For those of you who couldn’t tell the difference between slang from a post-apocalyptic desert wasteland and the stuff they made up for the Mad Max movie.
Aaah! Thank you so much for doing this deep-space-diver! And beautifully, too :)
Oh la I didn’t realise you’d posted this, my antipodean friend :D Good on you :)
We can argue about who’s movie this was until the cows come home. Is it Imperator Furiosa’s movie? She has the character arc, the most to gain, and the connection to the people around her. She makes her way to the top, and succeeds in her heroes quest.
Is it Max? Max is just passing through, meets an intriguing woman on a quest, helps her out, and then wanders back into the wasteland, another chapter of his life complete.
I propose that it is this man’s movie. This man, and his mission to shred. The factions will fight, people will argue about morality, and property. But not the Doof Warrior, his role in life is to give the most badass guitar solo on top a monster truck with a massive sound system. He might not have eyes, but he does have a flamethrower, and a purpose. He will give the film it’s rocking soundtrack, he will score the impressive action with his skillz so ill, it’s the reason everyone is so sick.
The cars may explode, and the shrapnel may fly. The characters will grapple with the tough choices of sacrifice, they will question their duty, and the Doof Warrior will rock.
This is like the fifth Fury Road post today that has nearly made me hack up my lungs. The fandom is on point.
To think of the rain as trees. Wind stealing the blossoms (lilac, apple, plum), wind braiding our hair.
To look to the old woman carrying water from a pond, to see her rest on a bench in her garden, with her weeds, her apple trees. I’d like to ask her how she survived the winter. We share the habit of burning candles, of falling asleep beneath the sway of willow branches and awakening inside a strange body.
I open the window.
The wind, like a body, moves through the curtains. The bronze spoons hanging on the kitchen wall jostle against one another. Wind, wind. Silence.
Colleague: You really should wear more colors–like cute, bright colors. You’d look really cute. And maybe even a skirt. That’s it! I challenge you to wear a skirt!
Me: … Witness me spitting a mouthful of I Don’t Care into this engine and riding out.
Yo fandom, talk to me about Slit and Nux now. Not Sux, I mean, just what’s going on in the film. Because I can’t figure Slit out.
What are Slit’s priorities? What does he even care about?
-he takes Nux’s wheel. Dick move?
-did you even see the look on his face? He’s determined. He walks past Nux twice. DICK MOVE but perhaps also something more.
-ah, but I guess he thinks Nux is dead meat. Like he could sit there and pretend like he can do something but what’s the point? No feels among warboys.
-he looks pretty happy that Nux turns out to have fight left. He had to be convinced, but he gives up the wheel and now he’s pumped that they’re going together.
-Ergo, he cares more about his driver than about his ride.
Or maybe he would have preferred that all along because it works better that way. Is it that if the car hadn’t gone, Slit wouldn’t have had a vehicle to ride to battle at all? Probably not true since he was on the Interceptor soon after. But maybe that car’s lancer got killed so stroke of luck for Slit.
Who would have taken Nux’s car if neither Slit nor Nux had grabbed the wheel?
Further:
– “Mediocre, Morsov!” Can you be more of an asshole, Slit? Do you even believe in this cult or are you just out there to have fun? You did a pretty respectful V8 at the altar and at Joe just then, so maybe you’re just a dick to your fellow warboys because you need to feel superior. Like that’s your idea of a ‘joke’, maybe? Disrespecting a witnessing?
-Also what exactly is the idea with ‘Decapito’? What’s the point here, Slit? Destroying a perfectly good bloodbag?
Moving on:
-Slit is still alive after the storm, but Nux doesn’t even stop to say hi. Dick move?
– “I got his boot, take me!” No wonder he’s jealous now. But he sounds so pathetic. By now the film consistently tells us ‘dislike this guy, he is rude and annoying’.
Finally:
-Slit on the Interceptor. “You filth, you traitored him”. Seems emotional enough for when you’ve just seen your war buddy defect.
-Except he doesn’t seem to be particularly hurt? This is not personal at all for Slit?
-Huh?
-He’s just trying to show off like some creep and he’s very happy to see Nux fail.
-He is HAVING FUN. I know that’s the warboy style but we’ve been set up to see warboys as people and to notice a tight partnership between Slit and Nux, so where’s the resolution?
