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24 March 2015 (Series 30:8)
George Miller, MAD MAX (1979, 88 minutes)
Directed by George Miller
Written by James McCausland, George Miller, and Byron
Kennedy
Produced by Byron Kennedy and Bill Miller
Music by Brian May
Cinematography by David Eggby
Film Editing by Cliff Hayes and Tony Paterson
Art Direction by Jon Dowding
Costume Design by Clare Griffin
Stunts by Chris Anderson, Dale Bensch, David Bracks, Phil
Brock, Michael Daniels, Gerry Gauslaa, Terry Gibson, George
Novak, and Grant Page
Mel Gibson ... Max
Joanne Samuel ... Jessie
Hugh Keays-Byrne ... Toecutter
Steve Bisley ... Jim Goose
Tim Burns ... Johnny the Boy
Roger Ward ... Fifi
Lisa Aldenhoven ... Nurse
David Bracks ... Mudguts
Bertrand Cadart ... Clunk
David Cameron ... Underground Mechanic
Robina Chaffey ... Singer
Stephen Clark
... Sarse
Mathew Constantine ... Toddler
Jerry Day ... Ziggy
Reg Evans ... Station Master
Howard Eynon ... Diabando
Max Fairchild
... Benno
John Farndale
... Grinner
Peter Felmingham ... Senior Doctor
Sheila Florance ... May Swaisey
Nic Gazzana ... Starbuck
Hunter Gibb ... Lair
Vincent Gil ... Nightrider
Andrew Gilmore ... Silvertongue
Jonathan Hardy ... Labatouche
Brendan Heath ... Sprog
Paul Johnstone ... Cundalini
Nick Lathouris ... Grease Rat
John Ley ... Charlie
Steve Millichamp ... Roop
Phil Motherwell ... Junior Doctor
George Novak
... Scuttle
Geoff Parry ... Bubba Zanetti
Lulu Pinkus ... Nightrider's Girl
Neil Thompson ... TV Newsreader
Billy Tisdall ... Midge
Gil Tucker ... People's Observer
Kim Sullivan ... Girl in Chevvy
John Arnold
Tom Broadbridge
Peter Culpan
Peter Ford
Clive Hearne
Telford Jackson
Christine Kaman
Miller—MAD MAX—2
Joan Letch
Kerry Miller
Janine Ogden
Di Trelour
Vernon Weaver
Paul Young
Brendan Young
Warrior, 1981 Road Games, 1979 Mad Max, 1978 Patrick, and
1975 Dick Down Under.
David Eggby (cinematographer) (b. 1950 in London, England)
has been the cinematographer for 43 films and television shows,
including 2013 Riddick, 2006 The Marine, 2003 Horseplay, 2002
Scooby-Doo, 1999 Virus, 1996 DragonHeart, 1994 Lightning
Jack, 1993 Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, 1991 Harley Davidson
and the Marlboro Man, 1990 Quigley Down Under, 1989
Warlock, 1985 The Naked Country, 1982 Early Frost, 1980 Dead
Man's Float, and 1979 Mad Max.
Cliff Hayes (editor) (b. 1951 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia)
edited 13 films and television shows, some of which are 2015 I
Am Evangeline, 1989 “Grim Pickings” (TV Mini-Series), 1982
We of the Never Never, 1980 Dead Man's Float, 1979 Mad Max,
1977 “Young Ramsay” (TV Series), 1976 “The Sullivans” (TV
Series), and 1973 “Ryan” (TV Series).
Tony Paterson (editor) (b. 1948 in Melbourne, Victoria,
Australia) edited 28 films and television shows, including 2009
Personality Plus, 2001 Four Jacks, 1985 The Naked Country,
1983 Phar Lap, 1981 The Survivor, 1979 Mad Max, 1976 World
of Sexual Fantasy, 1975 The Firm Man, 1973 Come Out
Fighting, 1973 “Ryan” (TV Series), and 1964 “Homicide” (TV
Series).
