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(Caution: Spoilers)
Set in a post-apocalyptic world, The Road Warrior (aka Mad Max II) follows anti-hero Max Rockatansky (Mel
Gibson) as he's caught between two tribes warring over gasoline. Because mobility means
survival, gasoline has become the only resource of any value; at one point, Max even tries
to soak it up off the road with a cloth. It's a simple premise, but co-writer/director
George Miller's goal is to strip The Road Warrior
down to film's most distinctive elements: cinematography and editing. Like a
silent movie, this Action-Science Fiction-Western is very much about images and motion, a
story well-suited to its medium.
The first noticeable thing about Miller's minimalist approach is the
lack of sets. Except for a fuel refining plant, there isn't a single building in the film.
There aren't even ruins left over from the vaguely-described disaster that befell
civilization. Everything takes place along the deserted highways of
On one side are the settlers, the good guys who dress literally all in
white. These settlers value community; they support each other and wish to rebuild
civilization. There is also an innocence about them, as the locale of their future village
(“Two thousand miles from here. Fresh water. Plenty of sunshine.”) is actually
based on postcards left over from before the Fall. In the meantime, they guard the
refining plant, a compound surrounded by walls of tires and automobile husks in what could
only be described as a circling of the wagons. It is the fuel contained within that will
eventually take them to their desired paradise.
On the other side are the marauders, bad guys dressed in black leather,
the hard, cold texture of their straps, vests, and leggings a combination of fetishist
S&M and anti-social Punk. They circle the compound looking for a way in, their
motorcycles and Mohawk hairstyles recalling old-Hollywood Indians on horseback. They lack
the value system of the settlers. Working together only out of self-interest, they have
little regard for each other. When Toadie (Max Phipps) tries to catch a razor-edged
boomerang and has his fingers sliced off, the only reaction from the others is one of
mocking laughter.
In the middle of these two tribes appears Max, the lone gunfighter,
complete with pistol slung low on his hip. A man with a painful past he refuses to
discuss, Max prefers to remain detached. When the Feral Kid--Emil Minty in the Brandon de
Wilde role--tries to accompany him, Max dismissively shoos him away without explanation.
Max agrees to procure a truck to haul an oil tanker for the settlers, but does it only as
a form of trade. He has no desire to join them in the long run. He remains “out there
with the garbage," as leader Pappagallo (Mike Preston) puts it. It's no coincidence
that Max, the internally conflicted character, is clad entirely in black leather, the
uniform of the marauders. In the end, Max’s humanity is rekindled, but he still
refuses to join the settlers. Like Shane and Kambei Shimada before him, he’s a
warrior who knows that a rebuilt civilization has no place for the likes of him.
Having stripped down the content, Miller relies on cinematic techniques
to tell his story. Once the opening narration sets the scene, all exposition is dispensed
with. There is little dialogue throughout the rest of the movie, and even much of that is
extraneous. It’s not only the numerous action scenes, but the quieter moments that
are often carried by expressions and gestures instead of dialogue. Except for the
narration, The Feral Kid never speaks in the movie, while Max's nemesis, Wez (Vernon
Wells), relies on screams as often as actual words. Even character's names are used
fleetingly, or not all; it isn't until the end credits that Warrior Woman (Virginia Hey)
is even identified as such.
Released only one year after Kubrick's Steadicam work in The Shining, Miller's camera is astonishingly
kinetic. Not satisfied to simply film cars as they speed by, he straps his camera to the
vehicles themselves, as well as to a helicopter, resulting in an a virtuoso series of
tracking shots. (Miller wisely avoids any mechanical-looking zooms). But unlike many films
of today, this is not hyperactivity for its own sake. The camera mimics the movements of
the automobiles that figure so prominently in the film in a perfect symbiosis of form and content. This is best
exemplified by the climax in which the camera swoops and dives in and around the
maunder-driven motorcycles, dune buggies, and trucks as they pursue Max’s oil tanker.
It isn't so much a car chase as a war on wheels. It could easily have been a visual mess,
but the fast, tight editing helps turn it into an intricately choreographed sequence that
puts any car-related scenes, including those in Bullitt and The French Connection, to shame.
The Road Warrior is part of
a trilogy, sandwiched between the mediocre Mad Max and the substandard Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Fortunately,
it’s self-contained and can be enjoyed on its own. Relying mostly on image and motion
to tell its story, it's a classic action film
representative of cinema at its purest.
- Paul De Angelis
