Russell Mulcahy's captivating 1984 Duran Duran video...
Australian director Russell Mulcahy has always been a man with vision. I still maintain that his 1986 action film Highlander is a far weirder and far more insightful work than is often recognized, telling the story of an often-persecuted all-male group of Immortals who are forced to live in seclusion -- while also fighting an eternal struggle among themselves to determine which vision of their identity shall be cemented in popular culture. I am no film theorist, but I've long felt that Mulcahy -- himself an openly gay man -- was crafting something rather poignant about the gay experience of life in the 1980s.
Mulcahy has directed a slew of other films worth checking out, including the outback horror film Razorback, The Shadow and the flawed-but-fabulous Highlander 2: The Quickening. No matter where the finished fall on the subjective quality spectrum, you know you're in for a stylish and weird experience. For a more concise example of this, we need only turn to his ridiculously deep resume of music videos. The work varies greatly in budget and weirdness, but two key examples come to mind: the utterly bonkers video for Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart and, of course, Mulcahy's award-winning, big-budget video for Duran Duran's 1985 hit Wild Boys.
Before we proceed, let's watch the video in its entirety. You can watch the shorter version here, but I think we should dwell on the extended cut (which also includes samples from Barbarella, the band's namesake.
What you have just witnessed is music video perfection. Mulcahy takes us into a rich, Thunderdome-inspired, subterranean post-apocalyptic world of cyborg worship, windmill-based torture, automotive crucifixion, hang-gliding, mutant monsters and primal dance. If we're to form a narrative out of all this -- which is by no means necessary -- then the band Duran Duran has clearly been captured in such a world and must formulate an escape.
I remember watching this music video as a child (and later as a teen) and just being overcome by it -- by its weirdness, darkness and erotic charge. Looking back on it, I think its one of those works that served as a prism through which to refract the light of my own sexuality (the other key work being The Rocky Horror Picture Show).
Apparently, the genesis of the video is that Mulcahy was interested in directing an adaptation of William S. Burroughs' The Wild Boys: A Book of the Dead, which is itself an apocalyptic tale of a homosexual youth rebellion against western civilization. So, it would seem that the video reflects some of the aesthetic ideas associated with that never-realized project.
I should also point out that the video's feathered, leather-bound and hang-gliding revelers also seem to be precursor to the pair of immortal assassins, Corda and Reno, from Highlander 2. I remember being drawn into the film's trailers based on their presence alone, and I still maintain that the Tech noir sequence that sees them battle the titular Highlander stands up as a glorious and fittingly Mulcahian action sequence. It's a heavily flawed and studio-compromised film, but the original theatrical cut is more enjoyable than most things as far as I'm concerned.
I've rambled a bit here, but to summarize: Wilds Boys is both a spectacular tune and one of the best music videos to come out of the 1980s. I wish Mulcahy would have had the chance to bring his full cinematic vision to life, but this will do.
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