Academy Award-winning filmmaker Steve McQueen’s last film, Occupied City (2023), was a documentary about the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam during World War II. With his next film Blitz, he sticks to the same time period but shifts his focus to London, the city where he grew up. It’s fitting that Blitz premiered at the BFI London Film Festival this week, before it’s released in theaters next month. Finally coming to Apple TV+ on November 22nd. This time, Steve is also returning to fiction, his first such feature since Widows in 2018.
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war boils within
In an interview with Hindustan Times, Steve claims that there have been countless films made about World War II, but only a few that focus on the Blitz. The Germans bombed London for eight months from September 1940 to May 1941, forcing civilians to resort to underground subway stations. Steve didn’t have a lot of cinematic references for his portrayal of Blitz, not that he needed any at first. “I want to know how it really happened, rather than how people portrayed it. When I was doing research, I realized that this was a very different image from what people had done. In that sense, our picture is quite unique because it shows how the Blitz really was rather than how it was portrayed. Very different,” says Steve.
Steve recalls that the “invisible” history of the Blitz was always around him during his early days in London. He did not want to make another war film that featured one country against another. “I was interested in seeing civilians on the ground. I wasn’t interested in soldiers fighting each other in different uniforms and seeing which side could kill more people. It was about us, and how we citizens deal with the unfortunate situations that the decisions of those in power create. That’s what I wanted to focus on – ordinary people trying to navigate this unfortunate scenario,” says the filmmaker.
When he worked as an Iraq war artist in 2003, he rose above the media narrative of the war and became familiar with the reality on the ground. “Yes, there is a thing called ‘war artists’. It’s ridiculous, but there is one,” Steve says, rolling his eyes. It was a photo he came across while researching for his 2020 anthology Small Ax that made him think about the lens through which He wanted to tell a wartime story. “This little black kid standing on the railway track, wearing a big coat and holding a suitcase, waiting to be evacuated: I thought this was the end of me: Seeing the world through a child’s eyes,” Steve recalls.
Finding your actors
Thus begins the quest for George, its 9-year-old protagonist who runs away from an asylum, loses his way back home, and faces many hardships throughout war-torn Britain. “Finding Eliot Heffernan for this film was very important because without George no film could be made. A child is innocent, and he is in a situation that we adults have created. Following his journey was like interacting with the public through George’s eyes. I was wondering if there were any actors who could do this? Eliot had never acted before, but there was a calmness about him that was overwhelming. I’m confident we’ve found someone who can potentially do great things again in the future,” says Steve.
Steve McQueen’s Blitz throws its child protagonist into the deep end. Unlike glossy but life-affirming films like Life Is Beautiful (1997) and Jojo Rabbit (2019), Blitz doesn’t believe in candy-coating war deaths to ‘protect’ children. After George’s mother Rita (Saoirse Ronan) sends him to the countryside to escape the constant bombing, George decides to escape and experience the waves of war firsthand on the ground. “This is the reality of the situation. I wanted to keep my eyes open. There is no fairy tale here except a grim fairy tale, it is too bleak. We should be true and honest towards children. In fact, we adults can learn from them because they will tell us in a very direct way what they think,” says Steve.
“For me, seeing the war through the eyes of a child is sobering. Because a child is right or wrong, good or bad, at what point do we adults turn away, or turn a blind eye, or pretend not to listen? So hopefully, with this picture, it’s all about how as human beings, we focus, see clearly what’s happening, and hopefully do better,” he added. . The film depicts the tendency to bury one’s head in the sand through its depiction of the underground as a perennial refuge. But when a deluge destroys the subway, that very place becomes the most dangerous.
Steve McQueen also realizes that all war, and no entertainment makes for a dull movie. This is why a mix of song and dance in pubs, homes and factories is interspersed throughout the story, punctuating the horror of the bombings that occur from time to time. “We are remarkable as humans because in the darkness, we always find the light. As humans, we are quite inventive in times of darkness. I find that very interesting. Music became a kind of weapon to love people and remove fear. It became an antidote to the unfortunate situation we were in. You could see how important art was to people – in the time of coronavirus, it was their solace,” says Steve.
The casting of Saoirse Ronan came as an added benefit, as she could not only act, but also sing and dance when needed. “He is exceptionally talented. What can’t she do? The only thing she didn’t do in this movie was acrobatics, and she could do it with the click of a finger. It was amazing to work with him. As an actor, she gives so much,” Steve says, adding that his only concern was whether Saoirse could sing. “Then I discovered she could sing like a bird. The most moving thing to me, out of everything that was on the page, was when she was singing to 450 women in an ammunition factory,” Steve recalls, calling Saoirse “one of the best, if not the best.” One of the greatest actors ever. Now.
With his 2013 epic historical film 12 Years a Slave, Steve McQueen became the first black filmmaker to win an Oscar for Best Picture. Thus, none of his films could possibly be devoid of race. Born to a black father and white mother, George does not consider himself black due to the bullying and racial discrimination he faces among his peers. It takes him an unexpected ally in the form of a black policeman as he struggles to find his way back home to accept his black identity. Steve argues that although he was a victim of institutional racism at school, George’s attachment to discrimination goes beyond his own – and even beyond race or skin color.
In a poignant scene, a black policeman pulls down the curtains inside an asylum center that separates native British and Indian immigrants. They argue that in the process of saving themselves from Adolf Hitler, they may not turn into the monster they are trying to escape. Steve explains it well, “Many people experience discrimination in the form of anti-Semitism, Islamophobia. This should be portrayed within the narrative because that was a part of George’s story among other things. It Becomes a part of the broader conversation because really, we were not just fighting our enemies at that time, we were fighting ourselves.”
