Summary
FromThe GeneraltoBen-HurtoOnce Upon a Time in the West, there are many classic movies that have influenced George Miller’s iconic work on theMad Maxfranchise. Miller recently sat down withVanity Fairfor an interview about his cinematic inspirations.As a spaghetti western actioner set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, theMad Maxseries has drawn from a disparate range of sources. In theVanity Fairvideo, Miller named a wide variety of movies, from the desert-set war epicLawrence of Arabiato the silent slapstick comedySafety Last!, as influences on his filmmaking style.
Miller’s M.O. is to tell a story visually, instead of relying on expositional dialogue. He believes that pure cinema can be understood through the images alone.Miller paraphrases Alfred Hitchcock to explain that he wants to make films where “they don’t have to read the subtitles in Japan.”Some of Miller’s influences are obvious; it’s clear as day that Max’s lone-wolf man-of-few-words characterization was inspired bySergio Leone’s stoic gunslingers. But some of Miller’s influences are more obscure – how didJurassic Parkinfluence theMad Maxseries?
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The Mad Max Franchise’s 8 Best Scenes, Ranked
George Miller’s Mad Max film series has a variety of great scenes, from emotional beats to the relentless chase scenes the franchise is known for.
10The General
Learning Practical Stuntwork With The Great
One of the first movies that Miller mentions in theVanity Fairvideo is Buster Keaton’s 1926 silent comedyThe General. Inspired by the Great Locomotive Chase, a real event that took place during the American Civil War,The Generalrevolves around an engineer singlehandedly trying to reclaim his train, which has been stolen by Union spies. While it wasn’t well-received on its initial release,The Generalhas since been reappraised for Keaton’s death-defying stunt work on a moving train.
Miller even recreatedThe General’s iconic low-angle shot of a train on a track inBeyond Thunderdome.
Miller was inspired by Keaton’s penchant for doing “incredibly unsafe” stunts for real in the service of cinematic spectacle.His own use of practical stunt work intheMad Maxmovies– arguably the franchise’s biggest selling point – was directly influenced by Keaton’s groundbreaking work onThe General. Miller even recreatedThe General’s iconic low-angle shot of a train on a track inBeyond Thunderdome.
In theVanity Fairvideo, Miller says that when he first came to Japan, his Japanese fans told him that they saw Max as a samurai and assumed Miller was heavily inspired by Akira Kurosawa’s classic samurai films. But, much to their dismay,he’d never even heard of Kurosawa, so he then made it his mission to catch up on Kurosawa’s samurai canon. In the video, Miller praises Kurosawa for taking the tropes and conventions of American cinema and reinterpreting them through his own lens.
He specifically mentions 1980’sKagemushaas an influence on the laterMad Maxfilms.There’s a clear parallel between Kurosawa’s colorful cinematography inKagemushaand the bright, saturated visuals of Miller’s latter-dayMad Maxmovies.Kagemusha’s shot of a silhouetted samurai with blood-red composition is nearly identical to a red-tinged shot ofDementus inFuriosa.
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Miller mentions that the western genre was one of the biggest influences on theMad Maxfranchise. He calls theMad Maxmovies “westerns on wheels.”Like most westerns,Mad Maxtakes place in a barren, lawless wasteland where danger is lurking around every corner. The director specifically name-checks Sergio Leone’s breathtaking epicOnce Upon a Time in the Westas a visual influence on his creation of theMad Maxfilms.
Charles Bronson’s vengeful antihero “Harmonica” belongs to the same archetype as Max himself
Once Upon a Time in the Westessentially took all of Leone’s favorite moments from the storied history of the western genre and stitched them together in one big, definitive western opus.The way that Leone frames the bleak western landscapes, contrasting eye-popping wide shots with intense closeups, has plenty of similarities with Miller’sMad Maxcompositions. Plus, Charles Bronson’s vengeful antihero “Harmonica” belongs to the same archetype as Max himself.
Miller describes Steven Spielberg’s dinosaur-infested sci-fi thrillerJurassic Parkas “the first big event in digital cinema.”James Cameron had already created a liquid-metal Terminator inTerminator 2: Judgment DayandYoung Sherlock Holmeshad brought a stained-glass knight to life. ButJurassic Parkwas the first movie with dozens of VFX shots and several major CG characters.
The VFX inJurassic Parkdirectly inspired Miller to make a movie about talking animals (Babe), but it also showed him the limitless creative possibilities allowed by this new technology.In his post-CGIMad Maxmovies,Fury RoadandFuriosa, Miller has emphasized the use of practical stunts over visual effects. But he’s been able to use VFX to touch up the visuals and create images that wouldn’t have been possible without the technological breakthroughs made byJurassic Park.
When it comes to landscape photography in the desert,Lawrence of Arabiais the benchmark. David Lean’s nearly four-hour epic chronicles the adventures of T.E. Lawrence and his role in the Arab Revolt of the First World War. Freddie A.Young’s stunning cinematography is the reason why the movie is so iconic. Young depicts Lawrence’s journey across the desert with breathtaking wide shots of sand as far as the eye can see, burning in the blistering sunlight.
