Mad Max Fury Road is absolutely properly bonkers, and yet I still
believe all of it.
Yeah, even whatever that was.
Part of that is the themes and the emotions that it deals with,
part of it is the acting, part of it is the superb visual filmmaking
which draws you into the world.
My gosh, look at that color grade.
On that subject, this video is sponsored by SkillShare, witness me later.
And part of it is the amazing, visceral, perfectly balanced quality of the
action, which was to a surprising degree, actual practical effects.
In particular, Max versus Furiosa is everything I love about this film
in a couple of minutes, and so that's what we're going to talk about
today.
I'm Jill Bearup.
In my free time, I like pretending to hit people, I make videos about
fights in media.
Let's go.
Mad Max Fury Road is about a group of women trying to escape from sex slavery with
the help of a former sex slave turned enforcer for the Man.
Furiosa is looking for redemption, the wives are looking for freedom, Max is
just looking to survive, and Nux is looking to die historic on the Fury
Road.
The reason for the fight goeth thusly.
Max is captured at the beginning of the movie, identified as a universal donor, and thus
not killed.
He tries to escape but fails.
When the wives are discovered to be missing, Nux the
war boy takes Max with him as a blood bag so he can participate as
Immortan Joe and his posse chase the wives down.
Max escapes the war party with Nux still attached and winds up
at The War Rig where he discovers a bunch of young women.
I love that soft focus and refocus like he's not entirely sure if he's conscious
or not, and more importantly, he discovers water and a way
to get Nux unchanged from him.
He threatens the wives, they try to break the chain, but The Dag
is not strong enough by herself, and as soon as his line of sight is
interrupted, Furiosa throws herself on him, and it's on.
I love pretty much every single gosh darn detail of this
fight.
I love the relentlessly central framing so we can easily
track what's going on.
I love that Max correctly identifies: A, who
is likely to be a threat, and B, that a woman who only has one hand
is unlikely to be able to operate bolt cutters without assistance.
I love that the bolt cutters get such a starring role: to take off the
belts, to attempt to free Max, then later another use with two of the
wives using them together, nice callback as they're not strong enough
to use them alone, and then Max cutting the chains off The War Rig at
the end.
Every asset in this post-apocalyptic wasteland is vital, either
as a tool or a weapon, or both.
And I love that this scene perfectly conveys character and tone and
fits so well with the world-building already established.
So we're just going to take it from the top.
Furiosa doesn't know this random dude and he's chained to a war boy and a door.
Also a threat, but since he's currently unconscious, not an immediate
one, and they need to get out of there before Immortan Joe shows up,
but he needs dealing with first.
So she tries to get closer, and when that isn't possible, she
waits very patiently until the first moment his attention is
distracted by Dag and the bolt cutters.
And she runs, knocks his off-balance butt to the ground and he fires
because better to fire than not, it's that survival instinct again.
As at many points in this fight, we get a shot of Nux being pulled along
because it is important that we know where all of the players are
at any one time.
Furiosa grabs the gun, smacks him with her left, jams
the gun under his chin, a seconds pause for the audience to catch
up or to seek the gun more firmly, or because she's reluctant to murder
this rando, whichever you prefer, and she pulls the trigger.
Not obviously, this doesn't work, but this is a very important moment, character
and story-wise.
Max fires as soon as he understands she's coming
for him, she fires as soon as she has him slightly dazed, there's
no mercy here, there's no space for it.
Not yet, anyway.
Gun having failed, she moves to strike him in the head with it, but he grabs it and
her and chucks her over.
Something which will happen a couple of times in the course of this
fight.
Remember how I said that Fury Road is bonkers but grounded,
this is an example of the latter.
I love the fights where small women kick the snot out of large men, I do.
Power fantasies and all that.
But the reason that Fury Road works so well for
me is that it tries so hard to be realistic when it can.
The heightened moments of melodrama then contrast in a good way as opposed to
everything feeling like a weird fever dream.
And Max, even if he's been starved, dehydrated, drained
of blood, and taken on a joy ride is still more than a physical match
for Furiosa.
For one thing, he weighs as much as one and a quarter of
Furiosas and for another, he's got two hands which are useful for
grabbing things.
Which you'll notice exactly what he does.
First her right arm, then her throat, then they roll.
He's only stopped because Angharad grabs the chain and yanks on it and
it's still attached to his head.
The ruthless practicality of this fight is what really sells
it for me, anything that can be used as a weapon is.
The chain is used to hold Max around, later it is used to trip
Furiosa, she strangles Max with it, the door is a shield, the bolt
cutters are a club.
