Acclaimed Editor Peter Sciberras first broke through with David Michod’s Aussie classic, The Rover. From there, Sciberras edited the painfully underrated Michod film, The King, starring Timothee Chalamet. Sciberras hit a new personal peak when he edited Jane Campion’s modern classic The Power of the Dog in 2021, earning him his first Oscar nomination.
This year, Sciberras teamed with the great Steve McQueen to make Blitz, a film about a young boy trying to find his way back home after getting separated from his mother during the Nazi Blitzkrieg attacks on London in 1940. With echoes of Dickens and the Odyssey, McQueen, Sciberras, and the cast and crew have created a remarkable film. It is a film I have never seen before in terms of World War II movies that take place in Britain. In every other film of its period, I cannot think of another one that showcases the racial diversity of London during wartime.
One could pass that off as novelty were it not for the film’s excellence. Blitz is more than just a history lesson; it’s a cracking adventure story with complexities that go much deeper than most “stiff upper lip” variations of British World War II films.
Peter’s editing is key to the film’s success. In our conversation, we discuss his collaboration with McQueen, the intent to subvert expectations, the fidelity to history, and finding the right mixture of hope and reality.
The Contending: From the moment this movie leaves the title card, it literally starts out on fire, with firemen trying to put out the flames of a burning building. In that fire hose scene, the hose is almost like a wild serpent in the way that it is swinging around. Can you just talk about shooting that scene and editing it so that you capture the danger of the hose itself, which is intended to save people’s lives and homes?
Peter Sciberras: It was written that way in the script. It was described as a serpent that was raring and flailing and an incredibly dangerous object. The source of the weapon against the fire becomes another source of danger. I think what Steve was trying to capture there was that there was danger everywhere, around every corner within the blitz. It’s an out-of-control situation in general. That scene was about capturing that and setting that up for the rest of the film. It’s quite domestic. It’s Londoners going about their business and carrying on as Londoners did. It was crucial to capture the danger and the ferocity of what those nights were like to give the audience something to hold onto throughout. So even when you’re in a scene in a pub, hopefully, that’s still resonating and just sending shockwaves throughout the rest of the film. That was the idea and a great symbolic way to come in, with people just trying to hold on. That scene was shot with three cameras and it was just about finding those moments that embodied that feeling that it’s all out of control. Hats off to the stunt guys there because they really put their heads on the line. It was pretty wild footage, and the guy who got hit must have done that eight times–he really went for it.
The Contending: A little bit before the fire sequence ends, you see the bombs dropping from the sky, and then this rain of light starts and abstractly turns into this sort of confetti. Then there’s this cut to a field of daisies and then to an old man playing piano next to a cat. That whole sequence was just jaw-dropping. How did that formulate?
Peter Sciberras: That’s Steve McQueen being the visual artist that he is, saying things with pictures that you can’t describe in words. It’s a feeling more than something you can articulate well or that I can articulate. He probably could because he’s quite good at that stuff. I had a story narrative function. These are all motifs that come back like the bomb falling. We knew we were going to do that three times. So it made sense to put it in the first scene and make it feel like you’re watching it play out in real time, like this is part of the fire scene, but technically in the narrative layout, it’s really not. You’re watching the same bomb drop three times. It’s more about its psychological effect than its place or position in the narrative. Setting up these motifs was crucial, and it built over time, like that tearing white light–that over-the-water imagery was something we wanted to find a place for early on in the film.
Again, just to set up these abstract motifs, and not knowing what you’re looking at sometimes and just being curious and slightly disarmed by them. In the daisies and the confetti kind of tearing, that’s Man Ray’s footage from, I think, the ‘20s or the ‘30s. Steve found that early on. During the shoot, he came up with that idea, so we had that. We knew where we wanted to go. So it was building. How do we bring all these things together to make it feel like it’s one sequence rather than bits and bobs? It was about finding the feeling of what Steve was looking for, which was complete chaos and carnage, and then the daisies, which is the polar opposite. The Man Ray footage, the jagged broken pieces falling from the sky, are all the daisies. It’s just a camera shaking over a daisy field. So it’s kind of how one thing can become another and transform: love and war, violence and peace. It’s about getting the audience in the headspace to start thinking outside of the literal what it was like, what it’s all about, and what life was about for all of us.
