Russell Mulcahy

I know, I know, I've been so lax about updating this. And Resident Evil: Extinction is right around the corner. But lookie here -- widget!

Filmography (updated 24 May 2006)
Russell Mulcahy music videos
Russell Mulcahy Discussion Group

"I don't know if you guys know Russell Mulcahy, the director, but he's nuts." -- Luke Perry, re: Jeremiah.

Okay, I've been bad, I haven't been updating this. *hangs head* BUT...I am now.

Latest news: Mulcahy is currently (May, 2006) in Mexico directing the 3rd installment of the Resident Evil series. Also, the made-for-TV movie "Curse of King Tut's Tomb" is airing on May 27th on the Hallmark Channel.

Mulcahy's version of Jules Verne's "Mysterious Island" for the Hallmark Channel is now available on DVD. The movie stars, among others, Patrick Stewart as Nemo. Here's an article from Fangoria about it, including the fact that they left Thailand just a week before the tsunami hit the beach they were filming on. (My favorite comment: "Overall, Mysterious Island was a tough 61-day shoot--I sat in bat shit in caves for weeks--but an amazing location." Here are some location shots as well.

From HollywoodReporter.com, November 2004: Russell Mulcahy is in final negotiations to shoot "Russell," an Australia/United Kingdom co-production aimed at the family market and due to start shooting in March. Budgeted at $17 million, the film is one of the most expensive films yet mounted in Australia, co-producer Ian Jessel said in an interview Wednesday at the American Film Market in Santa Monica. It also signals the first film to be produced by Martin Brown, producer of Baz Luhrmann's "Moulin Rouge" and a co-producer on Luhrmann's "Romeo + Juliet," since he stopped working with Luhrmann two years ago to set up his own production company, Martin Brown Films.

This man is the most recent thing to pique my interest. You may recognize Russell Mulcahy as the director of HL1 and HL2, and also as the director of CL's film Resurrection.


Looking a tad too serious there, Russell!

In fact, it was watching the DVD of Resurrection with the director's commentary that really got me interested in Russell -- he's refreshingly humorous (with the blunt, sometimes dry humor that I enjoy), and yet obviously passionate about camerawork and directing. I laughed, I learned, and I was interested in seeing more of his work, other than the three films I knew.



Much better there, smile!!
Russell's cameo in Resurrection

Mr. Mulcahy's work encompasses not only film, but music video. In fact, he won an MTV video award (before they started going to artists, not the directors) and one of his videos was the first ever played on MTV (Video Killed the Radio Star by the Buggles -- not my favorite song, I must admit). He directed most of Duran Duran's early videos, as well as videos from the likes of Elton John, Billy Joel, Ultravox, Spandau Ballet, Kim Carnes and Human League. In fact, some 80's "video cliches" came from the fact that other directors copied Russell's work, and in 1998 he was awarded the Eastman Kodak Award for Lifetime Achievement by the Music Video Production Association.

Russell Mulcahy music video listing (will open in new window)

From Duran Duran, Behind the Music -- probably talking about nearly drowning Simon Le Bon
From "Video Killed the Radio Star,"
VH1's history of Rock Video
(no comment on the blond hair)

In addition to Highlander and Resurrection, Mr. Mulcahy's filmography includes films such as Razorback, The Real McCoy (with Kim Basinger and Val Kilmer), Riccochet (with Denzel Washington), Blue Ice (with Michael Caine), and recently, a remake of On the Beach for Showtime (starring Armand Assante) and The Lost Battalion for A&E (starring Rick Schroeder). In addition, Mulcahy wrote and directed a film entitled Tale of the Mummy (also called Talos the Mummy). He also does some directing for television (notably Tales From the Crypt, Queer as Folk [U.S. version] and Jeremiah [which premiered on Showtime in March, 2002]). For more information, including upcoming projects, see the Filmography (will open in a new window).


Working hard on the set of HL2...
screen caps from the behind-the-scenes of the Renegade version of HL2

Serious actor-director talk
Mugging the camera

Working hard
HL2 cameo, when the actor didn't show

Having seen most of his films now, I'm beginning to see some of the patterns of Mr. Mulcahy's directing, and am cultivating a growing admiration for him. And I have to admit, there's something about his personality that fascinates me. (Though I'm a psychologist at heart anyway, I'll just blame that. =^D) Anyone who admits to liking to put the blood on the walls for bloody movie scenes (he even admits that the bloody handprint under his name above -- from Resurrection -- is his), points out a crotch shot (okay, so it wasn't so hard to get me to pay attention to a CL crotch shot, LOL) and gives a diatribe on donuts has to be a little...off, shall we say. But in a good way. =^) The passion he displays for his work -- particularly in terms of camerawork, angles, "ramping," etc. (I guess the "buckets of blood" thing might fit here too) -- really says something for him. Everyone should love what they do so much.


Slipped himself into On the Beach too
Playing the photographer on QAF

I did these screen caps after getting my Snappy because I discovered the hard way that, for all the information out there on Russell Mulcahy, there are very few pictures, and even fewer of them good. So I'm rectifying that situation. =^) I'll finish up with a few quotes on Russell Mulcahy:

"It's been a great time working with Russell. He and I have really collaborated well. We talk a lot, we laugh a lot. He's got an intense sense of energy. He gets the story, he gets how to cover the scenes. He knows what he wants, he knows what he needs, and he does it all, too, with a really great attitude. He does it all with a smile, and people enjoy working hard for him. This is going to be a film that he's going to be very proud of, as we all are." -- Rick Schroeder, Making of the Lost Battalion, November 2001

"Russell makes a great creative set, and everybody was very happy and enthusiastic. Russell came on set, and it was like, 'Bam! This is what we're doing today! It's going to be great! It's going to be fantastic!' That energy fueled everyone. It was so much fun and so enjoyable that it was a great thing to work with him." -- Howard Berger, associate producter and 2nd unit director of Tale of the Mummy, in Fangoria magazine, May 1999

"It's too bad Russell Mulcahy is such an obscenely nice guy -- because I should hate his guts. Why? It's all his fault that I'm able to sit through a Duran Duran video, and feel for a moment or two afterward that I've actually enjoyed the experience...which is a bit like a Holocaust victim coming out of Triumph of the Will humming "Deutschland Uber Alles." Bloody unforgivable if you ask me." -- intro for an interview in Heavy Metal magazine, February 1985

"The welcome prospect of working in Scotland apart, the main attraction for Sean Connery when it came to deciding whether to accept his role in Highlander was the opportunity of working with the young Australian director, Russell Mulcahy, perhaps best known for the distinctive video-promos for Duran Duran, Go West, and Elton John. 'When I heard it was Mulcahy doing it,' Connery says, 'I could see he was exactly what the film needed. Ramirez is very much a 'live force' character, a Svengali who is 2,437 years old, so it's possible to draw on anything in terms of what his knowledge would be. And the visual aspects of the film are obviously very important. You couldn't do better than have someone like Mulcahy doing them.'" -- from Film Review, September 1986

For more information on Russell Mulcahy, you can visit:

The IMDB site

Feb, 2003 article with tidbits about his latest projects

An article that highlights his more recent projects: "Twisting cable into a comfortable niche"

The Music Video Database -- a really cool reference site for music videos

the Russell Mulcahy Discussion Group

E-mail me

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Updated 14 September 2007