FromMad Max 2: The Road Warrioronward, theMad Maxfranchise has taken place in a bleak post-apocalyptic wasteland in which civilization has been reduced to one big, barren desert.In shooting those desert landscapes, Miller has taken inspiration from Young’sLawrence of Arabiacinematography. Like Lawrence, he’s turned Max into a similar mythical figure that audiences can look up to.
5Safety Last!
The Practical Stunt Work Inspiration
The Generalisn’t the only silent comedy of the 1920s that influenced Miller’s work on theMad Maxmovies. He also names the 1923 Harold Lloyd filmSafety Last!as an inspiration.Lloyd plays a small-town man who moves to the big city to make his fortune, after which his girlfriend will move out there and marry him. UnlikeThe General,Safety Last!has been beloved since its initial release; it was widely acclaimed by critics and shot Lloyd to stardom.
The most iconic shot in the film sees Lloyd dangling from a broken clock, a shot that was famously recreated with Doc Brown inBack to the Future.Miller was heavily influenced bySafety Last!’s ability to create an exhilarating moviegoing experience with practical stunt work. TheMad Maxfilms are essentially the action movie equivalent of a Harold Lloyd silent slapstick comedy.
Once Upon a Time in the Westisn’t the only western movie to have a direct influence on theMad Maxfranchise.Mad Max: Fury Roadis essentially a post-apocalyptic remake of John Ford’s seminal western masterpieceStagecoach.Stagecoachrevolves around a group of people traveling together,who find themselves fighting for survival when their coach is attacked by Geronimo and his men. This is more or less the same story asFury Road: a group of people travel across the desert while under attack.
When the hallmarks of the western genre were still being ironed out by early Hollywood filmmakers,Ford went a long way towards establishing the genre’s cinematic language inStagecoach.Stagecoachwas a massive influence on American cinema, but its influence traveled overseas, too. Kurosawa was strongly influenced by Ford in his Japanese films, just as Miller took Ford’s influence in his Australian films.
Another one of the influences mentioned in Miller’sVanity Fairvideo is the classic Studio Ghibli animationHowl’s Moving Castle.Howl’s Moving Castleis an anti-war masterpiece set in a fantasy world where two kingdoms are at war,battling each other with both early 20th-century technology and magic. The story revolves around a young milliner who is transformed into an elderly woman by a witch and gets swept up in an adventure with a wizard named Howl.
It’s easy to see how the steampunk aesthetic ofHowl’s Moving Castlehas influenced the visual style of theMad Maxfranchise. Much likeMad Max’s post-apocalyptic wasteland,the world ofHowl’s Moving Castleis a war-torn hellscape, but it’s bursting with bright colors. The titular moving castle is the same kind of giant, lunky, exhaust-spewing rig that the villains of theMad Maxuniverse drive around in.
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Miller mentions being blown away when he saw the chariot sequence in both the 1925 silent version ofBen-Hurand the big-budget MGM remake. The chariot sequence is easily the most iconic scene from either version ofBen-Hur.Miller specifically mentions the dazzling widescreen visuals of the MGM movie when discussing the scene’s impact on the action sequences ofMad Max.Ben-Hur’s chariot set-piece is the kind of scene that the big screen was made for.
The vehicular carnage of theMad Maxfranchise has always been influenced by the high-octane chariot sequence fromBen-Hur.ButFuriosacontains a more specific reference toBen-Hur’s most memorable moment. Miller decided that Chris Hemsworth’s villain, Dementus, would see himself as a classical Roman figure, so he leads his biker gang from the back of a motorized chariot.
The climactic tanker chase inMad Max 2: The Road Warrioris a nod to the Apache chase fromStagecoach,but that’s not the only Ford movie thatMad Max 2borrows from; the sequel also referencesThe Searchers.The Searchersstars John Wayne as Ethan Edwards, a Civil War veteran who feels out of place in a post-war world where his values are outdated and his violent skills are no longer useful. When his niece is abducted, Ethan rides out into the desert to find her.
Much like Ethan, the title character inMad Maxis a man out of his time just trying to do the right thing at any cost
When Max is up on a hill at night, watching the biker gang camped out in the distance, Miller includes a visual reference toThe Searchers.The composition of this shot is similar to the moment when Ethan sits atop a mountain and gazes at the Comanche camp. Much like Ethan, the title character inMad Maxis a man out of his time just trying to do the right thing at any cost.
Source:Vanity Fair
Mad Max
Mad Max is an Australian post-apocalyptic franchise created by George Miller and Byron Kennedy. The first three films star Mel Gibson as Max Rockatansky, a former police officer who seeks revenge after his family is murdered. Tom Hardy took over the role for 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road, which was followed by Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga starring Anya Taylor-Joy as Furiosa.
