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ButHBOsWatchmenis not that show.
Instead, it opens with something more genuinely frightening and radical than any R-rated superhero story.
The scope of the terror is massive.
But unlike much oftheWatchmenuniverse, this is no alternate history.
I was like,My God, how did this happen?
That newspaper headline is what inflamed the mob, Kassell says.
It was critical to me to get that headline in there, in as organic a way as possible.
In the sequence, you might see the headline underfoot amid the chaos.
It was recalled and the original article ripped out …
It was actively eradicated.
Marshal Bass Reeves, a black-and-white pastiche intended as a tribute to African-American filmmaker Oscar Micheaux.
His work was actually very political, and very much in reaction toBirth of a Nation, explains Kassell.
But Micheaux never made a film about Reeves.
The first words of the show are that little boy saying, There will be no mob justice today.
Trust in the law.
I think those are the most important words, really, in the whole series.
One of the main stories is, what happens when thereismob justice and youcanttrust in the law?
There were white spectators just watching.
You know, white women just came to see the show.
As the background performers rehearsed with Bruno, Kassell rehearsed separately with the sequences core family.
Its pretty amazing to me, Kassell says, how much we got in a very tight sequence.
This has been basically erased by history.
As Kassell puts it: Now I grieve.
