve never seen women in a factory making bombs. You’ve never seen firemen working the way they did to put out the fires. You’ve never seen [4ft 6in bomb shelter marshal] Mickey Davies, you’ve never seen the Café de Paris bombing, you’ve never seen the effects of a London tube station flooding like this. Every single image is revolutionary, just because people chose not to put it into pictures before. It was steeped in research, because I knew questions would be asked of it, particularly about how — as my historical advisor Joshua Levine, who wrote The Secret History of the Blitz, explained — London was so cosmopolitan at that time. I knew it had to be steeped in research because a lot of questions would be asked: Was it really like this? So, every single image is something you’ve never seen before, in the history of British cinema.

3 — Be true to the story

It wasn’t about ticking boxes. It’s a story about a boy, and it started with a photograph of a boy that I found during my research for Small Axe of a Black child being evacuated, with a cap and a suitcase. I wanted to know who he was. I felt so protective of him when I saw that photograph. He was just a sweet little boy. But the contrast is, he’s in the environment of war. So how did he come to be in this situation? Who were his parents? Where did he live? And then the story of George [played by Elliott Heffernan] spiraled out of that, taking him to broader, wider situations, once he leaves his bird’s nest. Most people didn’t really leave their neighborhoods in those days, their four or five streets. So, the fact that he goes out into a broader, wider environment would have been very unusual.

4 — Give credit where it’s due

George’s mother, Rita, played by Saoirse Ronan, is a character in war that has never been given a platform before. Never. And half of the war effort was women keeping the country together. They were looking after elderly parents, evacuating their children, working at munitions factories, working in aircraft hangers. They were holding the fabric of the country together. That’s what women were doing. It was half of the war effort. But they’ve never been given a platform on the screen, ever. If they were, they’d have been a girlfriend or a wife, handing someone a cup of tea.

5 — Music is the great leveler

I love radio. I found out about a 1940s BBC talent show called Works Wonders. I love the fact that Rita is not just a mother of a child. She has an individual life, and the song she sings for the show, “Winter Coat”, is something I wrote with Nicholas Britell. The idea of the lyric, ‘My father left me his winter coat,’ suggests an absence, but it’s also about a presence. The hug of a coat, the texture of that. I thought that could really communicate, and Saoirse did an amazing job. For English people at that time, the idea of being emotional through song was very important, I feel. It was the oil in the engine.

We wrote it in Studio Three in Abbey Road — where The Beatles recorded — myself and Nicholas. It then went on to another writer, Taura Stinson, who polished it off. Me and Nick, we worked very quickly together. We had the same dynamic duo from 12 Years A Slave. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it: Hans Zimmer does the score; Nick does the onscreen music. But it was just one of those things I really wanted to communicate. I think everybody has a keepsake of someone who has passed. It’s a very personal situation; it’s a song about a coat that, when it’s cold, is warm, like a hug from a person who’s not there anymore.

6 — Chemistry is key

I thought [musician] Paul Weller [who plays George’s grandfather] looked incredible. I thought, ‘This is someone who can actually write his own songs and perform,’ so I assumed he could act too. But, at the time, Paul was having none of that. He was like, “No, I’m not too sure.” It took a bit of convincing. But then I got him with an acting coach, and he was incredible, absolutely incredible. I mean, beautiful. I cannot tell you how beautiful he was as an artist. You had him, a 66-year-old guy, you had a 29-year-old woman in Saoirse, a nine-year-old boy in Elliott, and they all just got on so well. They loved being with each other. They loved playing. They loved communicating. So, what you see on screen is real. I mean, there was no hierarchy. It was like a family.

7 —  Build a solid foundation

I loved working on a picture this size. But then again, I loved it because, as a British director, usually we’re working in abandoned warehouses or whatever. All of a sudden, I’m working in a studio. With a desk and phones that actually work! I thought of cutting one leg off the table and making it a bit wonky, because we’re not used to things working or things being brand new. We’re not used to that. So, I was a fish in water, mate. The thing I had anxiety about was the core of the picture. Everything else, I loved doing. All the set pieces, I live and breathe for stuff like that. But getting that foundation of love, that was the thing. Because if the foundation’s not right, it will all crumble.

8 — Trust your composer

The score came directly from the heart. Hans Zimmer’s mother was in London, in Mayfair, during the Blitz. She was evacuated from Germany, and then, five years after the war, she went back to Germany and became a translator for the Americans. She met his father there. Five years after Hans was born, his father unfortunately died, and then Hans went to boarding school. When I showed him the film, he immediately understood it. It was miraculous. He said, “I know what to do.” Because he understands that situation. The feeling of being taken away by war. I was sitting with him, shoulder to shoulder — literally — when he wrote the score. It was pouring out. I think his mother and his relationship was at the core of this. His mother was huge in his life.

9 — There’s light at the end of the tunnel

After the First World War, there were a lot of avant-garde filmmakers and artists working with abstraction. They were trying to deal with what just occurred. A lot of avant-garde film is based on the horrors of the First World War, trying to somehow deal with that. There’s a short movie by Man Ray that I discovered. I thought, ‘OK, wow, I can take [inspiration] from that and put it into the picture.’ In the beginning, you see this sort of abstract image… You don’t know exactly what it is. At the end of the picture, you find out. It’s a reflection. But the black and white stuff that comes after that is X-ray images of salt crystals, the bed of the sea. Then we cut to some daisies. The daisies really symbolize, somehow, a nostalgia of how things were, or how things could be. Think of “Imagine” by John Lennon. I would’ve jumped off a bridge a long time ago if I didn’t believe there was still a possibility of us having our hands on the steering wheel and changing the course of history. You have to believe that, otherwise we’d have no hope.

10 — Keep on moving

I’ve been working for 18 years straight. I’ve been working like crazy with my film work and my artwork. Blitz is a kind of bookend, in a way, and I’m ready to go onto the next chapter. I think I’ve got two more chapters left. For 18 years I’ve been boom, boom, boom, not stopping. And it’s been great because… Look, I’m a Black man. There’s an urgency. There’s an urgency. I’ve got to get it out there. I’ve got to move. But also, it’s exciting. Working with great people and collaborating. I’m very fortunate to do what I do. A lot of people I grew up with didn’t have this kind of opportunity, so I know I’m very fortunate. I don’t take it for granted. Therefore, I have to work. It’s W-O-R-K in capitals. It’s exciting and thrilling and dangerous — and necessary.