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people into submission.
When she’s scouting locations or developing the
visual language for a project, Matsoukas always
assembles collections of imagery. She loves having
creative options to shape her work. And for Queen &
Slim, she was inspired by a wide range—the funer-
als of Nipsey Hussle, Biggie Smalls and Fela Kuti,
street art, the film Belly, the architecture of New
Orleans, bounce music, the Love Jones soundtrack
and Brother Vellies shoes.
Matsoukas also pays close attention to the spaces
she inhabits. She remembered a location she found
two years earlier, while scouting for a Nike commer-
cial in the historically black Cleveland neighborhood
of St. Clair–Superior. “There was this street we didn’t
shoot on,” she says, “but I always wanted to go back.
While we were scouting, maybe six cars had been
pulled over by cops in a half hour. One of the cars
that’s pulled over when we were scouting, maybe
two blocks from where we actually shot, was a white
Accord. My production designer shot it, and we were
like, ‘That’s Slim’s car. That’s it right there.’”
All of these details add up in a way that helps her
convey the film’s visual ethos. “You can read that
in the emotion of an actor or a piece of clothing or
the paint on the wall or the scratch on the floor,”
she says. “All of those things are telling you a story
that you’re not always aware of but are important to
the narrative.”
On set, Matsoukas is very communicative, even
when she shouldn’t be, a habit she developed while
directing music videos where, because no sound
was recorded, she was able to talk an artist through
a performance. On a film or television set, “I can’t
speak,” she says, “although I do, and my editor’s
always taking my voice out. I’m a New Yorker.”
Daniel Kaluuya, in referencing Matsoukas’s skill
as a director, singles out “a lovely touch she added”
to one of the film’s early scenes: Slim pauses to say
a prayer before he and Queen start to eat, a gesture
that conveys so much about his character with so
little. “She exists in the real world,” Kaluuya says.
“She’s done all the hours and all the work a director
of her ability would have done, but she still lives in
the real world.” It was her growth during filming that
impressed Kaluuya most. “When you watch Queen
& Slim, you’re like, ‘Who the hell is this?’” he says.
“Why hadn’t a person like this been allowed to cre-
ate these images?”
Jodie Turner-Smith, Kaluuya’s co-star, was ini-
tially drawn to the project because “the writing was
so rich and incredibly powerful and beautiful. I loved
what the story was about, who Queen was. It’s a cel-
ebration of black beauty and black culture and black
love,” she says. Turner-Smith trusted Matsoukas
because she has “a very specific vision. She’s very
particular about her ideas and where she’s coming
from, and she really brings you into her process
and shows you visually and aesthetically where
she is coming from. Then she lets you infuse your
own interpretation.”
Matsoukas herself is well aware of the value she
brings to her work. “I’m not asking anymore. Now I
get to demand what I know I’m worth,” she says. “I
feel like our culture has taken from us so much; it’s
our biggest commodity, and we’re not paid for that.So now I’m like, ‘OK, I know what I’m worth and I
know what my stories are worth, and if we can’t do
it amongst ourselves, you’re going to have to pay.”
Like many ambitious people, Matsoukas is always
moving the goal post. And she is hard on herself.
“I’m not the easiest person to work with, because I
have a very specific vision and that doesn’t always
translate with everyone.” She admits to being some-
thing of a control freak because, she says, “I like
consistency. Every detail is thought out. Nothing is
by accident. And I want to make sure that translates
on-screen or wherever you’re seeing it. If I put in
the work, I expect it to end up in the final product.”
She’s aware of the limitations of this approach and
that she can be a perfectionist—to a fault, she says.
When Queen & Slim went into post-production, the
editing room became “the room of what could have
been, what should have been.”
An accomplished career comes at a price. For
Matsoukas, the art of filmmaking—managing the
cast and crew and production challenges and con-
tending with the gravity of the subject matter—is
all-consuming. While on location in Cleveland, the
crew shot scenes during a polar vortex and subzero
temperatures. Matsoukas has to move to wherever
she is working for months at a time, which can be
hard on personal relationships. She hopes to head off
to Jamaica soon, for research and pre-production as
she develops Marlon James’s A Brief History of Seven
Killings into a Netf lix series, and then to Nigeria for
a film about Fela Kuti, also in development. When
she returns to Los Angeles, the transitions can be
rocky, which was especially the case after shooting
Queen & Slim.
“I remember coming back and I was like, ‘I feel
like I just did a bid.’ It took me two, three weeks to
feel like a real person again. It was hard. Every day
was a struggle,” she says. She is circumspect about
her private life because, she says, “My ambition is
not for me to be seen. It’s that my work speaks to peo-
ple and creates a dialogue and brings about change.”
Even so, toward the end of our conversation, she
opens up about her desire to start a family, another
project in development. She’s clear about one thing,
though. “I will not ever be married. I know what love
is, and I have that,” she says of her relationship with
someone she refers to throughout our conversation
only as “my man.”
When we discuss the directors she admires most,
Matsoukas shares her love for Hype Williams and
his stylized aesthetic, and Spike Lee, especially the
movie Do the Right Thing and how it had a “strong
political, racial backdrop” while speaking to con-
temporary issues. She extols the virtues of Mira
Nair’s work and how it “gives you this window into
a culture.” She talks about Barry Jenkins and Pedro
Almodóvar and Julie Dash.
Then she says she loves Wes Anderson. I am sur-
prised and can’t hide it. I admit to having a chip on
my shoulder because white directors are able to
make movies that are so specific while directors of
color are expected to make art that is universal.
“I’d like to see a woman have that very specific
point of view,” I say.
Without missing a beat, Matsoukas says, “That
might be me.” orchestrated. In one scene, as Queen and Slim drive
along a rural highway, the camera focuses on a
crucifix hanging from the rearview mirror. This is
juxtaposed with crosses of telephone poles along
the roadside. It is a profoundly layered image. In
the essay “Time and Distance Overcome,” Eula Biss
writes that telephone poles “became convenient as
gallows, because they were tall and straight, with a
crossbar, and because they stood in public spaces.
And it was only coincidence that the telephone pole
so closely resembled a crucifix.” A couple is on the
run from police, searching for faith in something,
anything, flanked by quotidian markers of time and
space once used across the South to terrorize black
FRAME BY FRAME
Before her debut film, Matsoukas directed dozens of
music videos and television episodes. From top: Scenes
from Insecure, Beyoncé’s “Formation,” Master of None
and Queen & Slim. Opposite: Gucci jacket and necklace
and Matsoukas’s own earrings. Hair, Edward Lampley;
makeup, Grace Ahn; manicure, Yoko Sakakura; set
design, Heath Mattioli. For details see Sources, page 150.
FROM TOP: JUSTINE MINTZ/COURTESY OF HBO; COURTESY OF MELINA MATSOUKAS; COURTESY OF NETFLIX; COURTESY OF UNIVERSAL PICTURES“[MATSOUKAS]
EXISTS IN THE REAL
WORLD. SHE’S DONE
ALL THE HOURS
AND ALL THE WORK
THAT A DIRECTOR OF
HER ABILITY WOULD
HAVE DONE, BUT
SHE STILL LIVES IN
THE REAL WORLD.”
–DANIEL KALUUYA