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Hurt

Johnny Cash

Director
Mark Romanek
Release date
2003
Category
Music Video
Genre
Country
Country
United States
Director of Photography
Jean-Yves Escoffier
Editor
Robert Duffy

The "set" for Johnny Cash's "Hurt" video wasn't a set at all. It was filmed in his own run-down "House of Cash" museum, which had been closed to the public for years. The director, Mark Romanek, decided to lean into the building's natural state of decay, using the smashed memorabilia and dusty rooms as a visual metaphor for Cash's own mortality. The result is a brutally honest and powerful final statement from a music legend. The cover was the brainchild of producer Rick Rubin, who convinced a hesitant Johnny Cash to record the Nine Inch Nails song for his "American IV" album. Tragically, the House of Cash museum, the primary location for the video, was destroyed in a fire in 2007.