Page 19 - Fujifilm Exposure_3 Michael Winner_ok

From Candlelight
From Candlelight
to Woop-Woop
An interview with Mike Molloy BSC
to Woop-Woop
S ipping lunchtime cof- fee at the edge of a damp field on the Isle Of Man may seem a long way from home - not to mention his previous exotic assignment in the arid desert near Alice Springs - but it has a very special poignancy for Aussie cinematographer Mike Molloy. Exactly 21 years after British producer Jeremy Thomas gave Molloy his feature break as DP Down Under on Mad Dog Morgan, the two are rather belatedly collaborating yet again on Thomas’s low-pro-
file directing debut, All The Little Animals.
In between, the two worked together on The Shout, The Great Rock ‘N’ Roll Swindle and The Hit, the last nearly 15 years ago. Since then Thomas, about to quit the chairmanship of the BFI after an eventful and much appreciated five-year stint, has gone on to fame and some fortune as Oscar-winning producer of films like The Last Emperor, Little Buddha and Crash while Molloy has pursued a typically peripatetic career, blend- ing features and commercials in all corners of the
globe.
However, recollections of Mad Dog Morgan, a
rollicking bushranger, Western-style Oz saga, direct- ed by Philippe Mora and detailing the life and violent times of the eponymous Irish outlaw, still remain curiously fresh in his creative memory bank.
“As if the weather wasn’t bad enough,” recalls Molloy, “the really hairy thing about being DP for the first time was having the scenes flow together while trying to keep the photographic style uni- form. Which I didn’t actually do. I think I tended to
experiment just a bit too far.” Then there was the film’s colourful star, Dennis Hopper. “This was before he cleaned up his act and so he was a quite outrageous guy to work with. His horse, an intelligent beast, absolutely hated him and you’d see Dennis talking to it before the scene, saying ‘Look, you’re going to behave yourself.’ In one scene he had to gallop out of shot and all I can remember was him leaping on, the horse taking off and Dennis disappearing while hanging on to the saddle with pistols flying out and his
hat flying off.
“Hopper was, you might say, rather larger
than life then and tended to have a bit of a go at everybody including me. So in my mind’s eye he was always this eight foot tall guy breathing flames. About four years later I was in Los Angeles at a screening of Out Of The Blue when this small chap shot up to me, saying cheerfully, ‘Hey Mike, how are you, man?’ Yes, it was Dennis and I didn’t even recognise him.”
When Molloy left school in Sydney during the Fifties, he wanted to be a stills photographer but continued over
Photo: Mike Molloy with Jeremy and Eski Thomas on the set of All The Little Animals.
EXPOSURE • 19
behind the camera