George Miller (director) (b. George Miliotis, March 3, 1945 in
Chinchilla, Queensland, Australia) won the 2007 Academy
Award for Best Animated Feature Film of the Year for Happy
Feet (2006). He wrote 14 films and television shows including
2015 Mad Max: Fury Road, 2006 Happy Feet, 1998 Babe: Pig in
the City, 1997 “40,000 Years of Dreaming” (TV Movie
documentary), 1995 Babe, 1992 Lorenzo's Oil, 1985 Mad Max
Beyond Thunderdome, 1984 “Bodyline” (TV Mini-Series, 7
episodes), 1983 “The Dismissal” (TV Mini-Series), 1981 Mad
Max 2: The Road Warrior, and 1979 Mad Max. He also directed
16 films and television shows, among them 2015 Mad Max: Fury
Road, 2011 Happy Feet Two, 2006 Happy Feet, 1998 Babe: Pig
in the City, 1992 Lorenzo's Oil, 1987 The Witches of Eastwick,
1985 Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, 1983 Twilight Zone: The
Movie, 1981 Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, 1979 Mad Max,
1971 Violence in the Cinema, Part 1 (Short), and 1971 St.
Vincent's Revue Film.
Brian May (music) (b. July 28, 1934 in Adelaide, South
Australia, Australia—d. April 25, 1997 (age 62) in Melbourne,
Victoria, Australia) composed music for 27 films and television
shows, among them 2011 Mad Max Renegade (Short), 1992
Dead Sleep, 1991 Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, 1987
Steel Dawn, 1987 Death Before Dishonor, 1986 Sky Pirates,
1986 “Return to Eden” (TV Series, 22 episodes), 1984 Cloak &
Dagger, 1983 A Slice of Life, 1981 Mad Max 2: The Road
Mel Gibson ... Max (b. Mel Columcille Gerard Gibson, January
3, 1956 in Peekskill, New York) won 2 1996 Academy Awards
for Braveheart (1995): Best Director, and Best Picture, the latter
of which he shared with Alan Ladd Jr. and Bruce Davey. He has
appeared in 54 films and television shows, among them 2014 The
Expendables 3, 2012 Get the Gringo, 2010 Edge of Darkness,
2003 The Singing Detective, 2002 We Were Soldiers, 2000 The
Patriot, 1998 Lethal Weapon 4, 1997 Conspiracy Theory, 1997
Fathers' Day, 1996 Ransom, 1995 Braveheart, 1994 Maverick,
1992 Forever Young, 1992 Lethal Weapon 3, 1990 Hamlet, 1990
Air America, 1990 Bird on a Wire, 1989 Lethal Weapon 2, 1988
Tequila Sunrise, 1987 Lethal Weapon, 1985 Mad Max Beyond
Thunderdome, 1984 Mrs. Soffel, 1984 The River, 1984 The
Bounty, 1982 The Year of Living Dangerously, 1981 Mad Max 2:
The Road Warrior, 1981 Gallipoli, 1980 The Chain Reaction,
1979 Tim, 1979 Mad Max, 1977 Summer City, and 1976 “The
Sullivans” (TV Series). He has also produced 18 films and
television shows, including 2014 Stonehearst Asylum, 2012 Get
the Gringo, 2008 “Another Day in Paradise” (TV Movie
documentary), 2008 “Carrier” (TV Series documentary, 10
episodes), 2006 Apocalypto, 2005 Leonard Cohen: I'm Your
Man, 2004-2005 “Complete Savages” (TV Series, 15 episodes),
2004 Paparazzi, 2004 The Passion of the Christ, 2003 The
Singing Detective, and 1995 Braveheart. He also directed 7 films
and TV shows, including 2006 Apocalypto, 2004 “Complete
Savages” (TV Series), 2004 The Passion of the Christ, 1995
Braveheart, 1993 The Man Without a Face, and 1991 “Mel
Gibson Goes Back to School” (TV Movie documentary). In
addition, he wrote 5 films and television shows, which are 2012
Get the Gringo, 2011 The Brain Storm (Short), 2006 Apocalypto,
Miller—MAD MAX—3
2004 “Complete Savages” (TV Series), and 2004 The Passion of
the Christ.
