EMMETT MALLOY
Co-directing the St. Anger video at California’s San Quentin prison was like nothing he’d experienced before
Shooting a video inside a prison could come across as exploitative. What was top of your list of things not to do, to guard against this?
“Well, I’d say it was hard to know what not to do. But what I would say is that I felt that, at that time in music and in culture, being in a prison that heavy, maybe the only artists who could have pulled it off were Metallica, and maybe, say, 50 Cent. When I was in there I was thinking, ‘Dude, thank God we’re with this band, because if we were with anyone else, people wouldn’t have wanted us crashing their day.’ Metallica have a presence, and that seemed to lend itself to the heaviness of the day. There were times where you’d get stark reminders that this was a prison not a set, like when a buzzer sounds and every prisoner suddenly hits the ground, and you’re left standing – that’s a reality check.”
What special measures did you have to take to ensure your safety and the band’s safety?
“Well, we had to check in every single item, everything down to the last pin, which took almost a whole day, but when we got there, it got kinda loose, to the point where I was thinking, ‘Man, if there was ever a day to make a prison break, this would be it!’ We could shoot in the cells, and we got access to prisoners on good behaviour who were interested in being on camera, and those things weren’t in the playbook when I first spoke to the authorities.”
Did shooting inside the prison present different technical challenges?
“We had to sign a ‘no hostage’ policy, which means that the guards aren’t obliged to rescue you if you’re taken hostage by a prisoner, which was different! I scouted out the Maximum Security area before shooting, which felt like being in The Silence Of The Lambs, with people screaming passages from the Bible, and I knew that the Night Stalker, Richard Ramirez, was in there, and I was thinking, ‘Why the fuck am I doing this?’ I remember during shooting some naked dude pushed right through me to get to the showers, so that was another reality check! The band felt the weight of the day, and we did too. I remember Lars, beforehand, was scared that he’d be identified as ‘The Napster Guy’, and I was like, ‘Dude, I think these guys might have bigger concerns than music piracy.’”
James Hetfield gave a speech to the prisoners, ahead of the gig they played on day two, which was powerful and emotional: was watching that an emotional moment for you?
“Well, to be honest, on day two I was out shooting footage in Oakland, and I felt more at risk then than I did shooting in the prison! [Photographer] Danny Clinch was there and he told me how intense it was. But when I was with James on day one, prisoners would walk up and tell him about the power of his music in their lives, that deep, heavy, profound connection, and he listened with such respect, and you could see he understood. James isn’t chatty like Lars, he sits and stares all day, but I could see him take it all in, and everything was landing big with him. Remember, this was a time when he was very vulnerable emotionally, and you could tell there was a sense of, ‘There but for the grace of God…’”
You’ve got a stellar CV, but we’re guessing this was a shoot that has lingered long in the memory
“Oh man, I only have a handful of music videos that really have a significance and weight all these years later, and that’s one shoot that’s on that short list. It felt like we did something important. I love the Master Of Puppets era – that’s my Metallica era – but this felt like a cool moment in their history, with James coming back and everything they went through on St. Anger. I was psyched to be there, it was a powerful cultural moment, and I feel real lucky to have been part of it.”
“IT WAS LIKE BEING IN THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS”