All season long, Steve McQueen’s unique Small Ax project, which is billed as a collection of five films, has been puzzled. Not because of the quality, of course, as it’s pretty good, but whether this production with Amazon was a series of films or a television work? For example, the Academy considers it to be television, as does the Golden Globes, which have been recognized as cinema by various groups of critics. Now we actually have the intended answer from McQueen himself trying to clear any remaining confusion. Read on to see where he falls on on the two sides of the debate …
Here’s a bit from his comments on The Hollywood Reporter:
Steve McQueen’s BBC and Amazon anthology series Small Ax has received awards – along with some confusion.
The series, which follows West Indian immigrants in London, includes five short films ranging in length from 64 to 128 minutes. While the project received a Globe nomination for best limited-edition series, anthology series, or films for television, it also received the Los Angeles Film Critics Association’s award for best picture in December (the winner of this award almost always receives Oscar Nominations). The LAFCA win sparked heated debate on social media as to whether McQueen’s latest work was a movie or a TV series.
McQueen is willing to settle the debate, however: “This was always done for TV, for the BBC because I wanted my mom to see these stories on TV,” he tells THR. “This is nothing new for Europe. Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, Alan Parker – they all came from TV movies. I just wanted to tell as many stories as I could tell at this time and in this place. “
Stay up to date on Small Ax all season …
(Source: THR)
