Phil Mulloy obit

Phil Mulloy, Acclaimed ‘Enfant Terrible’ of British Animation, Dies at 76 

He was not on the list.

Irish-English animator Phil Mulloy, best known for his original, dark satirical shorts featuring distinctive black skeletal figures and minimalistic backgrounds, died on Thursday, (July 10), at age 76. He passed away peacefully in his sleep, according to his wife, animator and educator Vera Neubauer.

Born in Wallasey, Merseyside, Mulloy migrated to Liverpool with his family. He studied painting at Ravensbourne College and filmmaking at the Royal College of Art. Initially, he worked as a screenwriter and director of live-action projects (including the award-winning drama Mark Gertler: Fragments of a Biography) until the late 1980s, when he decided to pursue animation.

He created many inventive idents for MTV, including the famous Boxers to Lovers spot in which tow boxers, stop fighting and embrace each other, much to the disappointment of their audience who demand violence. In the early 1990s, he created Channel Four’s well-received Cowboys series (six shorts titled Slim Pickin’s, That’s Nothing’, Murder!, High Noon, The Conformist and Outrage).

Between 1994 and 1996, he delivered his black-and-white (brush and ink on paper) The Ten Commandments, which won a Special Award at the Hiroshima Intl. Animation Festival. Of the project, he said in Thinkred, “”I had a structure I could work within and a set of ideas I could reinterpret for myself. Similarly reworking and playing with narrative structures creates ways of reinterpreting elements to do with my own thinking about and experiencing of the world.”

In 1998, he created The Chain for Channel four, one of 30 animated shorts by acclaimed animators in a special Human Rights Animation program. The 10-minute short won the Jury Award at the Villa de Condo festival and the Critics Prize at Zagreb’s World Festival of Animated Films.  He followed that short with Season’s Greetings (1999), a three-minute live-action/animation mix that offered a “greeting card for the new millennium.”

Among his other award-winning projects over the past two decades were The Sound of Music (1995), The Wind of Changes (1998), Intolerance which won a special prize at Annecy in 2001, The Christies series for Spectre Films in 2006, the feature Dead but Not Buried, which won the top feature prize at the Ottawa Intl. Animation Festival in 2011). His final short film Endgame, which centered on two office workers who engage in war games over the weekend to relax, won the top prize at Animafest Zagreb in 2016.

OIAF director Chris Robinson, who showcased Mulloy’s work at the festival frequently, wrote “Drawn with thick, bold lines featuring stick figure characters with black skulls, white eyes, and a penis-shaped nose, Mulloy’s films are drenched with stinging sarcasm as they unearth social, political, and religious inconsistencies and hypocrisies, while exploring their repressive and often cruel effects on humanity.”

Robinson tells Animation Magazine that a major retrospective of Phil Mulloy’s works was already in the works for this year’s edition of the Ottawa Festival (Sept. 23-28). “He was scheduled to be in Ottawa for a big retrospective and exhibition of his work this year,” says the festival director. “The show will still go on so new crowds can take in his brilliant work.”

Mulloy was once asked at the London Animation Festival, what it felt to be called the enfant terrible of British animation? He responded, “To be called anything is actually quite nice. Recently, I was called ‘brilliant’ and ‘rubbish’ for the same film…perfect.” When asked why he moved from making shorts to features, he said, “When times get tough and films get harder to make, some people stop making films. My films get longer! It’s a matter of the will.”

Mulloy is survived by his wife Vera Nuebauer, and their their children, BAFTA-winning director and screenwriter Daniel Mulloy and Student Academy Award-nominated director Lucy Mulloy.

Director

Endgame

5.6

Short

Director

2015

 

The Pain and the Pity

Director

2013

 

Forwards Backwards

Short

Director

2013

 

The Banker

6.5

Short

Director

2012

 

Dead But Not Buried

6.9

Director

2012

 

Goodbye Mr. Christie (2011)

Goodbye Mr. Christie

5.4

Director

2011

 

Extreme Animation

Video

Director

2009

 

The Christies (2006)

The Christies

7.3

Director

2006

 

Joel Cutrara, Thomas Meyer-Hermann, Phil Mulloy, Johnson Corey, and Patricia Rodriguez in Intolerance III: The Final Solution (2004)

Intolerance III: The Final Solution

7.7

Short

Director

2004

 

The History of the World Episode 10: The Discovery of Language (2004)

The History of the World Episode 10: The Discovery of Language

6.3

Short

Director

2004

 

Love Is Strange

7.5

Short

Director

2004

 

Intolerance II: The Invasion (2001)

Intolerance II: The Invasion

6.9

Short

Director

2001

 

Intolerance (2000)

Intolerance

7.2

Short

Director

2000

 

The Sexlife of a Chair (1998)

The Sexlife of a Chair

5.6

Short

Director

1998

 

The Chain (1998)

The Chain

6.7

Short

Director

1998

 

The Wind of Changes (1997)

The Wind of Changes

7.2

Short

Director

1997

 

