(George Miller, 1979)
This remains a tremendous oddity. Released at the tail-end of the series of "oz-ploitation" movies of the 1970s, it's exploitation roots are clear and part of its charm. It is full of unique idiosyncrasies, some of them supplied by Australian culture, others part of the narrative. Miller was still finding his voice, so there are plenty of clunky, clumsy, crude moments and scenes. But his genius as a visual storyteller is still more than evident.
The action scenes are largely terrific - visceral, brutal, exhilarating, and with a directness which is bracing, even shocking. Miller's style is so precise and powerful, it gives otherwise dull scenes a charge, even when the acting and dialogue is a little questionable. And it often is questionable. Scenes of Max (Mel Gibson) at home with his wife, sharing cute stories while Brian May's score ladles on the syrup can be hard to take. But then there is that weird factor. Max's wife plays the saxophone at home, for fun. His buddy Goose - the plot's sacrificial lamb, his fate a horror-movie death by fire revealed expressively during Max's visit to his hospital bed through gurgling sound effects, a single shot of a charred hand and Gibson's horrified reaction - enjoys a night with a bad nightclub singer. A stalk-through-the-woods sequence is revealed to be misleading (with a Boo Radley-esque figure) until it isn't. The chief of police waters plants topless, chewing on a stogie. The Toecutter's biker gang feel like they've come from another movie altogether, each of them chewing scenery, gurning, playing with props, each seemingly set on stealing the limelight from the others (no surprise to learn they were all Shakespearian stage actors, since their scenes feel much like an out of control improv session).
Against all this the splashes of horrific violence feel almost hallucinatory, and their impact is only increased. Gibson is all raw charisma and youthful beauty here, but you can see the star he would become. And yet Miller is the real star.
Showing posts with label Mel Gibson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mel Gibson. Show all posts
Tuesday, 12 May 2015
Wednesday, 27 February 2013
MAD MAX 2: THE ROAD WARRIOR
(George Miller, 1981)
A solid argument can be made for director George Millar as perhaps the greatest storyteller in 1980s cinema. That argument would revolve - for the most part - around Mad Max 2.
The international success of the first Mad Max film afforded Miller the opportunity to make his sequel bigger and better in more or less every way.
And so he goes for broke; by the start of this film society and civilization have entirely broken down, allowing him to utilise the beautiful emptiness of his Australian Outback locations to represent this post-apocalyptic world. Ex cop and "shell of a man" Max (Mel Gibson) is now every inch the Road Warrior of the title, roaming the wasteland in his souped up police car in search of food, gasoline and weapons, battling with gangs of marauders for possession of anything valuable in the wilderness.
Max comes across a Gas pumping station transformed into a fortress and being protected by a group of survivors (dressed in white, brown and beige) from a terrifying army of leather-clad marauders outside. Covetous of all that petrol, Max volunteers to help the defenders in their attempts to escape to the Coast with the oil...
Among other things, Mad Max 2 is the finest Western of the '80s. It may lack (most) Western iconography, but all the elements are there, in disguise: a lone hero with his own distinct code of honour and a reluctance to join a community, an isolated Fort besieged by savages, incredible widescreen desert landscapes, and long, brilliant action sequences. Miller includes a few genre signifiers to make it clear: many of the weapons used come straight from Westerns, from Max's shotgun to the bows used by the defenders. The marauders, while generally wearing (hugely influential) mixes of biker and bondage gear, are often given Mohawks and Mohicans, and the massive final action set-piece recalls nothing so much as the central action scene in Ford's Stagecoach, with the heroes vehicle pursued and attacked by a mobile band of aggressors.
But what is really impressive here is the stylish economy of the storytelling. So many of these scenes are pure cinema - no dialogue, no exposition, just sound and movement. Miller's compositions are fabulous (cinematographer Dean Semler does great work here too), his editing tight as a drum, and he pulls off a number of bravura shots which never feel remotely ostentatious. This is reflected in the story. The plot is simple, the characters bold and mythic. Villains who never speak a word of dialogue are given vivid personality through body language, wardrobe, performance and Miller's direction. Indeed, near-mute characters such as the Feral Kid and Wez are uniquely memorable and iconic, and the elemental sense of mythic weight behind this story partly explains just why it was so influential (it kicked off a wave of cheap post-apocalyptic action movie imitators).
But if that sense of starkly generic world-building was relatively easy to emulate, then Miller's awesome approach to orchestrating and mounting action scenes was not.
The organic nature of the stunt-work and the fact that we know these are real cars being driven by real people gives these action scenes an impact largely lost in the contemporary cgi era, and also demands a level of ingenuity and invention from Miller which is perceptible. The climactic chase here is a stunning example of sustained craft - visceral, thrilling and hilarious, it maintains an unbelievable level of spatial coherence throughout, as multiple mini-threads and arcs criss-cross and collide during a fifteen minute sequence. Miller demonstrated that this sort of impressive control of big action storytelling with a mythic ring to it could be applied to Childrens cinema with his later work on the Babe films and Happy Feet, but this film remains his masterpiece, and is easily one of the greatest action films ever made.
It helps that the cast is filled with unfamiliar Australian faces and that Gibson was at his most beautiful and charismatic in the early '80s - he smoulders and scowls his way through the film in magnetic fashion, as only a true movie star could.
A solid argument can be made for director George Millar as perhaps the greatest storyteller in 1980s cinema. That argument would revolve - for the most part - around Mad Max 2.
The international success of the first Mad Max film afforded Miller the opportunity to make his sequel bigger and better in more or less every way.