-So…religious fanaticism (traitors don’t deserve a second’s thought), drugs, or Slit u asshole?
-Someone pointed out that he doesn’t ask for a witness, doesn’t spray chrome, he just gets in between the two trucks. He tries to take out Max like THAT is personal. Coincidence? Misreading of Slit’s facial expression? Which is really not at all like what Morsov or Nux looked like when they were getting ready to die?
-Was that necessary, really? Was that a proper kamicrazy death or was that a waste of resources?
-Or a miscalculation?
-Slit u asshole?
-Slit is this your way of being pissed off at Nux?
-Slit are you putting extra crazy in the kamicrazy?
-Actually I am starting to get huffy about this bit because it would have been much prettier for an arc if Nux had been climbing out of the engine just then. He emerges seconds later to give Max a boost.
(or possibly all of these are just editing choices that served the main storyline better but create unfortunate assumptions about how the boys behaved. For those inclined to give a damn. Ahem.)
Obligatory gif:
It boggles my mind that there is SO MUCH MOVIE that Slit (Slit!) has room to be this complex and interesting.
Please tell me what you think about the moment in the gif above.
This is why I love Max so much, and Hardy’s portrayal of him. When Furiosa incorporates him into the plan he barely flinches before just rolling with it. The situation might get him killed, but these PEOPLE aren’t a threat to him and Furiosa trusts him because she needs to and he just responds to that by being a bad ass and getting on the same page as her because just because he’s scared up to that point doesn’t mean Max isn’t a fighter or dangerous or heroic. SHe runs across him when he’s flipping out and burned out and hopeless and plagued by the obvious failure he feels in the deaths of his loved ones. He speaks in monosyllables and grunts because he’s been treated like an animal so he acts like one. Yet the minute she starts trusting him he steadies, calms down, and eventually starts talking, showing interest in the group and generally acting like a collected human even with his hallucinations. He has every opportunity to act like an animal after he crosses Furiosa’s path, yet he chooses not to because that’s actually not who he is.
Somewhere, in a kinder world, Furiosa is a counselor at Camp Green Place and her scouts for the summer are Toast, Splendid, Cheedo, Capable, and The Dag. They learn about gardening and build a go kart which the use to win in the big race against the boys camp across the lake. They pick up a new troop member one day while on a hike in the woods when they come across a dog who has cruelly been abandoned and muzzled. They clean him up, remove the muzzle and name him Max. It’s the best summer ever.
Audrey Hepburn’s Roman Holiday test took place at Pinewood Studio in London, September 18, 1951, under Thorold Dickinson’s direction. “We did some scenes out of the script,” he said, but “Paramount also wanted to see what Audrey was actually like
—not acting a part, so I did an interview with her. We loaded a thousand feet of film into a camera and every foot of it went on this conversation. She talked about her experiences in the war, the Allied raid on Arnhem, and hiding out in a cellar. A deeply moving thing.”
So, you probably know by now, I have somehow become the number one fangirl for the Ace in Fury Road.
Found this in an interview with Miller:
“Security was also an issue, especially with so many actors and the
families of crew members who had joined the shoot. A former SAS soldier,
John Iles, headed a security team and moonlighted as a warrior named
Ace in the movie. “There were a number of burglaries and he was first
there,” Mitchell says. “John billeted himself near where the Wives were,
so if anything happened, I had an emergency hotline to him to get down and help.” Read more: http://ift.tt/1dh6h4O
@bonehandledknife
Omfg yes totally in my interests
ACE WAS THE SECURITY GUY, I LOVE IT.
and bonehandledknife I was totally thinking of you reading this bit:
As he talks, editor Margaret Sixel – Miller’s partner – arrives in the office. When he praises her “massive brain”, she jokes that “together we make the complete person”.
He chimes in: “If you can imagine the world’s biggest Rubik’s Cube, that’s what Margie had to deal with.”
She chips back: “It takes you three months to view all the material, just watching, before you can do anything – it’s the bloody digital cameras they can stick everywhere. Then everyone leaves and the poor editor is left in the cutting room. ‘See you later, guys. There’s 400 hours. Good luck.‘ ”
How about this part:
Around the corner, production designer Colin Gibson prepares for another shot. Up a ladder, he is painting a slogan on the wall of what looks like a cave: “There’s a new world coming … she’s already on her way.”