The Contending: There are two club sequences in the film. One is in a smaller club that’s probably more lower-middle class; races are mixing and having a great time. And then we have the other club, which is obviously for the more well-to-do. That sequence almost felt like something Coppola might have wanted to do for The Cotton Club. Can you discuss cutting those two sequences and how you wanted them to differ? Because I think McQueen could do a musical if he wanted to.
Peter Sciberras: Yeah, I’d love to see him do that. Music is such a huge part of his life, and his art. 12 Years a Slave had such beautiful music within scenes and in scenes, as well as Lovers Rock (from Small Axe). Bringing up Lovers Rock, we wanted more of that feel to the first club: rough and ready, loose and just pure life. It comes right after Tommy’s death on the train tracks, so it felt like we needed to break out of that feeling of tragedy to something joyous and unhinged and full of life and the feel of a real club. There were, I think, three jazz clubs like that in the Seven Dials in the ‘30s and ‘40s, so showing that as well. Everything in this film is something Steve wanted to show to the world that existed in that time and that place and what that may have been like and just creating the joy, and creating joy for Rita as well, and giving us a glimpse of what life was like before all this terror happened and how tragically it was taken away from her, the pain she’s endured. In terms of the club, it was just about keeping it as loose and vibrant as possible and letting the drums and bass really drive it.
But it was the opposite in the other club. It’s a one-shot, and it’s so composed, with the opposite feeling of a club like the first one. It’s more proper, and also, the function of the second club was to slowly build up to the point where you’ve got the sense that that bomb that you just saw is probably going to land on these people. It was about being methodical and letting it play out almost in real time. There’s an amazing camera move that goes through the kitchen. Steve’s always illustrating things as well. It’s everyone else out there on the street, there are rations, and there’s not a lot of food, and it’s wartime, but this club is very upper class, and that kitchen is very well stocked, there’s food everywhere. There are these interesting ways of making those points very clear that the class system during the Blitz was very much in full swing. There was still the high and the low, and being able to illustrate that hopefully quite effortlessly with this amazing kind of camera move while also building the tension of when is this going to end, essentially. When’s that bomb going to fall? They are incredibly different clubs, and hopefully, both are entertaining in their own right.
The Contending: There’s that moment in the second club when the conductor stops the music, hears the sirens, and they all look up, and you have that cut to the sky. I remember thinking to myself, bombs don’t discriminate.
Peter Sciberras: That’s the idea. Exactly. Is it your time? Is it not? It’s just luck in the end. No one was aiming at anything. It was pitch black. All the bombers were just flying over London, and I think the river was the only thing they could really pick out. They’d come in along the river and just follow it up. It’s a whatever happens happens kind of thing. So those moments of cutting back were sobering in a sense and just a moment to take in the randomness of it all and how it’s just fate. There’s not a human element to it. You’re in the sky, and the disconnect between the club and the bomber is quite jarring. Being with these people and then cutting so far away from these people and just leaving it to the bomb is going to fall somewhere. It’s going to hit someone.
The Contending: There are several terrific set pieces in the film, but I also want to talk about editing for performance. You have an eight/nine-year-old boy (Elliott Heffernan) who’s never acted on film. You have to edit for performance, too. Children can be precocious. What was it like to cut his performance versus someone like Saoirse, who is so experienced? How did you address ensuring that George (Heffernan) always came across?
Peter Sciberras: Elliott did a fantastic job, and he’s got this incredible face that you can project onto, which was such a quality that Steve saw very early on and was like, this is the kid. He doesn’t need to do too much a lot of the time to get a lot across, which is a very rare quality and the quality that we definitely leaned into. Cutting kids when they’re not actors is just about paying attention to the smallest details. And Elliott did a great job of always feeling quite real on camera. I’ve heard Saoirse say you need to match that as the more experienced actor. Elliott’s just there. He’s just operating, and he’s in it. It didn’t feel like you were watching an actor to a certain extent. It’s a very different quality. And they match so well. Saoirse’s just incredible.
The Contending: She’s pretty good, yeah?
Peter Sciberras: Yeah, she’s pretty good. (Laughs). She’s done this a few times and done it very well many times. But cutting kids is interesting because they don’t hit their marks in the same way, and you’ve got to go with them. You’ve got to let them guide you and not try to force them into a certain box. It’s about being perceptive and patient and finding a way to get through the scenes. And there was a lot of walking. It’s the kind of film where there’s a lot of walking. You want them to feel the travel but not see the travel so much. It was interesting with the kid because that adds a little extra layer of difficulty. Steve’s giving them a lot of direction because they’re just wandering around the set.
