Friday, August 25, 2017

George Miller and His Fury Road

Last year I mentioned the film 'Mad Max: Fury Road', however, not in a fair way. I care for fairness. And I do like this film. But I couldn't show my admiration for the film enough. The fact is, I couldn't sleep for over a year since that post, because of torment. George Miller, whose name is in the title of this post, is a creator of the Mad Max series and the director, writer, producer of 'Mad Max: Fury Road' (2015) that is the latest film of the series. Today, I want to talk about him and his films —— briefly and casually. Of course. It's Friday. And I'm going to give you "How to see Fury Road". So, shall we?


George Miller, born in Australia, once a medical doctor, now a film producer, director, screenwriter, known for Mad Max series, Babe series, Happy Feet series. According to his career history, it seems that "vigorous participation, thoroughly and meticulously" is his film-making style and he has been making his visions realised besides his film producer business. Let's take a look at his career briefly;

1979 Mad Max
1981 Mad Max 2
1983 Twilight Zone: The Movie (one episode)
1985 Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome
1987 The Witches of Eastwick
(1989 Dead Calm)
(1989 Bangkok Hilton)
1992 Lorenzo's Oil
(1995 Babe)
1998 Babe: Pig in the City
2006 Happy Feet
2011 Happy Feet Two
2015 Mad Max: Fury Road

Though one person's deep involvement, there is "Lack of unity and consistency", in other words, "Experimental and curious tendency". You can't read him? Well, he reminds us of someone. He's also involved in most of these films as a writer. I like IMDb but when it comes to a guy like him, who takes multiple roles in a film, it's time to see Wikipedia. The table. And it's coloured! Very helpful. 

'Mad Max 2' was epoch-making. Japanese people are familiar with this world because of the Manga series that was inspired by this film. Miller enlightened me about Tina Turner. To me, she is not a singer but the ruler of the Thunderdome. The Witches of Eastwick, as it turned out, Miller made one of my witch-imprinting films. Dead Calm, Miller didn't direct this film but he really showed me how beautiful an Australian actress Nicole Kidman was. Bangkok Hilton, Miller didn't direct this film either but he did teach me how perilous to accept gifts from strangers in foreign countries is and mesmerising Nicole Kidman was. Happy Feet, I saw this when I was in the mood for animated-film without knowing that he made this film, and it was beyond my expectations. So I studied his career, then a small discovery hit me.

As you can see, there are fluctuations in his films. "Serious - Cute", "Clever - Simple" and so on. And actually you have to see Happy Feet Two before Fury Road. Happy Feet Two was good but not as Happy Feet (one). Because it was experimental and too logical. Happy Feet Two was Happy Feet's negative. Happy Feet(2006) was a brilliant film but had some holes in the script. The story of a young penguin Mumble who has a gift for tap dancing saves the world, sounds good, but he didn't solved the problem by himself. Humans changed their own way by themselves, for themselves, practically. Mumble merely got their attention and inspired them by tapping. And the film showed "a broad view" — we are all just a dust of the universe — just like sort of God's perspective, however, the centre of the story is talking-penguins that are designed to be our entertainment or projections. Penguins and humans are precious but fishes don't have voices and they are just food? Miller turned them upside down in Happy Feet Two. Some scenes are literary upside down, as you might know. The result of his calculation solved the problems and gave the film a spectacle climax scene, but the characters, their feelings, and the seats for audience were not prepared. If one see the logics behind the story, Happy Feet Two is an interesting film and has some kind of beauty. I see it in that way. 'Under Pressure' became my favourite song. But it appears that people didn't see in the same way. I think the producer of Happy Feet deserves to have this grand experimentation, and I enjoyed it. Simple, Clever, then Miller's next choice was to go into Simple. Miller focused on actions, or what people want, in Fury Road. The film was very simple and awesome. Because his great insight certainly supported its simplicity and gave it a depth. Fury Road's script appears to have been finished before Happy Feet series, but I believe that its simple but rare and dynamic construction of storyline was given after Happy Feet Two. "Oh, I got the numbers of Happy Feet Two —— Okay, now here's the 'simple'! *Boom!*", said Miller, I imagine. Looking forward to the sequels. Well, that's my small discovery. How about that.



The sub-theme of this season is "sequel". So that I will post on sequels or series works on Friday. Hope you'll like it.

Have a nice weekend. G'day.


The wind shines for theoretical cats.

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