As it continues it confirms that that’s in the wives’ chamber. So that made me wonder: Is that supposed to be new graffiti heralding Furiosa’s return? Was it actually shot? Will we see it in a deleted scene? Tonally it sounds more end-of-the-movie than the graffiti shown earlier, since the return wasn’t part of the their original plan. But who would have painted it? And when?
So, you probably know by now, I have somehow become the number one fangirl for the Ace in Fury Road.
Found this in an interview with Miller:
“Security was also an issue, especially with so many actors and the
families of crew members who had joined the shoot. A former SAS soldier,
John Iles, headed a security team and moonlighted as a warrior named
Ace in the movie. “There were a number of burglaries and he was first
there,” Mitchell says. “John billeted himself near where the Wives were,
so if anything happened, I had an emergency hotline to him to get down and help.” Read more: http://ift.tt/1dh6h4O
Petition to smash the patriarchy if Theron doesn’t get nominated.
Really curious, actually, what they do with it. A Best Picture nomination seems unlikely, even given the 10 slots, just because Ozploitation genre and industry fuckwittery. But Best Actress is the one I think could happen, and should happen if there’s any justice. As well as director and a bunch of technical awards. But who knows?
So…are they like looking into each others souls or…
I like to think that Nux is forced to acknowledge that Max is a person here. He’s probably never looked into a bloodbags eyes before.
Well maybe that’s why he was so willing to be best buddies with Max as soon as they took down Furiosa ;). Max went from Blood Bag to bff hell Nux actually asked him what he wanted as a reward ;). Like, hey it’s not like I just forced you into a blood transfusion on the front of my car, we got the same goals, we gotta be buds.
This shot always made me go ??? :D He looks so curious, but, you know, you’re riding into a storm and your lancer just fell off the back of the car this is NOT THE TIME TO STOP AND EXAMINE YOUR BLOODBAG, NUX.
I wonder what it’s for. In the script, in the edit, what it’s supposed to tell us. I know what questions it raises, but what was it for?
I’m not sure it was the intended purpose, but I think it’s funny, and I’ve heard people laughing at it in the theater. It’s Nux’s expression. There’s so much tension and chaos, and then there’s just this momentary pause and Nux going “huh. look at that.”
I guess on a character level it’s establishing a little more of Nux’s evolving relationship with Max, with the quizzical expression meaning that, like the commenter said earlier, he’s considering him as an actual individual for the first time. In that sense it helps set up the “witness me, blood bag!” line we’re going to get in a few minutes. And just generally there’s a recurring theme in the movie of meaningful glances between characters, like when Furiosa looks at Max for the first time, or the “Something in the eyes…” scene, or those looks Nux and Capable exchange in the canyon.
Hm. I feel a “characters making eye contact” gifset coming on.
There is a man, high above you, that changes the lights and makes them move. Those that (we believe) tell him to move the lights come and go, but the man with the lights, high above you, remains.
You know who’s name was on the poster. You believe they control things. They do not control everything.
The walls move in the dark. Do not question it. Just get out of the way, and hide, if necessary, before the lights return.
Someone had you stand, staring straight ahead, as they took a thin ribbon, wrapped it around you, and murmured numbers to an assistant. What do they now know about you? Do you know what they know about you? They keep the numbers, after the show has ended. No sense in letting information go to waste.
They give you clothing and wash it for you. You are to take good care of the clothing. You are to take good care of the clothing. The person watching the clothing notices everything.
There is a hole in the middle of the auditorium. Sometimes, it is covered. Other times, it is full of musicians. If you go beneath it, you discover a passage, that the theater is connected. All of the theaters were once connected. There are locked rooms and loud air ventilation systems, down there. No one could hear you scream, if you venture deep enough.
At the end of the night, they leave a single light in the middle of the stage. Some tell you it is for safety. Others tell you it is for ghosts. Rituals are not meant to be broken.
The food is fake.The drinks are fake.The blood is fake. Didn’t the person who watches the clothing tell you to not to eat anything? Did you listen?
There are whistles that control the ropes. There are heavy weights on the ropes. The walls move with the ropes. Do not whistle if you do not understand the ropes.
What got you into this theater? Why have you spent the last week in it, with only coffee for sustenance? You have not seen the outside world while the sun is up in five days. Does the sun still exist? Do you still exist, when you step outside of the theater?
