A Rolling-Stone classic from the archive
At the beginning of 1991, Freddie Mercury was already visibly drawn by his fight against AIDS, who was supposed to cost him his life at the end of the same year. Even if the public knew nothing about his illness at the time-Mercury should only announce it one day before his death-even then the frail body of the Queen singer could no longer hide the fatal virus disease.
In February 1990, Freddie Mercury in London completed a short walk on the stage to take a prize with the Queen colleagues at the Brit Awards.
Since Mercury was no longer able to perform live about a year later, the opportunity of a last music video shoot was more than welcome.
For his song “Thesis Are the Days of our Lives”, a kind of farewell ballad to his fans, the 44-year-old and his band kicked the camera one last time in May 1991. He got help from the Austrian director Rudi Dolezal, whom he had met in an interview almost ten years earlier. In conversation with People Magazine Remembered Dolezal 2019 of this memorable time: “He knew how sick he was and that the last time he would be in front of a camera.”
“I don’t want to burden other people’s burden” “
And yet Freddie Mercury would never have lost a word about his illness. Not even in the presence of the director, who also looked at his critical condition. “”AIDS was never an issue “said Dolezal and explained: “He didn’t want to talk about it. Most people didn’t even know if he had it, apart from the band and a few people from the inner circle. He always said, ‘I don’t want to put on a burden on other people’.“
The 62-year-old Dolezal can still remember the shoot itself: “The underside of his foot was a completely open wound. He must have had terrible pain, but you don’t see that. You only see one man and his fate. But regardless of whether he was in pain or not, he always performed his performance. He didn’t want an extra treatment. He was so brave. In retrospect it would have been so easy to be a diva, but it wasn’t like that. “
He was particularly remembered by the shooting of the last scene of the video. In this you can see Mercury taking a last heroic pose before collapsing with a quiet laugh, the words “I Still Love You” whispers into the camera and disappears from the picture with a snippet. For Dolezal, this attitude says the most: “In these last seconds he gives us a summary of his whole life: ‘I was a great superstar, but don’t take it too seriously’. The “I still love you” is the fans. Then he disappears from life. Even in his last moments, he has planned his exit artistically. That’s how he wanted it “.