It was with some surprise and a great deal of sadness I learned of – and share – the news that British animator Phil Mulloy passed away four days ago. It is no exaggeration to say that any credibly compiled list of greatest animators of all time would always comfortably contain Phil’s name.
I came to animation at the time Phil was launching his “Intolerance Trilogy” on an unsuspecting world. I was astonished that Phil took the time to buy me a couple of beers and spend the better part of an hour talking me through his work and where he thought the trilogy was going. This was the first of more conversations than I can count with Phil over the years about his work, his philosophy on life and his kids. Those conversations didn’t all go well – he once (playfully) slapped me in the face in a bar in London when I tried to explain why I hadn’t selected his first “Christies” feature film. But some years later, while being interviewed on a stage at a festival (I think HAFF in Holland), he asked me to stand and pointed me out to the audience as one of the few festival directors to ‘have had the guts’ to screen all three of the features that followed. It would be fair to say those features divided audiences, but I loved them all and thought (and still think) they stand as utterly original disruptions to the expectations that many people bring to the screening of an animated feature film.
Phil was often badged and even introduced as the “enfant terrible” of British animation. He didn’t mind – he once told me “every country needs one of those so it may as well be me” – but he wasn’t that in person or even as an animator. What he was was uncompromising… in the very best sense of the word. The raw ingredients of so many of his films are formed of a spinning nucleus made up of the unshakeable certainty of a unique idea, the visceral nature of what he saw as an urgent message and the sheer brute power of an artist pushing hard to bring all of that dark brew to something the rest of us could see on a big screen.
Phil was bloody great company. He could be a kind of larger-than-life, impromptu master of ceremonies in any given group. Or he could play the role of a cheeky little goblin, lobbing slightly discordant ideas into the conversation with a kind of prankster zeal and a bomb-aimer’s accuracy.
The Ottawa International Animation Festival (OIAF) has been planning a significant tribute to Phil Mulloy’s films for some time. That tribute, scheduled for this year’s OAIF, will have a different hue at its edges now but will remind those of us who know and revere Phil’s films why we were so lucky to have had Phil turn up. And at the same time it should introduce a new generation to the work of an utterly unique artist.
OIAF Director, Chris Robinson, is working on a book about Phil and his films titled “Raw Outrage” which will be timed to release in conjunction with the OIAF screenings ion September. He describes Phil as the “punk bluesman of animation” and goes on to describes Phil’s work as “raw, minimalist, and ferociously satirical—short bursts of crude brilliance that confront the hypocrisies of religion, nationalism, masculinity, and class with uncompromising rage. If Disney represents the heart of animation, then Mulloy is its bowels—unafraid to reveal the grotesque underbelly of human nature.” Sounds about right to me.
Phil received the award for “Life Time Achievement” at last year’s Zagreb Animation Festival. A great award from a great festival but it never really occurred to me that Phil might die – he sort of seemed ageless and timeless and relentless and destined for uninterrupted continuance… perhaps I was confusing him with his films, for which all of the above applies. If you don’t know them, seek them out.
We just lost a great one!
Malcolm Turner
Artistic Director, Melbourne International Animation Festival
Animation Magazine pop-up tribute to Phil Mulloy