Director Steve McQueen explores life under occupation

The word ​‘occu­pa­tion’ hangs over dai­ly life like a dark cloud by the time Steve McQueen and Bian­ca Stigter’s new film Occu­pied City hits cin­e­mas in Feb­ru­ary 2024. 

A col­lab­o­ra­tion between the direc­tor-artist and his jour­nal­ist-film­mak­er part­ner in film (and life), the epic 4.5 hour doc­u­men­tary is a prod­uct of three years of shoot­ing dur­ing Covid – around 230 shoot days, 36 hours of footage, and a mil­lion feet of 35mm film. An endurance test of film­mak­ing – it cracks open the his­to­ry of the Nazi occu­pa­tion in Ams­ter­dam in a way that changes how you will look at the world around you forever. 

Based on the book Atlas Of An Occu­pied City by Bian­ca Stigter – a 20-year research project into 2,100 address­es in the city dur­ing the Nazi occu­pa­tion – the film uses voiceover nar­ra­tion to tell the sto­ry of 130 of those address­es, set against footage of the mod­ern-day city. Bian­ca has said that the book evolved from a desire to under­stand how the Ger­mans took con­trol in ​‘prac­ti­cal terms’ and the strange­ness of liv­ing in places like schools, squares, homes and parks that were once sites of ter­ri­ble atroc­i­ty and vio­lence. As his­to­ry becomes more dis­tant – and threat­ens to repeat itself – how can we keep these mem­o­ries fresh in our minds?

The film would have been pow­er­ful if it had been made entire­ly with archive footage. But it’s the con­trast between the past and present, lay­ered over each oth­er in this uncan­ny way, which resen­si­tis­es you and engages your brain in a dif­fer­ent way. The film is very specif­i­cal­ly the sto­ry of Ams­ter­dam, 1940 – 1945, and yet some­how the sto­ry of every occu­pied city; a steady drip of hor­rors that become an oppres­sive weight on your chest over the long run time. 

Steve said in an inter­view with A24: ​“The film puts the view­er in the unusu­al posi­tion of hav­ing to nego­ti­ate two dif­fer­ent ele­ments: what you’re see­ing and the infor­ma­tion you’re hear­ing, both of which are very strange. Out of that nego­ti­a­tion, I think a third thing emerges and I don’t know what that is exact­ly, or how to describe it, but it’s what I was after.”

As you watch scenes of chil­dren play­ing and young peo­ple par­ty­ing in squares of cen­turies-old archi­tec­ture you hear sto­ries of mass exe­cu­tions, sniper attacks and the gath­er­ing-up of Jew­ish peo­ple to be sent to death camps. As you see car­ing par­ents going about their chores and prepar­ing meals for chil­dren in cosy hous­es you hear sto­ries of mass sui­cides of Jew­ish fam­i­lies in the same spaces, who knew there was no oth­er way out. 

But the sto­ries are told mat­ter-of-fact­ly. And the footage of mod­ern life in Ams­ter­dam is large­ly so joy­ful, free and often fun­ny (even with the Covid restric­tions, which pro­vide some inter­est­ing par­al­lels). There are also many sto­ries of resis­tance in the nar­ra­tion. ​“Ulti­mate­ly, we won the war,” Steve has said in an inter­view. ​“And we’re not going to let fas­cism win again.”

The final scene shows a young boy at his bah mitz­vah – brim­ming with the poten­tial of his life ahead of him. You are left feel­ing that there is every­thing to play for. And ques­tion­ing what sto­ries lie under the pave­ments of your own streets.

Huck sat down with Steve and Bian­ca to find out more about their jour­ney with Occu­pied City.

Huck: One of the most strik­ing things I found – con­sid­er­ing the har­row­ing nature of the mate­r­i­al – is that I didn’t feel emo­tion­al­ly manip­u­lat­ed by the film. Steve, you said in an inter­view that you intend­ed for it to be infor­ma­tion­al and the emo­tion to come from the view­er. Why was that impor­tant to you both?

Bian­ca: Well, that was already the way that I wrote the text for the book. It had to be as fac­tu­al as pos­si­ble because, pre­cise­ly as you say, the facts don’t need me to manip­u­late them and make you feel some­thing. They can do that job them­selves very well. I don’t need to be in between there and it’s much more pure and pow­er­ful when you just let the facts do their work. And I think that also informed the way the voiceover was done in the film.