Joanne Samuel ... Jessie (b. 1957 in Camperdown, New South
Wales, Australia) has appeared in 25 films and television shows,
among them 2014 “Rake” (TV Series), 2001 “All Saints” (TV
Series), 1997 “Fallen Angels” (TV Series), 1988-1990 “Hey
Dad..!” (TV Series, 7 episodes), 1985 “The Long Way Home”
(TV Movie), 1981 “Ratbags” (TV Series, 12 episodes), 1979
Mad Max, 1979 “Skyways” (TV Series, 108 episodes), 19761979 “The Young Doctors” (TV Series, 14 episodes), 1978
“Case for the Defence” (TV Series), 1974 “Homicide” (TV
Series), and 1973 “Certain Women” (TV Series).
Hugh Keays-Byrne ... Toecutter (b. May 18, 1947 in Srinagar,
Kashmir, India) has appeared in 46 films and television shows,
some of which are 2011 Sleeping Beauty, 1999 “Journey to the
Center of the Earth” (TV Mini-Series), 1998 “Moby Dick” (TV
Mini-Series), 1988 “Badlands 2005” (TV Movie), 1984 Lorca
and the Outlaws, 1983 Going
Down, 1980 The Chain
Reaction, 1979 Mad Max, 1978
Blue Fin, 1976 The
Trespassers, 1976 Mad Dog
Morgan, 1975 “Polly My
Love” (TV Movie), 1974
“Essington” (TV Movie), 1974
Stone, 1967 “Boy Meets Girl”
(TV Series), and 1967
“Bellbird” (TV Series).
Steve Bisley ... Jim Goose (b.
December 26, 1951 in Lake
Munmorah, New South Wales,
Australia) has appeared in 60
films and television shows, among them 2014 “Plonk” (TV
Series), 2013 The Great Gatsby, 2010 The Wedding Party, 2010
I Love You Too, 2003 “The Man from Snowy River: Arena
Spectacular” (TV Movie), 1998-2001 “Water Rats” (TV Series,
97 episodes), 1999 In the Red, 1997 “Breaking News” (TV
Series, 13 episodes), 1995-1996 “G.P.” (TV Series, 52 episodes),
1995 Sanctuary, 1992-1995 “Police Rescue” (TV Series, 26
episodes), 1986 “Call Me Mister” (TV Series, 10 episodes), 1984
Fast Talking, 1981 “A Town Like Alice” (TV Mini-Series), 1980
The Chain Reaction, 1979 The Last of the Knucklemen, 1979
Mad Max, 1978 Newsfront, and 1977 Summer City.
Tim Burns ... Johnny the Boy (b. 1953 in Canberra, Australian
Capital Territory, Australia) has appeared in 20 films and
television shows, including 1994 Resistance, 1988 Midnight
Dancer, 1986 Cassandra, 1985 The Boy Who Had Everything,
1983 Going Down, 1983 Now and Forever, 1982 Monkey Grip,
1980 The Chain Reaction, 1979 Mad Max, 1977-1979 “Glenview
High” (TV Series, 9 episodes), and 1978 The Night, the Prowler.
Vincent Gil ... Nightrider (b. 1939 in Sydney, New South
Wales, Australia) has appeared in 54 films and television shows,
some of which are 2015 “The Doctor Blake Mysteries” (TV
Series), 2011 “City Homicide” (TV Series), 2003 The Long
Lunch, 1995-2001 “Neighbours” (TV Series, 6 episodes), 2001
The Bank, 1998 Terra Nova, 1993 Body Melt, 1988 A Cry in the
Dark, 1988 Ghosts... of the Civil Dead, 1981-1986 “Prisoner:
Cell Block H” (TV Series, 17 episodes), 1979 One More Minute,
1979 Mad Max, 1977-1979 “Chopper Squad” (TV Series), 1978
Solo, 1966-1976 “Homicide” (TV Series, 12 episodes), 19711974 “Matlock Police” (TV Series), 1974 Stone, 1969-1972
“Division 4” (TV Series, 7 episodes), 1969 You Can't See 'round
Corners, and 1965 “The Swagman” (TV Movie).
Douglas Gomery, in Film Reference:
Along with contemporaries Peter Weir, Bruce Beresford, and
Gillian Armstrong, George Miller helped to bring Australian film
to the international forefront by the mid-1980s with his brilliant
trilogy of Mad Max, Mad Max II ( The Road Warrior in the
United States), and Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. In a
desolate Australian space, sometime in the future, the police have
their hands full trying to keep the roads safe from suicidal,
maniacal gangs. Cop Mel Gibson quits, but then seeks revenge
when his wife and child are
murdered. Mad Max was almost
lost when it was released in the
late 1970s, but with the success
of the sequel, the style and
bleak outlook were seen to
represent a tour de force of
genre filmmaking. We have
little doubt what will happen;
but the way the story unspools
is what attracted audiences
around the world. George
Miller made Mad Max and
made fellow countryman Mel
Gibson an international star.
