How ‘Atlanta’ and ‘This Is America’ Director Hiro Murai Mashes Up Comedy and Horror
TheWrap Emmy magazine: ”A lot of people who make films in my generation have the vocabulary of all the films they’ve seen before,“ says the Emmy-nominated director of ”Atlanta“
A version of this story about Hiro Murai first appeared in the Down to the Wire issue of TheWrap’s Emmy magazine.
You may have only just heard of him, but Hiro Murai is done talking.
The 35-year-old Los Angeles-based director is just now developing his first feature film, but in 2018 he’s already released two feverishly discussed pieces of pop culture: the “Teddy Perkins” episode of “Atlanta,” for which Murai is nominated for a directing Emmy, and the music video for Childish Gambino’s provocative “This Is America.”
They both demanded attention and were the subject of countless think pieces and YouTube dissections analyzing hidden symbols and allusions behind every frame. Murai initially weighed in on what it all meant, but there was so much to unpack that he eventually had to step back.
“I’m a firm believer in the idea that once we make a thing and release it, my turn to talk is done,” Murai said. “Ideally, you’re saying everything you want to say in the product you’re making and you don’t have to add commentary to it afterwards.”
The reference-heavy “Teddy Perkins” aired without commercials and hid the fact that a nearly unrecognizable Donald Glover played the title role — a creepy man with a ghostly pale, masklike face living in an old mansion with his brother, with whom he shares a musical past.
Murai dressed the episode with surreal, Gothic horror elements and made shout-outs to everything from Michael Jackson to Jordan Peele’s “Get Out” to soft-boiled ostrich eggs.
“When we were making ‘Teddy Perkins,’ we were playing with a lot of horror tropes and things you might’ve seen in movies before, but we get the ability to subvert expectations or get a comedic element out of a horror moment,” Murai said. “A lot of people who make films in my generation have the vocabulary of all the films they’ve seen before. It’s never like an homage or a conscious tip of the hat. It’s just built into the storytelling vocabulary.”
“Teddy Perkins” was designed to work as a standalone, bottle episode of “Atlanta,” an “oddball,” as Murai put it. But he also places “Teddy Perkins” as part of the logical progression in “Atlanta’s” second season and the second act to a long film. It “isn’t just messing around,” Murai added.
That experimentation is what has kept Murai moving and his collaboration with Glover and the rest of the “Atlanta” cast and crew strong. He hasn’t made a first feature film just yet, but he has found a way to keep evolving as a filmmaker.
“What I think is great about the show, and why I feel it’s so personal is it’s really just a collage piece of all of our interests and how we’re reacting to the material,” Murai said.
“For me, that’s probably the most important thing. I get to keep experimenting and keep myself interested. Different mediums, different lengths, different distribution methods. For me, I don’t have a grand vision planned or an end goal, I’m just exploring what’s given to me at any given moment.”
9 Amazing Hiro Murai-Directed Music Videos Before 'This Is America' (Videos)
After watching and re-watching the provocative, reference-rich music video for Childish Gambino's "This is America," you probably want to know a lot more about its director, Hiro Murai. He's best known for directing episodes of Donald Glover's "Atlanta" (earning a first look deal with FX in the process). But he cut his teeth with other music videos that are ALMOST as mind blowing as "This is America." Here are some of Murai's greatest hits.
"Signs" (2009) - Bloc Party
This Lynchian trip for the English band Bloc Party is only Murai's second video. The video's aggressive editing, grimy color scheme and images of bodies mashed up with disco balls and sound waves hint at the dark places Murai would go to in future videos and in an episode of "Legion."
"Chum" (2012) - Earl Sweatshirt
This video is a dreamy, noirish look into Earl Sweatshirt's world, and in our opinion the filmmaking echoes the track's chorus: "something sinister to it."
"Cheerleader" (2012) - St. Vincent
In "Cheerleader," Annie Clark, aka indie guitarist St. Vincent, becomes a brittle and lifeless museum piece. The song is about breaking free from being a woman put on display on a pedestal, and Murai transforms Clark herself into a perfect metaphor for that fight.
"Smooth Sailing" (2014) - Queens of the Stone Age
This Murai video starts fun and loose before taking a surprisingly violent turn. Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme plays a businessman leading some Asian suits on a drunken night of debauchery. Like the boozy, wild and funky song it's based on, the camera rigged in front of the actors' faces gives everything a wobbly, unhinged perspective, but neither are without a little menace and bite.
"Sweatpants" (2014) - Childish Gambino
Another standout collaboration between Murai and Childish Gambino, this one takes a surreal twist to Gambino's line, "I'm doing me better than you doing you." Done in what looks like a single take (exactly like "This is America"), the video shows Gambino stumbling through his same life over and over, faced with countless mirror images of himself.
"Do You" (2014) - Spoon
Watch this one to the end. Spoon's Britt Daniel looks tired and apathetic as he drives past flipped cars, flaming tires and rampant destruction going on just outside his car's windows. It looks apocalyptic, but the end of the video reveals that it's massive toddlers creating all the destruction, and he and his passenger just look like two exhausted parents trying to look the other way.
"Gold" (2014) - Chet Faker
Murai has found truly interesting ways to show people just dancing to a song. For Chet Faker's "Gold," Murai's camera is perched on the back of a slow moving car along the center of a long, darkened highway. Three scantily-clad dancers emerge on roller skates from the dark, seeming to just glide along the road.
"Take it There" (2016) - Massive Attack
Actor John Hawkes stars in this gritty, dreary clip. There's a brilliant moment early on when it looks like Hawkes is about to be mugged by a gang, only for them to all break out into a choreographed dance.
"Black Man In a White World" (2016) - Michael Kiwanuka
Like Earl Sweatshirt's "Chum," Murai's visualized take on this track by guitarist Kiwanuka is a powerful and slightly surreal comment on blackness in America. It starts with solemn black and white shots of empty city streets before revealing a young black boy freely dancing in the street. A fiery car crash happens right in front him as he keeps moving, all before Murai flips the camera and literally turns this kid's world upside down.
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Murai’s previous collaborators include Earl Sweatshirt, Spoon, St. Vincent and Queens of the Stone Age
After watching and re-watching the provocative, reference-rich music video for Childish Gambino's "This is America," you probably want to know a lot more about its director, Hiro Murai. He's best known for directing episodes of Donald Glover's "Atlanta" (earning a first look deal with FX in the process). But he cut his teeth with other music videos that are ALMOST as mind blowing as "This is America." Here are some of Murai's greatest hits.