Steve: You could get this text and still read it emo­tion­al­ly. You know it’s like read­ing poet­ry and hear­ing poet­ry. And we spoke to Melanie [Hyams, the nar­ra­tor] about how we want­ed it to be deliv­ered was very, very impor­tant… What’s won­der­ful about Melanie is that she’s not of that time. She’s of now. And there­fore she has a stake in the now. So there’s an opti­mism even when things are deliv­ered in a very sort of neu­tral way. And with the neu­tral­i­ty it doesn’t mean a void of emo­tion. It just means a void of manip­u­la­tion. So I was very hap­py about that.

Bian­ca: Also what I think was impor­tant is that you can hear it’s a young person’s voice. It is not a voice of author­i­ty, the voice of God they call it some­times in doc­u­men­taries – that knows every­thing and is going to tell us. She is with the view­er on a jour­ney of dis­cov­ery and she just hap­pens to be one step in front of you. 

Steve: As she reads it, you dis­cov­er it. 

Huck: And that was impor­tant because you want­ed the view­er to engage with the infor­ma­tion in a more active way?

Steve: Yes the respon­si­bil­i­ty was put on your lap. It’s impor­tant… We’re giv­ing you some­thing and you can do with it as you want. That’s one of the most pow­er­ful things. To be giv­en that respon­si­bil­i­ty. Then you feel like you have a stake in it as well.

Bian­ca: Also it makes it read as some­thing new and not dusty with cob­webs of, ​‘We’ve heard this all 60 mil­lion times before.’ This sounds like it’s some­thing new.

Huck: Because that’s the chal­lenge right – to find new ways to tell these sto­ries espe­cial­ly as the his­to­ry becomes more distant? 

Steve: I don’t think it’s a chal­lenge. For me at least it’s not a chal­lenge. It’s about mak­ing some­thing that I believe in myself… As a film­mak­er, as an artist, I’m try­ing to sort of do the best I can. And our job – my job – is to do some­thing bet­ter. Cin­e­ma is 120 years old. It’s a baby. So what can be done? How can you do it? That’s what I like. It’s not a chal­lenge – it’s what I do. 

Huck: I was real­ly struck by the fact the images and the words didn’t lead me to cer­tain con­clu­sions. How did you make sure you didn’t do that in the edit? It must have been hard­er to avoid that than not? 

Steve: No, I just think we’re that good. To be frank. Put that down. We’re that good. In the way that what we’re try­ing to do is make some­thing which is bril­liant. Because the sub­ject deserves it. Because the sub­ject deserves it. Not because of ego. The sub­ject is telling us what it needs, what it wants, what its stan­dards are. And we have to reach those stan­dards. To bring it into people’s psy­che in a way which is not going to jade them or put them into a sort of famil­iar ter­ri­to­ry. It’s impor­tant. It’s that impor­tant. So there­fore we have to rise to the occa­sion. That’s just how it is. 

Huck: I want­ed to ask about the book. It is not ency­clo­pe­dic – it doesn’t cov­er every­thing. You said Bian­ca that there were 800,000 peo­ple liv­ing in Ams­ter­dam dur­ing the Nazi occu­pa­tion so there were 800,000 sto­ries. At what point did you know it was time to pub­lish and put the book out?

Bian­ca: When the dead­line was set. And the pub­lish­ers said now you real­ly have to put it out.

Steve: She’s still bloody work­ing on it! 

Bian­ca: The book is quite thick so at a cer­tain moment the book form couldn’t hold any­more you know. So that’s it. There was a nat­ur­al stop to that form… There’s still more sto­ries that could be in it eas­i­ly. More inter­est­ing address­es that come to light after the book was published. 

Steve: But how can you not keep on think­ing about it? That’s the thing I sup­pose. How can you not keep on think­ing about it? This will be the third print of the book in the Nether­lands and there’ll be more information.

Huck: Do peo­ple reach out to you after the expo­sure and pub­lic­i­ty of the book and film with more stories?

Bian­ca: Yes some­times. I get emails from peo­ple hav­ing an addi­tion or new sto­ry to add.

Steve: Inter­est­ing­ly there’s no sto­ries from peo­ple say­ing my mum or dad was in the Nazi par­ty. No one admits to that. And there were lots. 

Huck: Were you sur­prised by the way peo­ple react­ed to you on the streets? 

Steve: Well that was won­der­ful. Bian­ca will tell you. Peo­ple were very wel­com­ing. Doors would open to you. In a city peo­ple are a bit hos­tile – not hos­tile, a bit sus­pi­cious – but as soon as we spoke about Atlas of an Occu­pied City, the book, and also about what we were doing, doors were flung open to us. So there was a real generosity. 

Bian­ca: It was very special.