And so he goes for broke; by the start of this film society and civilization have entirely broken down, allowing him to utilise the beautiful emptiness of his Australian Outback locations to represent this post-apocalyptic world. Ex cop and "shell of a man" Max (Mel Gibson) is now every inch the Road Warrior of the title, roaming the wasteland in his souped up police car in search of food, gasoline and weapons, battling with gangs of marauders for possession of anything valuable in the wilderness.
Max comes across a Gas pumping station transformed into a fortress and being protected by a group of survivors (dressed in white, brown and beige) from a terrifying army of leather-clad marauders outside. Covetous of all that petrol, Max volunteers to help the defenders in their attempts to escape to the Coast with the oil...
Among other things, Mad Max 2 is the finest Western of the '80s. It may lack (most) Western iconography, but all the elements are there, in disguise: a lone hero with his own distinct code of honour and a reluctance to join a community, an isolated Fort besieged by savages, incredible widescreen desert landscapes, and long, brilliant action sequences. Miller includes a few genre signifiers to make it clear: many of the weapons used come straight from Westerns, from Max's shotgun to the bows used by the defenders. The marauders, while generally wearing (hugely influential) mixes of biker and bondage gear, are often given Mohawks and Mohicans, and the massive final action set-piece recalls nothing so much as the central action scene in Ford's Stagecoach, with the heroes vehicle pursued and attacked by a mobile band of aggressors.
But what is really impressive here is the stylish economy of the storytelling. So many of these scenes are pure cinema - no dialogue, no exposition, just sound and movement. Miller's compositions are fabulous (cinematographer Dean Semler does great work here too), his editing tight as a drum, and he pulls off a number of bravura shots which never feel remotely ostentatious. This is reflected in the story. The plot is simple, the characters bold and mythic. Villains who never speak a word of dialogue are given vivid personality through body language, wardrobe, performance and Miller's direction. Indeed, near-mute characters such as the Feral Kid and Wez are uniquely memorable and iconic, and the elemental sense of mythic weight behind this story partly explains just why it was so influential (it kicked off a wave of cheap post-apocalyptic action movie imitators).
But if that sense of starkly generic world-building was relatively easy to emulate, then Miller's awesome approach to orchestrating and mounting action scenes was not.
The organic nature of the stunt-work and the fact that we know these are real cars being driven by real people gives these action scenes an impact largely lost in the contemporary cgi era, and also demands a level of ingenuity and invention from Miller which is perceptible. The climactic chase here is a stunning example of sustained craft - visceral, thrilling and hilarious, it maintains an unbelievable level of spatial coherence throughout, as multiple mini-threads and arcs criss-cross and collide during a fifteen minute sequence. Miller demonstrated that this sort of impressive control of big action storytelling with a mythic ring to it could be applied to Childrens cinema with his later work on the Babe films and Happy Feet, but this film remains his masterpiece, and is easily one of the greatest action films ever made.
It helps that the cast is filled with unfamiliar Australian faces and that Gibson was at his most beautiful and charismatic in the early '80s - he smoulders and scowls his way through the film in magnetic fashion, as only a true movie star could.
Tuesday, 15 May 2012
HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION
aka GET THE GRINGO
(Adrian Grunberg, 2012)
Just when it seemed as if Mel Gibson had forgotten the secret of his own appeal as a movie star, he co-writes and finances a vehicle for himself that demonstrates that he knows exactly what once made him so watchable onscreen. As a director, his best characteristic is the tremendously strong visual storytelling evident in both Braveheart and Apocalypto. That is a feature of this film too, directed as it is by Gibson's protege Adrian Grunberg, presumably with Gibson in close attendance.
He plays the nameless Gringo, imprisoned in a hellish, massive Mexican prison having stolen $2 Million from a Californian crime boss. Inside, he has to learn the ropes and figure out how to survive and retrieve his money, currently in the hands of the Mexican cops who caught him.
Gibson's character has a little of Richard Stark's Parker to him, tough and smart and ruthless as he is, and Gibson plays him with much of his old wit and twinkly charisma. Even more vivid is the setting; this prison is a world unto itself, with shops and families and a rigid class system, and the film is at its colourful best detailing its quirks.
There are a couple of nice action scenes, a few good gags, a cast full of great Mexican faces, and it is a solid slice of b-movie pulp, tailor-made for it's star.
(Adrian Grunberg, 2012)
Just when it seemed as if Mel Gibson had forgotten the secret of his own appeal as a movie star, he co-writes and finances a vehicle for himself that demonstrates that he knows exactly what once made him so watchable onscreen. As a director, his best characteristic is the tremendously strong visual storytelling evident in both Braveheart and Apocalypto. That is a feature of this film too, directed as it is by Gibson's protege Adrian Grunberg, presumably with Gibson in close attendance.
He plays the nameless Gringo, imprisoned in a hellish, massive Mexican prison having stolen $2 Million from a Californian crime boss. Inside, he has to learn the ropes and figure out how to survive and retrieve his money, currently in the hands of the Mexican cops who caught him.
Gibson's character has a little of Richard Stark's Parker to him, tough and smart and ruthless as he is, and Gibson plays him with much of his old wit and twinkly charisma. Even more vivid is the setting; this prison is a world unto itself, with shops and families and a rigid class system, and the film is at its colourful best detailing its quirks.
There are a couple of nice action scenes, a few good gags, a cast full of great Mexican faces, and it is a solid slice of b-movie pulp, tailor-made for it's star.
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