What Filmmakers Can Learn From Mad Max: Fury Road

Upon a recent viewing of Mad Max: Fury Road, I was reminded of exactly the reasons why I love this film.  Not only was it my favourite film of 2015, I picked it as the best movie experience since my friend Chris and I started podcasting about movies five years ago.  Yes, I liked it that much.  It was a film that was pure adrenaline rush, and was worthy of the ten Oscars it was nominated for, and the six that it won.  There was some really good film making on display here, and I would like to talk about four major take-aways from the film that people can learn from.

Simple Story - Nothing Complex Needed

Essentially the story is as simple as a massive chase scene.  We have Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) helping the concubines of Immortan Joe escape from his clutches.  Their paths cross with Max (Tom Hardy), who has been captured by Immortan Joe's war boys and he escapes with Furiosa.  There.  That's the story.  Tom Hardy never even reveals his name until the last few minutes of the film.  There is very little dialogue, and everything is simple and straight forward.

What is impressive here is the fact that while being uncomplicated and streamline, there is still something to focus on.  We have three main characters.  Furiosa, Max, and Nux (Nicholas Hoult), who is a war boy.  Even through sparse dialogue and almost non-stop action, each of these characters has a story arc.  Some films can't manage having an arc for even one character, let alone three.

In a time where scripts seem to feel the need to be convoluted at times and throw endless twists and turns into the mix, George Miller reminded everyone that top notch story telling could still happen with a minimalist hand.  Create characters, give them a reason for taking action, and follow it through.  Simple, straight forward, and still extremely satisfying.

Nothing Looks Better Than Well Done Practical Effects

I won't pretend that there is no computer animation in this film, because there is a lot of it.  However, incredible detail was paid to doing as much practically as possible.  There are uncountable unique, post-apocalyptic vehicles in this film.  Each of those were physically built.  Not only were they constructed, they could all drive so they would be used in the film.  Explosions happened in real life.  Mind blowing stunts happened.  All of this taking place while the vehicles are actually driving through the desert.

The amount of planning to coordinate everything that was done is almost impossible to fathom.  With doing so much practically, there are so many elements that could go wrong, which is probably why blockbusters generally rely on the controllable nature of CGI.  Some movies can make the images look believable, but sitting in the theatre, seeing those brilliant life-like explosions, people jumping from vehicles, and collisions, it was a jaw-dropping experience.  While George Lucas was taking the industry towards nothing but green screens years ago, a brave wave of directors have lately been showing audiences and critics the unimaginable beauty of actually creating the experience.

Women Can Kick Just as Much Ass as Men

This film is actually quite subversive.  We are given the scantily clad, out of their league appearance of Immortan Joe's sex slaves.  It is as blatant 'damsel in distress' imagery that could ever be made.  I had a feeling that George Miller wanted to throw this horrible cliche into his film just to throw it on its head.  Standing toe to toe with Mad Max in combat ability is Furiosa.  Theron plays her in a smooth, almost effortless feeling way that perfectly delivers the physical capabilities of her character.

Not only do we have Furiosa, but a group of older woman in a roving motorcycle gang.  One of the typical images of the post-apocolyptic world is bands of tough looking males on motorcycles, and here we have Miller giving us post-menopausal women.  Beautifully, they don't disappoint.  We believe everything they do, their toughness, and the fact that they can match up with any man.  It felt as though it was a mission of George Miller to play around with stereotypes and crush this feeling in cinema that if you wanted an action star it had to be a male.  Even though Max's name is in the title, this is just as much Furiosa's film.  They are of equal importance here, showing us that gender matters not.

No Expository Dialogue

The opening to the film is indeed narration to set up what is about to happen, but it is quite vague.  The movie starts, and we are just introduced to different things without being told what it is all about and the purpose to it.  Max gets hung in a cage and called a 'blood bag,' and there is nothing to specifically inform us that the war boys are sick and that people in the wastelands get caught to be used for blood transfusions.  Another example is that we are told Furiosa is an Imperator, but, after six viewings, I still can't find the moment when we are told what that means.

The film introduces us to a world that works in its own ways, that has its own routines and habits.  As the viewer, we are just thrown in and not educated on what is happening and why they do things certain ways.  What this leads to is feeling like we are literally dropped into a fictional world, scrambling around just as one of the lead protagonists does.  The experience that we are given allows us to realize that we don't necessarily need to know everything, and that perhaps just witnessing a story happening is better than having it explained.