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

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Joan Letch Kerry Miller Janine Ogden Di Trelour Vernon Weaver Paul Young Brendan Young

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

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). 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,

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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), 1976-1979 “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), 1971-1974 “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

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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

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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 under-staffed 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 "Oz-ploitation" 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.

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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-their-asses, 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

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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 Keays-Byrne) 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 self-destruction.

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

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