Sophie Armitage introduces the Small Axe mini-series that’s got everyone talking and interviews the series film-editor, Chris Dickens.
Created and directed by Steve McQueen, the Oscar-winning director, Small Axe, is a British film series which illuminates the real-life experiences of London’s West Indian community between 1969 and 1982. These five interrelated films represent for McQueen a significant part of the black British experience which has remained largely untold and unknown. “I don’t think there has been a serious drama series in Britain”, McQueen told The Guardian, “in which black people from all walks of life are the main protagonists … we are missing from the conversation, we are missing from the narrative.”
The title of the project, Small Axe, derives from a Jamaican proverb: “If you are the big tree, we are the small axe” which was popularised in Bob Marley’s 1973 song “Small Axe”. The song and McQueen’s film series is all about giving agency to the “small” and the marginalised, those who are denied a voice in mainstream white society due to their race and social status. It is McQueen’s belief that when this community works together it can challenge powerful institutions and social systems and become the small axe which brings down the big tree.
The first film in the series, ‘Mangrove’ is a true story based on a group of black activists who were arrested for demonstrating against police brutality and harassment in London’s Notting Hill at the end of the 1960s. The Mangrove, located in Notting Hill’s All Saints Road, was a café and a community hub for the local West Indians. But it was repeatedly and brutally raided by the police on the pretext of drug searches. Finally, the local community had had enough. A hundred and fifty protesters marched on the local police station. The ensuing clash between police and protesters is unforgettably portrayed in the film. Charged with incitement to riot, some of the protestors arrested on the day became known as the “Mangrove 9”. They went on trial at the Old Bailey, the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales which is normally reserved for violent crimes such as murder and rape
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In the trial some of the defendants chose to represent themselves and were thus able to demonstrate to the jury that the police raids were racially motivated. The trial lasted for 55 days and became a landmark case in British legal history. The Mangrove 9 were acquitted of the main charge, that of incitement to riot. Following the verdict, the judge conceded that there was evidence to support the view that racism had been a determining factor in the behaviour of the police. This was a major concession at the time and helped pave the way for legislation to criminalise racial discrimination. Today’s Black Lives Matter movement is a direct descendent of what the Mangrove 9 achieved when they chopped away at the big tree of the police and the British state.
McQueen’s “Mangrove” has achieved a rare distinction. Along with “Lovers’ Rock”, a fictional tale of girl-meets-boy at a 1980 house party set in Ladbroke Grove, West London, it was selected for the Cannes Film Festival 2020. This makes McQueen only the second director to have ever been awarded this honour.
A distinctive feature of the Small Axe series is the cinematic and inventive use of editing. The celebrated British film editor Chris Dickens worked with McQueen on the series. Chris’ credits include “Shaun of the Dead”, “Hot Fuzz”, “Les Misérables”, “Slum-Dog Millionaire” and “Rocketman”. He has received 14 award nominations for his work, one of which was for Best Editing on Small Axe at the Chicago Film Critics Association awards last year, and is a nine-times award winner, including an Oscar for Best Achievement in Film Editing, as well as a BAFTA for Best Editing in 2009, both for Slumdog Millionaire.
I had the privilege of interviewing Chris about the Small Axe series and what it was like working with Steve McQueen.
SA: He did it come about that you were working on this project?
CD: I loved the scripts and wanted to work with Steve McQueen. He was looking for someone from more of an artistic or film making background rather than TV, so I suppose I fitted that bill!
SA: I know you started off your career in sound, what made you want to move more into editing?
CD: I loved doing sound, but found it frustrating as there’s a lot more technical knowledge involved. Also, as a film editor you get more overall creative input into the film – the sound, the music the visual effects etc., so it’s more satisfying.
SA: You have edited many hugely successful films but Small Axe must be very different as much of the work was done during the pandemic? What were the challenges?
CD: The series took from July 2019 to November 2020 to shoot and edit. I started in September 2019 and finished December 2020. We worked through the pandemic all of us working at home, me in London, Steve in Amsterdam, my assistant, George, in Devon, all linked up via Evercast (which is like Zoom but much more secure).
SA: Do you think the pandemic and the timing of the release of the series have been beneficial, in terms of the Black Lives Matter movement?
CD: Yes, it has for sure but it was purely accidental – the series was in development for about five years I believe.
SA: The early scenes in ‘Mangrove’ are particularly powerful and evocative. How did your editing technique differ from the later court-room scenes which are more static.
CD: Small Axe was written and shot as a TV project but importantly and distinctly each one was a different, enclosed story so effectively all separate films. ‘Mangrove’ was actually in two-parts originally but we realised it would work better as a full-length feature so we joined them together and edited it like that right from the start. In truth, I think Steve always wanted it like this or at least that’s where his instincts led him.
