“It’s very, very prideful and it was very special for all of us making it,” reflects Damian Marcano on the experience of directing three episodes of “Lawmen: Bass Reeves.” As a child growing up in Trinidad, he and his grandfather would watch “The Lone Ranger” together and, when approached about joining the Paramount+ series, he was “very shocked to find out that he was actually the inspiration for what I had watched portrayed by a white actor,” referring to the influence of the real-life Bass Reeves (David Oyelowo) on American pop culture. Reeves was one of the first Black U.S. Deputy Marshals, and the director is glad for the opportunity not only to “retell these stories with the correct lens,” but also to show “a character of this skin color, an African man, formerly enslaved man” who “gets to do the ass-kicking.” Watch our exclusive video interview above.
Marcano directed the fourth, fifth and sixth episodes of the limited series, episodes that all involve real characters and cases from the historical record of Reeves’ time as a Marshal. The director says of the show that “there was a seriousness, there was an authenticity… The sheer lengths everyone went through to give me the toys to make this painting was insane… It was literally like being in a 4-D version of history.” He recalls one day on set in which two of the characters visit a squatter’s encampment after Emancipation, and the production and costume designs were so vivid that he says, “I remember my eyes welling up and I remember the actors’ eyes welling up, and for once here we were as younger Black people stuck into something that we’ve only been told about… It was pretty heartbreaking.”
WATCH our exclusive video interview with David Oyelowo, ‘Lawmen: Bass Reeves’
Marcano is one of two directors on the series, sharing the role with Christina Alexandra Voros, who directed the first three and final two episodes. Though they were often working on the show at the same time, “Lawmen” occupied a “250-square-mile radius of a set” in Texas, so they didn’t necessarily encounter one another very often. Cinematographer Dino Park worked with both directors and ensured continuity, and the director says that as a result, “There was always this overall knowledge of what everyone was doing.” Since the series unfolds over the course of nearly two decades, the director also had a chance to make his installments his own.
Across Marcano’s three episodes, Reeves establishes a complicated relationship with one of his outlaws, Ramsey, played by Rob Morgan. In episode four, Ramsey antagonizes Bass and his fellow prisoners with a story about “Mr. Sundown,” a mysterious, almost mythological figure who captures Black men in the night. The contentious scene culminates with Bass beating Ramsey unconscious. “That moment was amazing,” recalls the director, calling Morgan “arguably one of my favorite actors, period.” “When Rob began to orate that story of Mr. Sundown, that tone that Rob Morgan has in his voice and what he was able to lend to that character that night on a hillside on a prairie in Texas, we all felt it,” he explains. It is also a pivotal scene because it demonstrates how “truth can rile you up.”
WATCH our exclusive video interview with Isis Mussenden, ‘Lawmen: Bass Reeves’ costume designer
The fifth and sixth episodes of the season contain some truly astounding action sequences as Deputy Marshal Reeves tracks down, has a shootout with and kills an outlaw and later when a gang tries to beat and kill Reeves in retaliation. Marcano says of his approach to these incredibly energetic and complicated sequences, “I have a very loose approach to my style of filmmaking.” While directors now have access to so much sophisticated equipment, he stresses that he focuses on capturing “lightning in a bottle. Lightning in a bottle is how I go to work every single day.” That lightning comes from brilliant actors like Oyelowo, and the director says that in order to best record that brilliance, he utilizes “quicker setups, more setups per scene.” “I’m not a director that tries to shoot the scene eight different ways the same thing over and over. I always make an adjustment.”
One of Marcano’s main goals in representing Bass Reeves on screen was to “humanize this character so that it isn’t just a character who says the right things at the right times.” The director also wanted to bring an American sensibility to his work, observing that “David is a Nigerian Brit and I’m a Trinidadian, and here we are making a story that, yes, is in our lineage as far as our people are concerned, but at the same time, it’s a very American story.” He tapped into American audiences’ desires for “a little bit of levity” amidst the often heavy subject matter and action-packed sequences and, as a result, feels that “Bass Reeves was really reincarnated” through the show.
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