With covid-19 still uncontrolled, the 58th edition of the New York Film Festival gets underway September 25, running until October 11. A collaboration of sorts with the Toronto International Film Festival and the Venice Film Festival, this year’s schedule is slimmed down from previous versions.
Among the casualties are star sightings, often infuriating post-screening Q&A’s, and throngs at industry parties. To say nothing of the screenings themselves, packed with eager fans, heavy with anticipation. “There’s nothing for me that beats going to a cinema,” said Steve McQueen, director of opening night’s Lovers Rock.
One of five short features collected under the Small Axe umbrella, Lovers Rock will be screened on BBC in the United Kingdom and on Amazon here in the US. In a Zoom interview with NYFF programmer Dennis Lim and stars Amarah-Jae St. Aubyn and Micheal Ward, McQueen admitted that most viewers have the equipment at home for a “high-quality” viewing experience. But if ever a movie called out for the communal feel of a cinema setting, Lovers Rock is it.
The movies in Small Axe unfold between the late 1960s and mid-80s. Lovers Rock, the second episode, takes place largely in and around a London home in a West Indian neighborhood. It’s the site of a house party with food, drink, and DJs manning a heavy-duty stereo. McQueen follows several characters on their way to the party, watches how they interact, and then lets the music and dancing take over.
With “lovers rock” hits on the soundtrack, and sinuous cinematography by Shabier Kirchner, Lovers Rock aims to redefine the musical genre. It includes two lengthy song interludes, “Silly Games” by Janet Kay and “Kunte Kinte” by the Revolutionaries. Both end in sustained a cappella singing that feel simultaneously carefully choreographed and spontaneous.
In the Zoom interview, McQueen said that Kirchner was integral to the development of the dance sequences. “Shabier is from Antigua, he’s a skater, he has an incredible sense of balance,” he added. “What was happening in front of the camera was happening behind it in a way.”
Micheal Ward, who plays Franklyn in the film, felt the experience was unlike his other work. “I didn’t feel like I was doing this for a camera,” he said. “He was following what needed to be followed. We just trusted in would be captured.”
“These are disciplined actors,” McQueen said, disputing the idea that the a cappella singing was planned. “Create an environment where people feel safe, and they can go for it. They can express themselves in a certain way and not feel fearful. With a black director, a black camera, they could just go for it. It was very spiritual.”
The director cited classic Hollywood musicals like Grease, and performers like Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, and admitted he wasn’t aiming for the controlled environment of the traditional musical genre. “I didn’t have that control over it, but my control was still intimate,” he said. “I didn’t know how to do it exactly, but I had the feeling, the possibility of allowing these black people to be in a room together.”
Amarah-Jae St. Aubyn, who makes her screen debut as Martha, the daughter of strict Christian parents who sneaks out to the party, spoke about “being in the moment, feeling it, feeling the bass in your feet.”
For McQueen, the lovers rock song were tender, vulnerable, the dancing an image of freedom.
“Taking off your shirt, bouncing on the floor — when you’re fully immersed, you’re not event thinking about it,” Ward added.
The festival is also screening two other Small Axe episodes: Mangrove and Red, White and Blue, both of which screened at Cannes. McQueen dedicated them to George Floyd.
“These films are part of a narrative of being a black person in this world,” he said. “I want to talk about who we can be, not who we are. We can reflect where we are and where we want to be.”