The Ten Commandments Number 5: Thou Shalt Not Kill (1996)

The Ten Commandments Number 5: Thou Shalt Not Kill

6.6

Short

Director

1996

 

The Ten Commandments Number 10: Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbour's Wife (1996)

The Ten Commandments Number 10: Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbour's Wife

7.0

Short

Director

1996

 

The Ten Commandments Number 9: Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbour's Goods (1995)

The Ten Commandments Number 9: Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbour's Goods

6.7

Short

Director

1995

 

The Ten Commandments Number 8: Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness (1995)

The Ten Commandments Number 8: Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness

6.6

Short

Director

1995

 

The Ten Commandments Number 4: Honour Thy Father and Thy Mother (1995)

The Ten Commandments Number 4: Honour Thy Father and Thy Mother

6.7

Short

Director

1995

 

The Ten Commandments Number 3: Remember to Keep Holy the Sabbath Day (1995)

The Ten Commandments Number 3: Remember to Keep Holy the Sabbath Day

6.7

Short

Director

1995

 

The Ten Commandments Number 2: Thou Shalt Not Commit Blasphemy (1995)

The Ten Commandments Number 2: Thou Shalt Not Commit Blasphemy

6.5

Short

Director

1995

 

Greats Moments in Film

Short

Director

1995

 

The Ten Commandments Number 6: Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery (1995)

The Ten Commandments Number 6: Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery

6.6

Short

Director

1995

 

The Ten Commandments Number 7: Thou Shalt Not Steal (1994)

The Ten Commandments Number 7: Thou Shalt Not Steal

6.4

Short

Director

1994

 

The Ten Commandments Number 1: Thou Shalt Not Adore False Gods (1994)

The Ten Commandments Number 1: Thou Shalt Not Adore False Gods

6.7

Short

Director

1994

 

The History of the World Episode 16: The Invention of Writing and Destruction (1994)

The History of the World Episode 16: The Invention of Writing and Destruction

6.7

Short

Director

1994

 

The Sound of Music (1994)

The Sound of Music

6.9

Short

Director

1994

 

Cowboys: Slim Pickin's (1992)

Cowboys: Slim Pickin's

5.2

Short

Director

1992

 

Possession

7.2

Short

Director

1991

 

Cowboys: Murder! (1991)

Cowboys: Murder!

5.8

Short

Director

1991

 

Cowboys: High Noon (1991)

Cowboys: High Noon

5.6

Short

Director

1991

 

Cowboys: The Conformist (1991)

Cowboys: The Conformist

6.1

Short

Director

1991

 

Cowboys: That's Nothin' (1991)

Cowboys: That's Nothin'

5.8

Short

Director

1991

 

Cowboys: Outrage! (1991)

Cowboys: Outrage!

5.9

Short

Director

1991

 

Tinfish

7.3

Short

Director

1990

 

Through an Unknown Land (1986)

Through an Unknown Land

7.0

Director

1986

 

Give Us This Day

Director

1982

 

Mark Gertler: Fragments of a Biography

6.3

Director

1981

 

In the Forest

7.2

Director

1978

 

A History & The City

Short

Director

1977

 

Writer

Endgame

5.6

Short

Writer

2015

 

The Pain and the Pity

Writer

2013

 

Forwards Backwards

Short

Writer

2013

 

Dead But Not Buried

6.9

Writer

2012

 

Ivan Bogdanov, Kapena Boyd, Moritz Mayerhofer, Veljko Popovic, Rositsa Raleva, Dmitry Yagodin, and Asparuh Petrov in Bashta (2012)

Bashta

7.4

Short

script

2012

 

Goodbye Mr. Christie (2011)

Goodbye Mr. Christie

5.4

Writer

2011

 

Extreme Animation

Video

Writer

2009

 

Joel Cutrara, Thomas Meyer-Hermann, Phil Mulloy, Johnson Corey, and Patricia Rodriguez in Intolerance III: The Final Solution (2004)

Intolerance III: The Final Solution

7.7

Short

screenplay

2004

 

Love Is Strange

7.5

Short

Writer

2004

 

Intolerance II: The Invasion (2001)

Intolerance II: The Invasion

6.9

Short

Writer

2001

 

Through an Unknown Land (1986)

Through an Unknown Land

7.0

Writer

1986

 

Give Us This Day

Writer

1982

 

Mark Gertler: Fragments of a Biography

6.3

script

1981

 

In the Forest

7.2

Writer

1978

 

A History & The City

Short

Writer

1977

 

Producer

Endgame

5.6

Short

producer

2015

 

The Pain and the Pity

producer

2013

 

Forwards Backwards

Short

producer

2013

 

Una noche (2012)

Una noche

6.7

associate producer

2012

 

Extreme Animation

Video

producer

2009

 

The Christies (2006)

The Christies

7.3

producer

2006

 

Love Is Strange

7.5

Short

producer

2004

 

Animation for Live Action (1978)

Animation for Live Action

Short

producer

1978

 

In the Forest

7.2

producer

1978

 

A History & The City

Short

producer

1977