The greatness of the Mad Max
films come from the images of burnt out men and women in a
post-apocalyptic world of desolate highways. Characters are
dressed in what was left after the "end of the world," including
football uniform parts from American-style teams and other
assorted bits and pieces of clothing. Miller seems to have
patterned his hero after a Japanese samurai, but more insight can
be gained by comparing these three films with the westerns of
Sergio Leone, such as Once upon a Time in the West. The
director's inventions make mundane stories into something
altogether new and fresh.
For audiences the trilogy was Dirty Harry thrown into a
desert of madness. Miller's style of directing has been called
mathematical in nature, building a movie in the same manner
prescribed by the early Sergei Eisenstein and utilized by the
mature Hitchcock. Many argued that Miller, an Australian,
outdid Steven Spielberg, the Hollywood wunderkind. And in the
early 1980s Mad Max became a pop cult craze.
With the third installment Miller moved into
mainstream Hollywood. Thus while it had the usual cast of
unknown character actors and actresses placed in the sweeping,
endless desert of the Australian outback, Tina Turner was cast as
the ruler of Bartertown, a primitive community in the bleak
futuristic post-Atomic world. Mel Gibson, again as Max, battled
to the death in the Roman-style arena of Thunderdome. Miller
Miller—MAD MAX—4
proved he could continue the Mad Max appeal even though his
partner of the first two, Byron Kennedy, died in 1983.
And although Miller was chosen by Spielberg for a
segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie , he continued to work in
Australia, on mini-series such as "The Dismissal." In the late
1980s Miller changed courses and directed the hit The Witches of
Eastwick for Warner Bros. With Jack Nicholson and Cher, The
Witches of East-wick offered a lively, colorful fantasy set in a
New England town. This was a popular film, far from the
visceral violence of Mad Max. Miller's segment for Twilight
Zone: The Movie , "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet," was the ultimate
white-knucklers' airplane paranoid fantasy, with a computer
technician staring out the window seeing a gremlin sabotaging
the engines. John Lithgow turned in a bravura performance in a
role originally played by William Shatner. The Miller segment,
of the four, was the one most often praised in a movie now most
associated with the grim tragedy of the filming of the John
Landis episode.
In 1992 Miller directed the acclaimed film Lorenzo's
Oil, a tear-jerker starring Susan Sarandon as a mother fighting to
save her terminally ill son. Praised at the time, this film seemed
tired and too formulaic a decade later. Then Miller did a course
change again in 1998 with the comedic Babe: Pig in the City.
This sequel was stunning visually but disappointing at the box
office. It has become a cult favorite, but seemed only to indicate
that the 50-something Miller may have lost his direction.
Miller took a strange path to directorial success, but
once one sees and analyzes the Mad Max trilogy, it makes sense.
After graduating with a degree in medicine from the University
of New South Wales in 1970, this "self-confessed movie freak"
spent eighteen months in the emergency room of a large city
hospital dealing with auto accident victims. Perhaps this is where
he developed his strange view of the world. It worked for Mad
Max , but thereafter Miller seemed to drop into the "almost
forgotten" category of promising movie makers who never could
develop a unified, long term body of creative output. Finally, no
essay should end without noting that this George Miller is not the
same George Miller, also an Australian, who made a reputation
as the director of The Man from Snowy River (1982).
Mekado Murphy: SXSW 2015: George Miller on the
Evolution of ‘Mad Max’ (NY Times 18 March 2015)
AUSTIN, Tex. — When the director George Miller was
announced and came onstage to introduce a 35mm screening of
“Mad Max: The Road Warrior” here on Monday, the crowd rose
instantly to their (happy) feet. Mr. Miller’s 1981 film built a
grungy, postapocalyptic world that has often been imitated (and
at this festival with the movie “Turbo Kid,” humorously saluted),
but not quite duplicated. It is arguably the most discussed in the
franchise by critics and audiences, with its blistering airy
landscapes, sparse dialogue, inventive camerawork and amplified
action. At the screening, the first audience member to ask a
question was the director Robert Rodriguez. He kept his inquiry
simple: “How the hell did you do it?”
