Woooo-hoooo, remember that video for Blur’s Song 2? No Doubt’s heart-shattering film for Don’t Speak? Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s literal Murder on the Dancefloor? Padam Padam? Name any number of influential music videos of the modern era and you’ll find the same director is behind them: Sophie Muller.

Having stood behind the lens of well over 300 music videos, Muller’s career has spanned five decades. Her secret? She gives musicians full rein to have fun and express themselves, often simply shot inside a dimly lit room. It’s why Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Gwen Stefani, Annie Lennox, Sade, Garbage, The Kills, Kylie, and Blur keep returning for more, not forgetting her work with Beyoncé, Rihanna, Radiohead, Weezer and Dolly Parton. Her “greatest joy” is when artists say, oh, I want to work with you again!

“On my treatment, I would always have the word ‘atmosphere’. Whatever the song’s atmosphere, I would try and find that,” Muller states. “I would say to the artist – this is your video. You are the star of it. What do you want? How do you want people to feel about you and the song? Artists respond to being asked. A lot of directors don’t want to know because they want to make a video about them.”

Muller’s route to “the best job in the world” started at art school because directing wasn’t an obvious career choice for women at the time. Fresh out of school, Muller peered around a run of colleges in London, but when she arrived at Central Saint Martins, then on Charing Cross Road, “I was like – oh yeah, I want to be here.” Once admitted to the foundation course, “our first task was to go out in Soho and find some rubbish to make a piece of work out of.”

As there wasn’t a film course (that she was aware of), Muller moved on to graphics from her foundation, “because I didn’t know what else to do.” It wasn’t until her final year that she discovered a film department attached to the fine art school. There she created Unquiet Days, an art film with four sections about the four seasons.

I tried not to put my femaleness forward … I didn’t want to be pigeonholed as a female director

It marked her first experience of editing to music, and throughout the process, Muller had one of her favourite films in mind – The Sound of  Music. “The musical numbers are genius, the editing is so good,” she gushes of the classic film. “It showed me the power of combining music and imagery. How powerful certain scenes are with music – when you get it right. It does something you can’t explain, but you feel it inside. I guess, in some sad, pathetic way, that’s what I was trying to do. Trying to recreate The Sound of Music in my abstract film.”

Muller’s transition to the Royal College of Art to pursue a master’s in film and television came as a shock. Unlike Central Saint Martins, where New Romantics and the post-punk crowd creatively enjoyed themselves, “they actually wanted you to work”, and the students were far more political. “It was a weird time because it was radical. They assumed I would be a hardline feminist, but I didn’t even know what a feminist was. I spent too much time dressing up and enjoying myself,” Muller recalls. She just wanted to make beautiful imagery: “They’d ask: why are you making women look good? That’s really bad.”

On leaving the Royal College of Art she felt, “I wasn’t a filmmaker in this true sense”, and struggled to find employment because “I didn’t even know what I wanted to do”. Muller was an art filmmaker who was too snobby to consider commercial work. “I always laugh that the person I was then would be so horrified at what I do now. Selling out by doing commercial work… I didn’t even think about doing music videos. Nobody I knew made them,” she says.

Down and out, Muller spent two years of “very low times”. “I remember calling up production companies. Can I show you my work? They would look at it and go – what are we supposed to do with this?” The newly established production company Oil Factory, owned by Billy Poveda and James Stewart (“the brother of Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart”), finally took a chance on her. “As soon as I walked through the door, I was like – oh I’m home. I can feel it. James was a huge film fan; he knew everything about every art film,” she says.

I would say to the artist: this is your video. You are the star of it. What do you want?

A breakthrough came when she was asked to act as technical advisor for a video Annie Lennox was supposed to be directing in Paris. As soon as Muller arrived, “for some reason, everyone was acting like I was the director. Annie had this idea for a video – I said well, I don’t think you should do it like this … do it like this. I made some suggestions, and that’s exactly what we did. I was just directing – she never did any of it.”

The video in question is I Need a Man, in which Lennox dresses like a disco vixen version of Marilyn Monroe. It was here Muller defined one of her signature styles, by using a handheld camera. After that, “I was never unemployed again,“ she says. “I kept working with people around that setup. Then, other people who weren’t in that setup started to want to work with me.” It was also the beginning of a long collaboration with Lennox, for whom she has directed over 20 music videos, winning a Grammy for the Diva video album and an MTV Video Music Award for her 1992 hit Why.

For a long time, people referred to Muller as the director who makes women look beautiful. “I didn’t like that because I thought it was simplistic. It’s not particularly true. There’s nothing wrong with making people powerful and beautiful, but I wouldn’t say I like it to be the only thing. That’s just a device,” she muses. “I deliberately went against that and started doing lots of indie bands in America. Then I had a weird alternative rock time. I’ve always tried not to be pigeonholed.”