We were trying to find a way to feel like it had a motor in a way that was definitely challenging, not to let it just stop. That was the real challenge. With kids, it’s just a different type of performance. There are definitely moments where you may be condensing time a little more than you would. There’s a bit more going on, and you need to refine it; just find the absolute bit that communicates what you want and try not to let it sit for too long and become baggy or airy or let too much in. But Elliott was incredible. He’d just give you a little look, and that was enough to tell the story, and he communicates so well with just his presence. He’s quite an incredible young man.
The Contending: There’s the sequence when he meets the officer, who happens to be black, and they go for that stroll together, which I thought was so elegant. I think some of the best editing is when you don’t edit, when you just let something come. And then they had that conversation when he asked Ife (the officer) if he is black, and Ife said of course I am. And then George, because he’s of mixed race, has his identity issues that most kids in London at the time didn’t have. And then, when Ife puts him to bed, that little cut to Elliott’s face, and he says, “I am black,” is crushing. That part of the movie slows down, and then it tells you something about this character that’s of great significance, not just avoiding bombs, not just trying to get home, not just trying to survive wartime, but about finding out who you are and understanding who you are.
Peter Sciberras: That’s one of my favorite sequences in the film and to cut as well. My wife is Somalian, so I’ve got a mixed-race child. I remember first reading the script and thinking this was right at home for me. It was about giving that sequence the time to be what it is. It’s also one of the only times George has an in-depth conversation about something. He’s quite a silent character in a way, as a lot of nine-year-olds are who get dragged around from place to place, told what to do, and ushered around. At that moment, we get to know a lot more about George and his character as Ife meets him. It’s about cutting for emotion there, giving that space to be something profound, which it is for George. It’s the closest thing he’s had to a father figure probably in his life, and probably the only person of color he’s had a moment like that with in his entire life because he lives in Stepney, and it’s not like that there, and his dad was taken away.
I love the sequence before when you meet Ife for the first time. It’s that walk through the arcade, and it’s George seeing and learning about colonialism and the colonies and the representation of people of color at that time. This is a slightly different space we’re entering. This is more psychological and more emotional. Ife’s character, there’s just something so magical about that man (actor Benjamin Clementine). He is just warmth. And he gave you license to spend some time outside of the war and the bombings for a moment. He is a heroic man, and he’s tragically lost being a hero, but it’s more about what he means to George in that moment than his function in wartime. He’s based on a real character, and I think even the speech he gives is an eyewitness account of something that happened in a shelter. So everything comes from something in this movie. These are all stories that were there to be told, not stories that have been manufactured, which was also very important.
The Contending: There’s the moment when George is turned over to the den of thieves, and a black woman hands him off. What I loved about that sequence is that when she pushes him forward, there’s a cut back to her that shows that she doesn’t feel good about this. This may be how she’s getting through the war, by working with these scavengers and thieves, but she has shame in it, and McQueen makes sure that you see that.
Peter Sciberras: I remember working particularly on that and finding the right level of guilt. That’s the kind of thing Steve always tries to do. No one’s purely bad or purely good. I think the purpose of having a film from a child’s point of view at this time is that Steve would always talk about when do we start compromising in life. Kids see things very black and white, and for the older characters, it’s all far more gray. She is doing a bad thing, but why is the question–giving the audience the information that she does feel bad about it. She didn’t want to do that, but she had to. And I think there’s also something really interesting about the fact that she’s black. We just had Ife not long ago, and we think, oh, thank God, George is safe now. Someone’s going to take care of him. And then, all of a sudden, it turns completely the other way. Now, this person is delivering him to a gang of thieves. It’s this subverting of expectation throughout. And I think that happens everywhere in the film, even when Rita sings that beautiful song to George and on the BBC, all of a sudden, it turns into a protest. There’s always more than one dimension to everything. That’s what I found wonderful about working on the film because you’re setting up a tone, you’re heading in a direction, and then all of a sudden, it’s swapped around.