Huck: It feels very obser­va­tion­al through­out but then strik­ing­ly there’s that moment with the young girl about two thirds of the way through where she looks straight into the cam­era. That moment feels very powerful.

Steve: Yes I think again because it’s the future isn’t it? And [you think] who am I with­in this future? And who am I with­in this past? And how will my future be affect­ed by the past? This girl had just been made a refugee from Ukraine. So it’s heavy you know. 

Huck: And oth­er­wise you were able to shoot with­out being noticed?

Steve: Yes I think Lennert [Hil­lege N.S.C] the DP was extra­or­di­nary and there was a rit­u­al. When you’re shoot­ing on film it’s like jiu-jit­su taek­won­do film­mak­ing because there’s a process, there’s a real rit­u­al. And that’s why I want­ed to shoot on 35mm because I know it’s so pre­cious that everyone’s atten­tion would be on that five-minute reel of film. Everyone’s atten­tion would be at its high­est. When you’re shoot­ing dig­i­tal­ly it does have anoth­er psy­cho­log­i­cal effect but film I knew that every­one would be on their toes because this is it. It’s shoot­ing on a tightrope basi­cal­ly. Espe­cial­ly with this sub­ject. Because you can’t real­ly plan for it oth­er than loca­tion. Not even the weath­er, not even what we’re going to see. It’s just – let’s go.

Bian­ca: It was amaz­ing when I went to vis­it the set. There are big machines and lots of peo­ple but some­how they man­age to become very unob­tru­sive and peo­ple just went about their days and it was very special. 

Steve: My job as an artist – a lot of the job is to expect the unexpected.

Huck: The whole film feels very of the real world. We live in an age of image over-sat­u­ra­tion and a lot of dis­in­for­ma­tion. You don’t know what to trust and you don’t know what’s real. Was there an inten­tion with this film to have us all exist more in the real world for a moment and not so much in the dig­i­tal world?

Steve: Hmmm. You’re a jour­nal­ist, you can say that, you can write that, it’s your thing. 

Bian­ca: That’s your the­o­ry – it sounds real­ly good. 

Huck: The night cur­few sec­tion feels quite dif­fer­ent tonal­ly to the rest of the film – espe­cial­ly with the music and sound design and the way that it’s shot [the cam­era twists and turns around the emp­ty city at night at speed]. Why did you want to include a sec­tion like that, which is a bit more spectacular? 

Steve: Well Olly Coates’ music is extra­or­di­nary. Olly’s sound­track is extra­or­di­nary. And the whole idea of cur­few is that things are turned upside down. Everything’s been turned on its head. Lit­er­al­ly. From the 1940s sit­u­a­tion of cur­few to the recent sit­u­a­tion with Covid. These two cur­fews were polar oppo­sites but the whole idea of hav­ing a moment of the night and illu­mi­nat­ing the sort of pres­ence of the past at night I thought was kind of inter­est­ing in the way of just work­ing with that time, and trav­el, and the econ­o­my of trav­el with the tum­ble­weed kind of effect of the cam­era and mov­ing through the streets. It was unique and I don’t know when that will ever hap­pen again. So it was some­thing that I had to catch. 

Bian­ca: At the same time it was a breather. You get all this infor­ma­tion and you’re just allowed to process it while you’re trav­el­ling through the city and maybe real­is­ing – oh my god every­where here there are also oth­er sto­ries swirling around wait­ing to be found. 

Steve: Yes, that’s excel­lent. It’s a way of digest­ing every­thing you’ve heard before. Just to take it in. A moment of inhale and exhale.

Huck: It is impos­si­ble to watch the film today and not con­sid­er every­thing hap­pen­ing – with ris­ing anti­semitism and the dehu­man­i­sa­tion of anoth­er peo­ple [in Pales­tine]. It seems like his­to­ry is doomed to repeat itself – but things like this film and this book give us a new lan­guage with which to under­stand and to resist. I was also very inspired by the sto­ries of resis­tance in the film. Do you have hope in new gen­er­a­tions to avoid the mis­takes of the past?

Steve: I rely on the young peo­ple. I rely on them. I learn from them. I’ve learnt from my daugh­ter. I’ve learnt from my son. I rely on them. They’re going to inher­it this stuff and again I feel it’s one of those things where there’s noth­ing to lose and every­thing to win – every­thing to play for and noth­ing to lose. 

Bian­ca: These kinds of things give the film even more urgency in my opin­ion. More things res­onate while you’re watch­ing it.

Occu­pied City is in cin­e­mas now.

Fol­low writer Shel­ley Jones on Insta­gram.

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