Mr. Miller also introduced some footage from “Mad Max: Fury
Road,” giving the audience a taste of the continuation of his
franchise with a new lead actor (Tom Hardy). The new film is
scheduled to open nationwide on May 15.
In an interview at the Four Seasons hotel on Tuesday, Mr. Miller
discussed the franchise and what to expect from “Fury Road.”
Here are edited excerpts of that conversation.
Q. What first got you interested in telling the “Mad Max” story
— and a postapocalyptic tale in general?
A. The essential thing on the very first “Mad Max” was
something very mundane. We didn’t have the budget to set it in
real streets. So I decided to set it a few years from now, which
meant we could shoot in isolated streets with decayed buildings.
It allowed the story to be more hyperbolic.
When it got seen around the world, the French were the first to
call it a “western on wheels.” After that, the second one was
much more consciously a postapocalyptic story.
Q. There’s so little dialogue in these films, particularly from the
main character. Could you talk about the decision to tell these
stories more visually?
A. I was very influenced by a book written by the critic Kevin
Brownlow called “The Parade’s Gone By.” He said the main part
of the parade has gone by the advent of sound in cinema. This
new language that we called cinema had mostly evolved in the
silent era. What differentiated it from theater were the action
pieces, the chase pieces. And I really got interested in that.
Hitchcock had this wonderful saying: “I try to make films where
they don’t have to read the subtitles in Japan.” And that was what
I tried to do in “Mad Max 1,” and I’m still trying to do that three
decades later with “Fury Road.”
Q. What compelled you to return to this world?
A. I didn’t intend to. I was making family films, because they
were the only movies I got to watch with my kids. When my kids
grew up, I started watching more grown-up films again. The idea
occurred to me to make the film out of the blue, and no matter
what I did to push it away it kept coming back.
We set about to do it in 2001, and it’s taken all this time to do it
because things kept getting in the way. The American dollar
dropped 25 percent 11 weeks before we were to shoot it with Mel
Gibson after 9/11. I went on to do “Happy Feet,” which took
three and a half years. We regrouped to do “Mad Max,” casting
Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron. Then our location in the center
of Australia, Broken Hill — there were unprecedented rains. It
hadn’t rained for 15 years, and suddenly what was vast, red, flat
earth was now a flower garden. The great salt lakes were now
full of pelicans and frogs. We had to take all our equipment and
ship it across the Indian Ocean to Namibia. So we shot it on the
western coast of Africa, where it never rains.
Q. Where does “Fury Road” sit in the timeline of the “Mad Max”
films?
A. In terms of chronology, it’s a bit complicated. The first film
was a few years from now. “Road Warrior” was maybe 15 years
Miller—MAD MAX—5
later. This film is 45 years from now. This one happens in a more
reduced landscape, where it’s now treeless.
Q. Could you tell me about some of the technological changes
that allowed for a different way of shooting on this film?
A. Our biggest thing was safety. We could wire or harness our
cast safely in the most dangerous positions. There was no way
we could do that in the past, because we had no way of digitally
erasing the wires. Second thing, we could put a camera
anywhere. And then we had this incredible thing called the edge
arm, a car with a crane on it. Three guys with toggle switches
could literally go in amongst these big car battles and film
anywhere. They could put the camera inches off the ground or
high up over the big trucks.
John Kenneth Muir's Reflections on Cult Movies and
Classic TV
Despite multitudinous descriptions to the contrary,
George Miller and Byron Kennedy's Mad Max (1979) is
not actually a post-apocalyptic film.
Rather, it's pre-apocalyptic. But the handwriting is
certainly on the wall...and on the open roads.
This celebrated cult film might more accurately be
described as dystopian in conception because the filmmakers
imagine a world, "a few years from now," in which
widespread lawlessness has taken hold, and the authorities -increasingly more fascist in tone, powers, and demeanor -- are
helpless to prevent a culture-wide death spiral into anarchy and
chaos.
