HIGHLANDER holds a special place because of Mulcahy's fearless visuals. Critics said he made "an everlasting music video"... So what? That's *precisely* why the film endures, it tore the veil between two art forms. Look at this scene. Never a dull moment:
For Mulcahy, HIGHLANDER was an opportunity to continue what he’d done on his videos on a bigger scale, with less oversight. Cinema is a rich medium, and juxtaposing moving pictures can be done to achieve various affects. Sometimes the musicality of images overrides visual logic.
Look at the relationship between these shots. It doesn't matter if they don't connect seamlessly, the point is to keep the momentum going. Mulcahy insisted on having the rain and the backflips even though no one on set understood why. They got it when they saw the film.
The above clip is two minutes long and it has more visual ideas than some two-hour long movies. I love the way they played with the lighting, making Lambert phase in and out of the spotlight through a purely cinematic device.
Here as well, it only lasts a second or two, but the use of shadows heightens the visual style and imprints frames in our mind on an almost subliminal level. It turns a world that initially looked like ours into *theirs*, something supernatural, nearly alien to us.
Everything onscreen makes the film more exciting. Let them chase each other on cars, why not. Look how many things happen in this 10-second GIF: they run on car bonnets, sword fight, hit a pipe, fall on a windshield, somersault off the car. An exercise in cinematic generosity.
I love this moment here, when MacLeod seems to become invisible to his opponent simply by leaving the frame. It's like the viewer's limited perception intersects with Fasil's. The "shit, where is he gone?" surprise becomes a common experience. And that come-back shot, holy shit.
In the director's own words: “There was a certain period when people didn’t want multiple meetings and I could get away with doing strange images and sequences. These days you’d have to have 20 meetings with the executives and you probably wouldn’t get away with it.”
I completely understand why some people rejected the film at the time. After witnessing Mulcahy's mindfucking directing choices, and then shots like these, it can be disorienting. You either fully embrace it or reject it I guess.
😍
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