Tim Pope, the maverick director behind iconic music videos for The Cure, Queen, and David Bowie, has revealed wild stories from his career, including accidentally knocking out Neil Young and Freddie Mercury's love for a giant prawn costume. Now 70, Pope is casting for a movie, The Photographer's Assistant, and working on a documentary for The Cure.
A Free-Spirited Era
Pope described the 1980s and 1990s as "a very free-spirited period, before the rulebook was written." He said, "There was no health and safety. I was always causing as much trouble as I could." This included throwing The Cure off a cliff in a wardrobe for their hit Close To Me.
The Neil Young incident still preys on his mind. Pope recalled, "I tied Neil Young to a redwood tree when shooting Pressure. There were these beats in the music which were like doom, doom. So I got Neil to put on a boxing glove and punch himself in the face. He was so committed to it that he actually - and this is not made up - knocked himself out!"
"There he was, unconscious, tied to a redwood tree as this character. I thought, 'oh, my god, I've just killed Neil Young.' Or rather, 'Neil Young has just killed Neil Young.' The entire crew and I were like, 'oh my god'. Then he came to. He stayed in character, and just went, 'do you want me to hit it harder, Tim?' I thought it was brilliant."
From Letters to MTV
Born and raised in Enfield, North London, Pope initially struggled to break into the industry. He said, "I had no contacts. So I wrote thousands of letters to the BBC saying, 'just let me in, let me in!' No one would. Eventually, I found my way through music videos."
His first video was for Soft Cell's Bedsitter (1982). He said, "I came up with a concept, and me and my old production designer, Alex McDowell, tried to storyboard loads of videos. We couldn't get a foot in the door. But through telling lies, that I'd made this and that, I got myself into a room with Marc Almond, the Soft Cell vocalist… and the rest was history."
Pope went on to make over 200 music videos, including 37 for The Cure, as well as work for David Bowie, Queen, Iggy Pop, Siouxsie & the Banshees, Talk Talk, and Neil Young.
Memorable Collaborations
Choosing a favourite video is tough for Pope. He said, "It's like choosing between my children. I love The Cure's Lullaby, where Robert [Smith, lead singer] is a spider man. He's this creepy character. And the Neil Young ones are great - he embraced characters that I created for him, such as The Pig Farmer. He's completely demented and just wonderful. Then I think some of The The's videos, for the sheer danger of how we filmed them. We worked underneath a moving steam train. We filmed in a working brothel in Harlem in the '80s. That was completely crazy."
Not all stars liked his direction. Pope found a DVD commentary by Queen's Roger Taylor and Brian May, who complained about the video for It's a Hard Life. Pope said, "They were moaning about the video I made for It's a Hard Life, saying they didn't like Freddie's Mediterranean prawn costume, which I loved. Freddie loved it too. Freddie designed it. So blame him, don't blame me."
Freddie Mercury and David Bowie
Pope described Freddie Mercury as "really very sweet, down-to-earth." He recalled a meeting in Munich: "He kept making sure I had cups of tea, which he referred to as 'a builder's.' There was a Mirror photographer there. Freddie flounced into the room wearing a big orange dress with breasts larger than Dolly Parton's. He draped himself over my knee and he was like, 'ooh, darling!' This Mirror photographer went click, click, click. I pushed Freddie to the floor and sort of clambered aboard him for a joke, to pay him back. The manager of the band came and pulled the 35mm film out of the camera, took Freddie away!"
Pope also worked with David Bowie for 12 years, calling him "The Governor." He said, "He was just a bloke underneath - albeit a bloke who was quite amazing. He was always the biggest name-dropper I've ever heard. He was always like 'this person' and 'that person'. He was wonderful. I just remember laughing around him a lot. He had this particular laugh, like a Marlborough laugh, very much made from cigarettes. Bowie really liked to be directed. He liked to be told what to do. He was always such a great intellect and a mind to work with."
Hollywood and The Book
Pope's filmmaking experiences have not always been good. He said, "I made an independent movie called Phone at the start of the '90s, and Martin Scorsese wrote to me to say he loved it. I subsequently went to Hollywood, and I made a film - the sequel to The Crow - under the eyes of the Weinstein brothers. The infamous Harvey Weinstein. Harvey Weinstein told me he owned me, which were the worst three words anyone has ever said to me."
"He wanted me to cut a film. I went to supper with him and his brother and he said, 'Just cut the f***ing film how we want it you b******, we own you.' To be owned by Harvey Weinstein was not great and put me off making movies for an awful amount of time. Part of the reason I wrote the book was to let that go, cathartically. I look forward to him reading it in Rikers Island jail."
*I Shoot Rock Stars: The Wild Adventures of a Music Video Director* by Tim Pope publishes 13th August in Hardback, priced £25.00 (Wildfire).