Dominated by a caustic aesthetic of anticipatory
anxiety, a sense of psychic uneasiness that suffuses every frame,
Mad Max is literally a movie about mankind speeding -foot pressed hard against the pedal -- towards moral and
spiritual annihilation.
Often, I compare Miller's Mad Max to the
early cinematic endeavors of Wes Craven (Last House on the
Left) and Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre)
because there's a genuine feeling while watching Mad Max, that
you, yourself, are in peril. As is the case with Craven or
Hooper, the audience feels jeopardized in Miller's hands,
as though it might end up seeing something that could truly do
the psyche harm.
At one point in the film, our hero -- police officer and
family man Max (Mel Gibson) -- admits that he's "scared," and
the audience wholly shares that trepidation. Max's vicious world
is one without a safety net, in which the laws of the jungle
dominate. Miller enthusiastically takes the film beyond the
bounds of movie decorum and good taste right from the start -from the opening sequence -- and leaves viewers wondering just
how far he will tread into taboo territory.
The result is a film that has lost none of its dreadful,
visceral power in over three decades.
Mad Max opens, both symbolically and literally, on
Anarchie (Anarchy) Road, as leather-clad members of the understaffed MFP (Main Force Patrol) pursue a dangerous "terminal
psychotic" called Nightrider.
Nightrider believes himself a "fuel-injected suicide
machine," and survives all attempts at pursuit and restraint. At
least that is, until Max (Gibson) — the best — joins the chase.
Finally, Nightrider is killed in a high-speed wreck.
Unfortunately, his "friends," led by the gang leader Toecutter,
desire vengeance. One of Toecutter's minions, Johnny, is
apprehended by Max's friend, Officer Goose (Steve Bisley), but
then released by effete, officious lawyers. Next, it is Goose who
becomes a target for Toecutter's mad revenge.
After Goose is burned and maimed on the road by
Toecutter, Max resigns from the force. With his wife Jesse
(Joanne Samuel) and young son in tow, he heads out on a
vacation from his responsibilities. Unfortunately, Max's
family almost immediately crosses paths with Johnny, Toecutter
and the others, and pays the ultimate price. Max's wife and son
are run down on the open road, and left dying.
Enraged, and with no legal recourse, Max takes
command of a souped-up police interceptor, and engages his
enemies on the open highway, outside the bounds and restrictions
of the law.
As is the case with all works of art, this film arises from
a very specific context.
In particular, Mad Max emerges from the era of "Ozploitation" or the so-called Australian New Wave, which
included such works as Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock.
But more specifically, Mad Max is very deliberately a reflection
of the events, trends and fads of the early 1970s.
As co-writer James McCausland has acknowledged,
much of the film's anarchic energy is fueled by the 1973 Oil
Crisis, in which OPEC reduced oil production and quickly sent
world economies into a tailspin. As gas supplies were rationed,
McCausland apparently saw reports of violent outbreaks at gas
stations, where drivers acted decisively (and aggressively...) to
assure that they weren't caught short at the pump.
Also critical to the formation of Mad Max's underlying
structure, no doubt, was "The Super-Car Scare" of 1972 - 1973,
which occurred at the height of muscle car culture in Australia.
There were talks at that time, indeed, of new vehicles that could
travel 160 miles an hour, as well as news story accounts of
young, out-of-control drivers in muscle cars (small cars with big,
powerful engines...) racing through small communities and
causing civil and traffic disturbances.
If you also acknowledge a bit of punk influence here -courtesy of the nihilistic music movement on blazing ascent,
circa 1974 -1976 -- you can easily detect how all the creative
ingredients for Mad Max fall into place. Suddenly, we have punk
criminals prowling the highways of Australia in souped-up super
vehicles, vying for both the remaining oil supply and day-by-day,
moment-to-moment domination. One scene in the film
explicitly joins all contexts: Toecutter and his gang hijack a gas
trunk on the road, and siphon precious gas from the storage tank.
The underlying message is of a corrupt but rising youth
movement leeching off and destroying a dying establishment.
Miller—MAD MAX—6
If "No Future" was the unofficial credo and soundtrack
of punk music in those days of the disco decade, Mad
Max remains the most potent visualization of living for the
moment, on impulse, and
entirely for self. This is what
the law of the jungle is, as
dramatized by Toecutter and
his gang. He is a man with no
respect for life, law, family, or
community. All he cares about
is getting what he wants when
he wants it. "Anything I say?