The Contending: I was talking with a friend, and he said the scene that got to him was the first dance sequence in the smaller club, where Rita’s dancing with Marcus, George’s father, and then Marcus ends up getting taken away, all because of a street fight that starts over race between white locals and then the white cops don’t believe the black guy. But what also happens in that scene is you cut and show the reaction of the other black people in the club, and some are judging Rita for putting him in that position. You can see it on their faces. As my friend put it, in two hours of a movie about a woman longing for her child, McQueen showed you her privilege in just two minutes.
Peter Sciberras: It’s all those things. There’s the guy who puts out the cigarette, and he just goes meh. It’s so expected. And Rita does escalate the fight. Marcus wanted to walk away. It’s a very acute observation to read it that way as well. You can just read it as a tragic thing, which is a sense of it. And that’s Steve’s work. It’s so real, so complex. There’s so much in there. And if you’ve had experiences like that, you could read far deeper into each moment. Steve is just putting a moment up on screen. Things like that, I’m sure, happened all the time–they still happen all the time. It hasn’t stopped. And it’s also, again, that thing where you’re building this beautiful, hopefully joyous, club and romance and showing this moment where they’re together, and then all of a sudden, it’s taken away, and everything flips around.
That’s a really interesting question, and that observation from your friend. I haven’t heard that one before, but it sounds totally right to me. That’s why Steve’s such an incredible filmmaker. From that small moment, you can take that, or you can read it in a different way. You’re presenting a look, and that look can mean many different things. To someone who hasn’t had that experience and that understanding, it could just be shock or sadness or just here we go again; things like this happen every week. There’s room for interpretation. Steve’s fantastic at giving you moments, essentially putting them in the audience’s lap to make a decision about what they’re seeing.
The Contending: In the last 10 to 15 minutes, there is just this blazing sequence of the plane that crashes as George is running across the bridge. Then he’s into the streets, and then he escapes into the tunnels, and then the tunnels flood. Did you feel like, “This is where I’m really going to earn my money?”
Peter Sciberras: No, weirdly. (Laughs). I never feel that way about action sequences. I feel the opposite. In scenes like Ife and George, walking and chatting are where I feel the most responsibility. Not that action is not difficult; everything has its own set of difficulties and challenges, but I’ve always found that quite a comfortable space. It’s action-motivated. I think the dream sequence in the middle of those two things is where I felt we’ve got to nail that sense of how long do you let that stretch, the hypnotic nature, and also, again, the subverting of expectations. You think it’s heading in one direction and then it’s what’s he doing? How long can we live in that space of limbo that you start to enter a slightly different head space?
And so those things I find not so challenging, but I feel the responsibility that this needs to be perfect. Whereas, when you get to a flood, it’s all just chaos. It’s all just loud sounds and chaos. It’s still really fun to cut, but you can keep chipping away. I feel like the other stuff is far more instinctual. You need to find the rhythms and the space where you’re communicating something that’s not just a story but also a tone. I’ve worked on a lot of films that live in that space, like The Rover, which is really about creating a feeling more than telling a story—those sequences I take great pleasure in working on.
The Contending: To that point about subversion, this is a heroic story of a little boy who finds his way home. There is a joy in him getting home, but there’s also a very bracing reality. I don’t want to give away too much for people who haven’t seen it, but there is magic and loss in the moment of coming home. And then, as the camera pans up, you see all of these other homes. It makes you realize that this is one story among many. It’s just a very particular story.
Peter Sciberras: Again, I haven’t heard that before, but that is exactly the way I saw it when I was working on it and the way we talked about it. Because a VFX shot takes over essentially, and it comes out so far, we just kept Rita and George there, and everyone else disappears. It’s quite subtle, but it is the fact that there are hundreds of Rita and Georges around, and there are hundreds of tragic stories. If it was just about Rita and George having a great time, now they’re in the country and frolicking in the fields, it’s just not true. It’s not real. I think you need to take into account the fact that this is what we’ve been doing to each other for years. It’s a moment to reflect on it.
We never hear George’s wish, but we can imagine what George’s wish is after that. That’s an incredibly crucial part as well because it’s again, as Steve likes to do, putting it in the audience’s lap to take what you will, giving you a moment to reflect on precisely the fact that this is going on right now, in different parts of the world. That moment, for me, is very much about getting the audience to sit back for a second. We’ve watched this story about a mother and child, but there are many mothers and children out there. There are many families out there. There are many people out there. It was important to end with hope but also with reality.
Blitz is available to stream now on Apple TV