For my part, I’m only really interested in stories told in the movie way rather than like episodic TV. That’s how I want to tell a story - in one whole undiluted piece. Cinema has always been my love and that’s what interested me in these films - that they could work as standalone films and as a series of films united by the theme. We were very inspired by the films of Alan Clarke, an English director from the 70s and 80s ; some of his films were for cinema, some for TV but all were very different.
In ‘Mangrove’, the two parts were treated differently. The first part, the build-up to the demonstration, is faster paced, more cutting, handheld camera, more energetic and chaotic - with lots of contemporary music, background and foreground to give a flavour and mood of the time. The second half, the trial, was more formal in the courtroom (with) held shots longer, neater takes and more structured editing to help tell the story of the state vs the Mangrove Nine. Which is essentially the theme of the film.
SA: The synchronisation of image and music must have been very challenging in “Lovers’ Rock”. How did you go about that?
CD: ‘Lovers Rock’ was treated more like a musical - from the point the sound system is set up the music doesn’t really stop. Also, it’s shot and written in real time so was more about reality in terms of how the music and sound was dealt with. I worked very hard on knitting the music together the way the DJs at these parties would have done in reality. Whilst the Selector changed the record (on only one deck), the Toaster plays sound fx through the PA to cover the gap. This gave a great opportunity to use sounds and fx that fixed with the story and situations in the scenes. We developed that later when we mixed the soundtrack, but I worked very hard on the actual shape of it during the edit.
SA: During the shooting process do you have a clear vision for how you think it should look and the edits you want to make?
CD: Not really, it all comes from the material that has been shot and the script. The editing serves the story so we make decisions based on that. The tone of the film is also very important as it affects how fast the cutting is, how long to hold shots, the amount of music. All this Steve and I discussed as shooting and editing.
The energy and tone were clear in both with the writing but also, in talking to Steve about that period in England and the fact we lived through some of it. I’m a child of the 70s and identified with Punk which had an alignment in attitude to Reggae and the culture around it at the time, anti-establishment, the counter-culture. That attitude helped me to understand the point of view of the characters.
SA: It sounds like a huge amount of work, how long did the whole editing process take for the series?
CD: It took 15 months from start to finish – that’s the soundtrack and picture colour timing, graphics, visual effects. I started after they had shot the whole of Mangrove and whilst Steve was shooting ‘Lovers Rock’ so I worked on the first cut of these simultaneously. From then on, he (McQueen) shot each film consecutively with a week prep between each one.
It was quite difficult but Steve shot just single camera so therefore not a huge amount of material to manage. Nicola, who was my assistant on that part of the project, had organised and assembled some scenes from ‘Mangrove’ so I had an idea of the amount of work ahead.
Also, I had another editor doing a first cut/assembly of ‘Alex Wheatle’ whilst they shot that so I could catch up with Steve’s notes on ‘Mangrove’ and ‘Lovers Rock’.
I reviewed that with the assembly editor on a regular basis and we shaped that ready for Steve to edit with me later. Also, Steve came to the edit every day after filming so he gave me masses of feedback and notes on the edit. His main thought was make it all longer, extend shots don’t cut anything too tight!
SA: McQueen seems to have been quite involved in the editing. What was it like working with him?
CD: It was great, he’s a unique director and person. His films are unlike any other. We had a lot of fun also, despite the pandemic!
SA: Have other directors you have worked with been as involved in the editing process?
CD: They’re all different, some spend all their time in the cutting room and some very little, but most are really involved because the editing of a film is really about the nuts-and- bolts of how it works – the editing process is a bit like re-writing the script until it’s finished, only with more tools at your disposal – use of music, sound effects, the order of the story, how it’s told, adding voice over, replacing dialogue, even adding new scenes to pick and shoot. To neglect the edit would be to neglect the film itself…
SA: Very true! Your role is crucial to the outcome of the piece. Do you have any ambitions to direct in the future?
CD: Not really, I prefer to leave all the responsibility and anxiety to them! I like being a slightly hidden part of the process, behind the camera so to speak.
SA: You have worked on some incredible feature films. In terms of your role, what are the differences between editing a Hollywood blockbuster and a mini-series like Small Axe?
CD: There are technical differences working in different genres especially musicals and pictures with a lot of visual effects, but essentially, it’s the same job – all the actual editing and storytelling decisions shot to shot flow from the script. Though Small Axe is 5 different films all with something different in them, so essentially like feature films.
SA: And finally, what was your favourite film to work on?
CD: My favourite is ‘Shaun of the Dead’ because it was the first and it was so much fun to make!
A huge thank you Chris Dickens for being so generous with your time and giving us such an insight into the role of a film-editor and what it was like to work on Small Axe.