The Vintagent Classics: The films that inspired us. 

MAD MAX (1979)

Run Time: 1:35:00
Director: George Miller
Writer: James McCausland, George Miller
Key Cast: Mel Gibson, Joanne Samuel, Hugh Keays-Byrne

FILM MAKERS

George Miller was a medical doctor in Sydney, working in a hospital emergency room where he saw many injuries and deaths of the types depicted in the film. While in residency at a Sydney hospital, Miller met amateur filmmaker Byron Kennedy at a summer film school in 1971. The duo produced a short film, Violence in the Cinema, Part 1, which was screened at a number of film festivals and won several awards. Eight years later, the duo produced Mad Max, working with first-time screenwriter James McCausland (who appears in the film as the bearded man in an apron in front of the diner).

SUMMARY

The Film That Started It All.

According to Miller, his interest while writing Mad Max was “a silent movie with sound”, employing highly kinetic images reminiscent of Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd while the narrative itself was basic and simple. Miller believed that audiences would find his violent story more believable if set in a bleak dystopian future. Screenwriter McCausland drew heavily from his observations of the 1973 oil crisis’ effects on Australian motorists.

Taking place in a dystopian Australia in the near future, Mad Max tells the story of a highway patrolman cruising the squalid back roads that have become the breeding ground of criminals foraging for gasoline and scraps. After some grisly events at the hands of a motorcycle gang, Max sets out across the barren wastelands in search of revenge.

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