The innovations of Mad Max have been so thoroughly ripped off that it’s easy to insufficiently appreciate the freshness of its grim, primitive futurism. Not the first post-apocalyptic movie, George Miller’s debut nonetheless stands out for the plausibility of its bleak vision. Sequels would sink further and further into a depraved wasteland of leather and metal, blood and oil, but this first installment captures a world on the precipice of collapse. Setting a precedent for the entire series, Miller avoids establishing this world through words, not dwelling on the reasons for the civil breakdown in favor of showing that ruin through action.
In the opening sequence alone, for example, the film illustrates not only wanton anarchy of criminals who merrily tear through civilians and cops alike with their cars but the reckless, frayed nerves of policemen as well. Miller dissolves the distinctions between gangbanger and cop almost from the start, placing the glibly violent crook and his girlfriend in a stolen cop car that people instinctively fear as it roars around urban outskirts, while the cops sport the same intimidating leather outfits as all the film’s bikers. In pursuit of the stolen vehicle, the policemen show the same willingness to smash through civilian vehicles with abandon to nab the perp, with one cop in particular even continuing to drive after demolishing his own interceptor after colliding with a civilian van, breaking off only when the vehicle refuses to move and he notices the shards of windshield glass embedded in his partner’s throat.
The belligerence and paranoia of the cops identifies Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson) as the film’s hero, not because he is the best on the force but because he is the only one who ever seems to recognize what he is becoming. That is not the same as saying he struggles against his baser nature, however; apart from a brief reverie where he attempts to overcome the trauma of seeing his partner (Steve Bisley) burned alive by retreating to the still-idyllic countryside with his wife and child, Max hits the road with brutal efficiency. When his family is taken from him, the cop finds his only solace in the modified car he uses to exact revenge on the bikers who killed his loved ones. Deprived of flesh, Max becomes a machine, at one with the vehicle that reflects his eradicated soul: an all-black body with an engine too impatient to stay under the hood, rising up into the air to roar challenges to doomed targets.
Gibson, who undermines the babyish quality of his bright blue eyes with a thousand-yard stare, breaks out with a character enshrined for his facile “badass” qualities who nonetheless makes its biggest impact in the haunted, defeated nature of the performance. Max may appear on any number of nerdy lists of the best action heroes, but he has nothing in common with the supersizes icons who would rise to prominence in the coming decade. Even when Max enters the film as a wandering warrior, as he does in the sequels, he carries the debilitating emotional scars of this film, an unending trauma that relegates him to the role of backup player in stories that bear his name, precisely because he can no longer feel enough of a connection to those he meets to find a place among anyone. Max’s permanently shell-shocked ronin is the flipside of the psychological coin to biker clan leader Toecutter (Hugh Keays-Byrne). Where Max tilts off his axis at the realization of his capacity for animalistic behavior, Toecutter embraces his regressed self, and his confidence etches a terrifying sanity into his wild hair and feral dress. It’s no wonder Keays-Byrne came back to play the cult leader Immortan Joe in Miller’s latest Mad Max film: the surety of his ruthlessness is alluring in the pandemonium that hangs at the fringes of the movie. If Max defeats this enemy, he nonetheless heads out into the desert at the end without an ounce of the self-belief and calm of his foe.
A/V
Shot on the cheap by a bunch of first-time filmmakers, Mad Max boasts plenty of innovations in its car-chase choreography and the fluidity (and surprising tastefulness) of its editing but also lacks in visual splendor. Shout! Factory offer no improvement on pre-existing Blu-rays of the film, but the soft textures and drab color photography nonetheless continue to look as good on hi-def as they likely ever will. Some semi-waxy close-ups suggest instances of overzealous noise reduction, but otherwise the transfer looks true to what a film of this period and on this budget would resemble. Audio is much stronger, with crisp Foley effects and dialogue and a great, non-intrusive mixing of Brian May’s tense score. You can opt for the Australian or US dubs, but either sounds terrific. (You should still listen to the proper Australian track, however. It’s in English, for God’s sake.)
Extras
Shout! offers a mixture of old and new features for their release, most importantly porting over an informative commentary from DP David Eggby, effects artists Chris Murray and David Ridge, and art director Jon Dowding. There are also three new featurettes that offer interviews with cast and crew and looks into the film’s impact on both filmmaking and the career of Mel Gibson. Some trailers, TV spots, and a photo gallery round out the disc.
Overall
The first installment of George Miller’s ever-shifting, ever-rewarding franchise helped create the template for the modern post-apocalyptic movie, yet the low-budget exploitation picture set the bar so high that only Miller’s own sequels have consistently topped it.