Like most aspects of life, the New York Film Festival looks a little different this year, switching to a mostly virtual format in light of the pandemic. While this will limit the chances for the film community to gather in-person, it’s still a joyful time for film lovers to unite virtually to celebrate the world’s best films after a lost summer of moviegoing and luckily, the festival’s opening night film, Steve McQueen’s “Lover’s Rock,” is a portrait of a joyful community, a feast for the evocation of the senses of a wild house party of West Indians in 1980 London.
“Lover’s Rock” kicked off the 58th New York Film Festival yesterday evening, and to commemorate the occasion, the film’s director and stars Amarah-Jae St. Aubyn and Micheal Ward joined moderator (and NYFF director of programming) Dennis Lim to discuss making the film. Lim began by pointing out that “Lover’s Rock” is actually just one of three Steve McQueen films at the festival this year, as two other “stand-alone, but interconnected” films from McQueen’s “Small Axe” cycle, “Mangrove” and “Red, White and Blue,” will also screen. McQueen explained that the cycle, in general, is a “journey of our existence as Black British people,” starting in 1968 and continuing through the mid-1980s. He made the distinction that it wasn’t a Windrush story (referring to West Indians who were invited to Britain after WWII) but rather about people who had gained a foothold in the community and started businesses such as the Mangrove Café, a West Indian gathering point that plays a big part in the cycle. The cycle is McQueen’s attempt to tell the “stories that made us who we are today, stories that have been swept underneath the carpet.”
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“Lover’s Rock” is the only film of the cycle not based on a true story, instead of telling a story of everyday existence. In light of that, Lim asked what the research process was like for a film “put together from sense memories, that’s so rich in its sensory details – the clothes, the wallpaper, the food, the music.”
McQueen responded that the film started with “hundreds of interviews. I was passionate to talk to people to record their stories, record their histories.” He worked with a researcher to get hundreds of stories on paper “because they haven’t been written in history books…this is a history which was interwoven between the text of history, but wasn’t individualized.” He continued that these events are crucial to understanding the modern UK. The research was very personal for Amarah-Jae St. Aubyn, who said her most important interview was with her own mother, who came over from Jamaica at age nine, and that she was channeling “my mum’s truth, my auntie’s truth.” Micheal Ward said the most powerful research for him was simply his character’s costume; “Those shoes, as soon as I slipped them on, I’m like, yep, I’m Franklyn.”
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The next question concerned the character’s speech, and how intentional the code-switching between different dialects was. For McQueen, it wasn’t something he thought much about, simply something “in my DNA,” “just the way things were” for West Indians in the UK. “It’s very, very London – you go here and talk this way and then go here and talk another way.” He took pains to say that it’s authentic for these characters, not mimicking or self-conscious, but usually something you don’t even realize you’re doing. Ward explained that thinking about it while acting made him realize how often he does it in normal life, the difference between his speech to family in Jamaica and other Londoners. St. Aubyn agreed that she had heard many different dialects growing up, “so it was just about getting it into my voice and understanding it myself, but I had it with me all the time, it was always in me.”
When asked whether the dialogue or the music choices came first, McQueen responded that it started with moods and with stories from his aunt. “She wasn’t allowed to go to these parties, but my uncle would leave the back door open, letting her sneak out on Saturday night before she had to go to church on Sunday morning.” He said that script and dialogue took a back seat to convey a certain mood and copious sensory details, that the most important things he wanted to convey in the film were “moods, flavors, smells.” While writing dialogue, his philosophy was simply “let’s see what happens. Because I trust film, I trust art, I trust it. And hopefully, we create an atmosphere that allows things to happen.” McQueen claimed his script for the film was more of a map than a destination, pointing in a direction but allowing improvisation and discovery.
The creation of the film’s unique party atmosphere was the focus of many questions. St. Aubyn paid tribute to the film’s choreographer for allowing her to understand the differences between dance then and now, such as “keeping your energy rooted, and heavy in your feet.” For McQueen, verisimilitude started with his own childhood memories. “I remember being taken to these dances, I was put into the back room and would wake up in the middle of the night, coats strewn all over me. I remember how my father and mother danced. There was this ritual of touching from the elbow down to the hand, to see if a lady would want to dance with you.” Director of photography Shabier Kirchner deserves praise for his joyful camera work, which McQueen attributed to the exquisite balance of the Antigua native, who also sails and skates. All the filmmakers said that at a certain point the real party took over from the film production and they were simply invited to witness it. McQueen attributed the on-set discoveries to a sense of trust between collaborators. “Nothing happened on chance, but nothing happened on purpose.” Even the film’s stunning a capella sequence was improvised, something a grateful McQueen said came from creating an environment where performers felt safe to “go for it.”
Everyone had nothing but raves for the costume design, starting with Franklyn’s signature shirt. Ward said he was amazed by the outfits he was shown and the personal attention that went into crafting a look. A key part of getting into character as Martha for St. Aubyn was the chance to work on Martha’s dress, just like a real party attendee would have. McQueen called costume designer Jacqueline Durran “a bloody artist” and said she was excited to celebrate these styles that had never before been seen on the screen and make a historical record of them. McQueen returned several times to the importance of making a record of sometimes ephemeral things such as music and clothes, because they add up to “an image of freedom” that’s powerful to show people.
The event came to a somber end as Lim asked about McQueen dedicating the films to George Floyd. McQueen said that Covid-19 had forced society into much-needed reflection. “It’s a good time to reflect on who we are and where we want to go because I’m done. I’m really done. I want to talk about who we can be, rather than who we are.”
Follow along with the rest of our 2020 New York Film Festival coverage here.
