How to say a lot with a minimum of dialogues: George Miller or the significance of the suggestive details.
Using the power of suggestion to make you indirectly adhere to his post-apocalyptical world.
Miller does know how to use both action and suggestion to perfectly imagine his world. This is a pretty efficient way to do it, that greatly compensate the minimalist dialog. No need of long lines or flash backs when you just have to look at all the hints put in the setting. The props, the costumes & the characters’ vehicles show a lot and or not there by chance. Obsession or rigorous work, this is what make the movie appealing. Indeed, as each prop has been chosen meticulously, you get a nice & strong coherence in this chaos. Why can you see 80’s cars transformed as real war engines? Because, according to Miller’s logic, those cars are more solid as they don’t have any digital programs implemented as ours, and so have been more able to resist against the apocalypse. This is how thoughtful & coherent are each Miller’s decisions for his films.
Thanks to a 30 years long work on this fantasy world, there is no place for coincidence. Therefore, every detail is a clue helping you get more familiar with Miller’s imagination. And looking at the number of details in each sequence, this process is almost subconscious!
The power of suggestion to speak about the violence of our world. When the screenplay of George Miller says a lot through details
it rather uses suggestive shots to allude violence. Is it that useful to depict the entire violence scene when your own you can imagine much worst? Choosing not showing everything to shock you more is pretty smart. First, it spares you some shoots when you have a slight budget like the first Mad Max, but also, it isvery efficient on your audience. This process is the guarantee to emotionally involve your audience. One of the emblematic scene is when you see Max’s wife & son being ran over by a car, only seeing a baby shoes falling down and Mel Gibson’s desperate look.
The power of suggestion & appearance
Likewise, Miller uses the suggestion to direct his cast. Subtil challenge that requires talented actors. Indeed, in the different Mad Max movies, there are always many characters, as they should represent the mob, the deviant civilization, to see different example of how bad human kind has been affected. Besides, there is always the notion of bunch, gang, or entire city completely in contrast to Max loneliness. With few sequences, you quickly get there is a leader of the bunch, where stands his power, and how the others live according to him in this fragile society. You easily guess what each one went through. Actors’ performances are then vital. Indeed, to show all this, they had their costumes, but it requires much more. War Boys are impulsive, naive and with no mercy kamikazes.
Jumping everywhere with long poles specifically designed for the movie, the stuntmen (true professional coming from Le Cirque du Soleil or Moto Cross champions) stick together before the shooting to create this crazy & fanatic ambiance of the bunch. Same thing for the spouses who were mentored in their way of walking, looking etc…. by specialists who made studies about abused women. thanks to this preparation efforts, actors subtly disclose information about their characters without saying a word.
Mad Max inspires & inspired by pop culture
You may not know about this, but there are quite a lot of guests in the film. The world of music is well represented with Zoë Kravitz (Lenny’s daughter) & Riley Keough (Elvis’ little daughter). Actually, this is not a first attempt as you all remember Aunty Entity character played by Tina Turner!
As a matter of fact, the 2 worlds of music and movies go quite well together. Involving famous people in those films suggest a kind of bridge between our everyday life & this futuristic world. It’s like famous people from the business personally endorse this imaginary universe. Who gets his inspiration from who? Who knows? But at the end, you get a very creative environment.
Besides, music has a very significant place in Miller’s films. Always concerned to be coherent, soundtracks are strong clue to help you understand Mad Max world. They can express craziness, violence, despair but also include the cars’ noises and explosion. Mad Max soundtracks, especially in the latest one, summarizes pretty well the craziness & the genius of Miller’s imagination. There is always a daring mix of genres, using the classics to imagine a future like; the omnipresence of the saxophone in “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome”, the unexpected association between Verdi & Hard Rock in “Fury Road”. Furthermore, seeing the music being played by the characters make the sequences even more real! you can see perform Tina Turner & iOTA, the crazy guitarist in the car on fire leading the War Boys to the fights.
Consequently, Miller claims that all this screenplay is inspired from Rock Opera genre. The visual aspect is obvious and the action is firstly here to entertain. This is then a big show, as the car races are actually experienced like an epic show by the characters themselves we can all “witness”. This huge configuration is the opportunity to “recycle” (like old cars fragments) some of our own pop culture and associate them with Miller’s imagination. The director uses our society symbols to play with them, and make fun of them with irony. The infernal trio in “Fury Road” is a perfect example: Between the 3 leaders, you have Immortan Joe, the People Eater, and Bullet Farmer. They are respectively the caricature of the Church here guru, the Capitalism here corrupted, and the Army here violent fanatic. they are all the symbols of the fundaments of our society, but performed by terrifying buffoons. Immortan Joe, all in white, is the leader of the Citadel, is supposed to be immortal, The People Eater has with an iron chain, has no mercy when he is dealing with Gas Town interests, and Bullet Farmer with his bullets necklace reigns in Bullet Farm.
Mad Max’s screenplay puts together a zany world, totally unique & original but also very familiar while makes you feel real emotions: like a good tragi-comedy.
A saga that represents the Australian Cinema
This ambiance corresponds quite well to a frequent topic raised up in Australian movies. Lastly with The Rover is largely based on it; with Guy Pearce, a lonely man who got his car stolen, and who has no mercy to get it back through the desert. Likewise, you see the same dust on the faces with a strong contrast between the vivid blue & the dazzling yellow. It’s always about on anti-hero guy, who suffered too much and is still haunted by his demons. Since, he runs always every human contact, scared not being able to protect or save them. However, fate is always catching him up, and pushes him to act naturally defending the weak against the tyrants.
But this pattern goes way beyond the Australian cinema. Of course, it’s like a trademark, but the anti-hero archetype fighting for justice but obliged to be alone is a worldwide reference: between the Samurai or the Cow-boy, it just needs to add some post-apocalyptical theme to make it works. By the way, this is pretty popular those days. With the broadcasting of some TV shows like The Walking Dead, you have the same story of few people, without any resource, struggling for survival among the dead.
In brief :
Every movie belongs to one big project, linked by one universe & one work method that confirm his trademark. The script, that action, the anti-hero, the post-apocalyptical world, the suggestive details, all these structure one mindset. You have different ways of understanding through the 4 films thanks to a directing that adapts & reinvent itself. It deals with the same topics and triggers the same emotions. But having a fresh angle in echo with our reality & culture and meeting new technical challenges. Not like a standard sequel, nor a reboot a bit adapted, you are witnessing a 30 year long directing project which almost belongs to our pop culture.
Consequently, each film adapts itself to its audience offering each time a new experience even more visual and striking. This is what you need to make a saga that belongs to culture, so original with its concept, that you cannot be indifferent.
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