What a wonderful philosophy
you have," he quips to a
cowering victim.
The world has gone to
Hell in a hand basket in Mad
Max, and those who still play by the old rules of law try to
understand what has happened, and struggle to play catch-up
"Here I am, trying to put sense to it, when I know there isn't any,"
Max notes, importantly, after the death of Goose. He's dealing
here with a world that no longer makes sense to him.
Accordingly, Max progressively loses his faith that
society's decaying infrastructure (as represented by the
ramshackle local police center or "halls of justice") can stop the
world from spiraling towards destruction. It's clear Max's loss
of faith arises for a reason, and is not some personal, solitary
angst. His boss, Fifi (Roger Ward) keeps mentioning the need
for heroes, and the culture's absence of heroes.
But what heroes, honestly, could possibly inhabit a
blighted, decrepit police station like his?
The nihilism of the world, of "the terminal psychotics"
seems to have bled the life out of public institutions in Mad Max,
leaving them as rotting monuments to a previous golden age.
Max realizes, appropriately, that Fifi's comments are "crap."
What his world needs is not cowboy heroes, but a functioning
infrastructure; one that funds the police, trains the police, and
supports the police in the battle against crime.
Although the lawyers
and judicial officers gliimpsed
in Mad Max are portrayed as
effete, intellectual egg-heads
with their heads-up-theirasses, the police are not
viewed in terms much more
friendly. In the film's first
scene, we catch a young MFP
officer ogling a couple making
love, and then indulging in a high speed chase which endangers
other officers, and civilians. He looks like he could be a gang
member himself...except he's wearing a leather cop uniform.
Similarly, Fifi is interested only in results, not the letter of
the law. He just wants the paperwork to be "clean" so he doesn't
get in trouble with superiors. Again, the impression is of an old,
once noble institution that has given way to corruption and
decrepitude.
Again and again in the film, Max sees evil triumph over
the (flawed) forces of order, and so must make a fateful decision
about his own place and role in the world. Mad Max thus
brilliantly diagrams one man's disillusionment about society, and
his final, knowing, unfortunate break from it. Many see the film
as being fascist in viewpoint because the criminals attempt to
argue that they are merely
"sick" (and thus to be treated
with compassion), but I disagree
with that assessment. Max gets
revenge, but at what price?
The price is the
very eventuality that Max so
dramatically fears all along. He
knows, even starting out, that
there is very little difference
between the cops and the
"terminal psychotics" who vie
for control of the roadways.
When Max's family and friends
die, that line is blurred entirely. Max realizes, contra Fifi, that
there can no longer be any heroes. Heroes only work in context
of a functioning civilization and support system.
As critic Keith Phipps astutely intimated, Mad Max is
almost a character piece, a tale of a man trying to figure
out where he belongs under the rules of the New World
(Dis)Order:
"Only Mel Gibson, given the best entrance since Clint
Eastwood in A Fistful Of Dollars, has the ability to stand in the
way, and from the start Miller links that ability to an appetite for
self-destruction. It takes a while for that appetite to manifest
itself fully, however. Miller places his hero at the center of a
three-way tug of war between the violent anarchy of the outlaw,
the barely suppressed fascism of the authorities, and the domestic
comforts of his wife and child."
I often write here about how deeply and thoroughly I
disapprove of movies that utilize revenge as the primary
motivation for heroes or superheroes. I think that's just
pandering to an ugly, ignoble impulse in human beings. In this
case, however, I would argue that Mad Max does not glamorize
revenge and, on the contrary, sends its wayward hero off into
a form of societal banishment for
his transgression. Max ends up
in the wilderness/wasteland,
seeking redemption for his
voluntary break from the mores
of an (admittedly crumbling)
society (see: The Road
Warrior). It takes him two more
films, essentially, to reconnect
with his more noble human
nature.
So yes, Max gets his bloody vengeance in this film, but
his ultimate fear is realized too. In breaking the laws of
civilization, the only difference between him and the Toecutter's
minions remains that he possesses a bronze badge. What would
his wife and son think of him now?
The final shot of Mad Max consists, not
coincidentally, of an open and empty road. We race down it
going ever faster, but never actually arriving at a destination.