When she started in the music industry, there was only one other female director in that realm — Mary Lambert, behind Madonna’s Like a Prayer. “There were no female DPs then. Or women gaffers. Male sparks were horribly sexist,” she reflects. However, she doesn’t recall any particular challenges from working in a male-dominated industry. “I never felt it in some way. I never experienced the kind of – ‘don’t use her’. There were conversations, but I never felt it.”

In reaction to the masculine landscape: “I tried not to put my femaleness forward. I tried to stay away from that because I didn’t want to be pigeonholed as a female director. Whether that was a good or bad thing. When people say ‘we want to work with a female director’, I tend not to want to work with them,” she says. “Back then, I tried not to make it a thing. I’ve tried to be the best director, not the best woman director.”

In the 1980s, when Muller started directing videos, she found women could be strong without being aggressive. “There was a little moment. Annie Lennox was one. Sinéad O’Connor. They were strong, beautiful women, but they weren’t seen as scary,” she says. “That shifted, and women suddenly became pornographic and pleasing to the camera. I remember seeing Mariah Carey’s video, and I was like: why is she performing like she’s in some porn video? Abuse me; I’m here to be taken. It was a different way of performing than I was used to.”

Muller is drawn to women with a sense of wickedness. “What I like about Sophie [Ellis-Bextor] is she’s willing to be dark,” she reflects, after 15 music videos together. “Very few other women artists would be seen in that light. They all wanted to be nice and fuzzy. She wasn’t like that. She’s a baddie on Murder on the Dancefloor. She’s horrible.”

When people say ‘we want to work with a female director’, I tend not to want to work with them. I’ve tried to be the best director, not the best woman director

The duo teamed up again last year for Ellis-Bextor’s new disco-pop anthem Freedom of the Night after the musician found fame again when Murder on the Dancefloor was discovered by a new generation by appearing in the climactic end of Emerald Fennell’s psychological thriller Saltburn, starring Barry Keoghan. The new video then acted as a follow-up to Muller’s original promo, featuring the same character.

“It had a huge resurgence with the film, and when we were talking about Freedom of the Night, I said we have to refer to it,” Muller says. “Who else has a hit with the same song 20 years later, and it’s a bigger hit all over the world? It was something about that character … I want to see what she’s doing now. Sophie came up with the idea of being a dance mum. She was totally up for it. Instead of being an evil dancer, she’s an evil mum behind the innocent child. We had great fun on both videos.”

Like Muller’s work with Ellis-Bextor, her recent work with Kylie Minogue defies ageism and expectations, bridging a generational gap between younger audiences and mature performers. While their careers started around the same time, they didn’t work together until later, however.

“If I’m being honest, Kylie was too nice,” Muller admits. “It wasn’t until I was older that I thought – this idea of an artist who has always been known for being young is so interesting. It’s hard to describe Kylie as an older woman. What impresses me is how she manoeuvres that. I don’t envy that. I remember her saying she was always asked awful questions … how does it feel to be 50 in the music industry? She says: how can I answer that? This is where I am. It was a putdown – like ‘how dare you be old’.”

Muller believes Kylie has done a “marvellous job” managing it and has enjoyed being part of her journey, helping her develop age-appropriate ideas. “You bring out what’s best about people. She’s got a lot to give and it’s about bringing out the best of that,” she reflects. Despite working with Kylie a few times before though, Muller admits: “I didn’t see Padam Padam coming.” A certified viral phenomenon, the song is now a huge anthem within the LGBT+ community.

As Muller reflects on her prolific career, she considers how people’s consumption of music videos has changed. “When I started, you couldn’t actually see videos unless you had MTV. I remember going to America for the first time and watching MTV all night. But you couldn’t choose what to watch. You’d have to sit through the awful videos until you got a good one,” she says. “There was something about having to watch the awful ones that made the good ones even better.”

The way music videos were premiered has also changed dramatically. “Everyone would watch them and talk about them. You don’t have that now. I remember the amount of power VH1 and MTV had over the entire industry. If they decided not to show it, that was it. There was nowhere else. And it was devastating. You very much made videos to please them. I would never understand why my weird indie videos would never get shown.”

It’s hard to describe Kylie as an older woman. What impresses me is how she manoeuvres that. I don’t envy that

Muller doesn’t think music videos are as special now. “I don’t think people care. That’s the thing about YouTube … now you’ve got to keep the audience until the end, as you can skip.”

With such an epic back catalogue though, Muller is very grateful for how it worked out: “I almost can’t believe what an amazing career I’ve had. I thought I’d be finished and done with it 20 years ago. My 18-year-old self – ‘oh my God, who would want to work with a 40-year-old?’ I was terribly ageist when I was young. The fact that I can still work is a miracle. I don’t want to rock the boat too much. I still absolutely love making music videos.”

prettybird.co