There is no love and no companionship on this long road. Max
now lives for no one but himself. He can look forward to
Miller—MAD MAX—7
isolation, mistrust, and confrontation...but nothing else; at least
nothing good or positive.
While carefully noting what he believed was Mad
Max's sense of amorality, Chicago Reader film critic Dave Kehr
also accurately described the film as some "of the most
determinedly formalist filmmaking this side of Michael Snow."
What that description means, in lay terms, is that Mad
Max isn't about dispassionately recording or realistically
chronicling the details of its sparse, almost Western-styled
narrative. Rather, it's about making the audience feel strong
emotions. Namely fear, rage
and even, briefly, bloodlust.
The reasons behind
Mad Max's passionate,
singular approach to
filmmaking are actually, I
believe, entirely moral.
As the film's villain,
Toecutter (Hugh KeaysByrne) notes to an underling
named Johnny (Tim Burns),
an act of brutal murder can be
considered a "threshold
moment" in terms of the
human soul. That's his
philosophy of life. There's no future. There's no common good.
There's just the shattering of boundaries, until everything -- and
everyone -- is wrecked.
Now, a threshold is widely defined as the point at which
a physiological or psychological effect begins to be produced,
and that seems to be precisely what Toecutter is fostering in both
his friends and his enemies. He is sponsoring and encouraging
madness, psychosis and violence. Indeed, there seems to be a
plague of madness and nihilism sweeping the world in this film,
and Toecutter fosters it in his cohorts (such as Nightrider) and his
protege (Johnny).
In the film's climax, the audience's surrogate -- Max
himself -- endures a similar "threshold moment," treading
literally and metaphorically into morally "prohibited" territory
(as a street sign indicates) just as he is about to cross-the-line of
legality. The fearsome legend on the sign literally warns him to
stop (lest he become like Toecutter), but Max ignores it.
This particular bit of clever framing (pictured above) is
not an accident. Max crosses a moral and geographical boundary
in search of personal satisfaction, and Miller's shot deliberately
evokes an earlier one in the film, set on a lovely beach.
There, Toecutter and his gang have similarly ignored
signs and warnings about transgression, and headed off
knowingly into forbidden territory. The point of the nearly
identical staging seems to be that Max -- in taking the law into
his own hands -- is following the very nihilistic path he fears.
Mad Max is actually a moral film, I submit, because it
concerns that threshold moment in each of us too. Vengeance
might be sated. But after the vengeance? As Last House on the
Left observed, post-violence, "the
road leads to nowhere, and the
castle stays the same." In other
words, there's a very
big difference between portraying
violence and approving of
violence. I would argue Mad
Max (brilliantly) portrays
violence, while never, even for a
moment, glamorizing it or
approving of it.
Instead, Mad Max asks:
what comes with moral
transgression? How does a
crossing of the "threshold
moment" affect a good person? And if good people can willingly
cross the threshold to barbarism, what becomes of civilization, a
social concept erected on the foundation of the common good,
not personal retribution?
Mad Max gazes at all these ideas, but does so while
moving at 150 miles-an-hour.
The film -- heightened immeasurably by Brian May's
superb score and George Miller's orchestration of the high-speed
stunts -- conveys a powerful sense not just of speed, but of
speeding out of control. Mad Max also reveals a world falling
apart at the seams, but doesn't offer pat explanations for the
breakdown, or easy answers about the solution. We can try to
"put sense" to the madness of this world, but there is quite
definitively no sense behind the human impulse towards selfdestruction.
If Mad Max is right, the world itself is terminally
psychotic.
The online PDF files of these handouts have color images
Coming up in the Spring 2015 Buffalo Film Seminars
Mar 31 Karel Reisz, The French Lieutenant’s Woman, 1981
Apr 7 Gregory Nava, El Norte, 1983
Apr 14 Bryan Singer, The Usual Suspects, 1995
Apr 21 Bela Tarr, Werkmeister Harmonies, 2000
Apr 28 Sylvain Chomet, The Triplets of Belleville, 2003
May 5 Joel and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men, 2007
Miller—MAD MAX—8
CONTACTS:
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The Buffalo Film Seminars are presented by the Market Arcade Film & Arts Center
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with support from the Robert and Patricia Colby Foundation and the Buffalo News