In stage combat, this kind of fight is called
found weapons and I absolutely love it because you can just go
hog wild with the choreography.
Another thing I love about this fight, cooperation.
The Dag is momentarily frozen and indecisive,
but Angharad grabs the chain and once she does that, Capable grabs it behind
her.
Max is hauled along by his head off balance and tries to swing
at them.
But then as soon as it's a case of having to hold Max, Nux,
and the door that can't do it, there's too much weight and they fall.
Angharad is the most proactive of the wives in the fight which
fits with her character and what we will see her do later.
Capable follows her lead.
Their intervention is not enough to get Max down,
but it's enough to break his advantage over Furiosa for a moment, and
that is all she needs because now Furiosa is up, Dag tosses her
the bolt cutters and she uses them to knock the gun from Max's
hand, disarm first, then go for the kill.
He falls trying to avoid her, scramble, scramble, scramble.
This is probably where I should point out that Fury Road
uses a lot of speed ramping, which is to say they just straight-up
remove frames and then play it back at 24 frames a second, and so it
goes faster than you think it should, it's jerkier than you think it
should be.
This makes it more jarring and melodramatic, and almost
cartoonish.
Well, it worked for me at least.
Max uses the door, which he's been dragging along with him, as a shield,
not only to disarm Furiosa but also to smack her in the head
and Nux wakes up.
Another stylistic choice I really like, I like all
of them, basically.
There's no finesse here, there's no pause, there's
no dialogue, there's no quipping, this isn't The Princess Bride honor
is not a consideration, survival is.
Now, it's been pretty full on to this point, hasn't it?
We technically have what?
Eight people to keep track of, but we're doing okay because of that center framing,
even with the speeded-up footage and the number of cuts, we're still
kind of...doing okay tracking what's going on.
We've had enough poses as people are hit and need to take a breather as we prepare for
the kill shot to make sure that the audience is keeping up.
But none of these moments are wasted.
They use them to let the actors work emotionally, and
sometimes they have something going on in the background as well.
Furiosa having just been smacked in the face with a car door and knocked
to the ground needs to take a moment, but you can see Max moving
in the background.
If you want to know how to make one-move, one-cut
fight editing look good, this is what to study.
This isn't a smooth-flowy fight, it's not even
the fight where there's some clear person to root for, we don't want
these characters to be fighting, we want them to be working together,
and they will, but this needs to happen first, they mix it up with the
editing.
Sometimes one move is spread across several shots, sometimes
we have several moves in one shot, there are pauses for emotional
resonance or because the fighters are shocked or hurt or out of
breath, or in Max's case, straight up hallucinating and we don't waste
those moments.
Furiosa is recovering, Max is already moving in the
background.
When she runs for the gun, Max trips her.
He doesn't know where she's going, he just knows that she
needs to not get there.
Nux on the ground, this is what he's actually
here for, goes for Furiosa and knocks her to the ground.
Max thinks about cutting the chain and then instead hauls on it to bring the combatants
away from the gun, growling at the wives in the meantime, who
are completely bewildered and have no weapons, another great moment.
Angharad is the first of the wives who actually takes action and then
Capable and Dag, even if that action is just, "Toss me that weapon."
Toast goes for Max at a later point, but he doesn't have to do anything
more than growl at her to get her to back off.
They are trying to help, but they are unused to violence on they don't know what to do.
That's pretty perfect too.
Meantime, Furiosa smacks Nux in the face.
Note that Furiosa is a match for Nux who is smaller, younger, lighter,
and let's face it, dying.
Max now has the slack to get the gun but then Furiosa is there.
One shot, ejects the magazine, tries to shoot him with the bullet in
the chamber, that brilliant sound effect, as they are temporarily
deafened by the gun going off next to their ear, Nux grabs the
magazine, but the wives are on it.
They probably couldn't take Max, but Nux doesn't want to hurt them, he's there
to get them back, and again, he's much smaller and weaker than Max
is.
All the wives have to do is try and keep Nux away from the fight.
Though you'll note that they don't really manage it.
But the fact that they get Nux away helps Furiosa no end.
Because as soon as the gun isn't in play anymore, Max
flips her around again and has her by the throat.
But he's still attached to Nux, so, oops, excellent use of
the chain in the choreography again.
Kick, wrestle, strangle with the chain, Max elbows
are in the ribs and he's back on top, quite literally.
Furiosa grabs the hose and whacks him in the face with it,
Nux is there with the magazine, three shots, and then pause and
breathe.
Furiosa has shown no mercy in this fight whatsoever, Max is a threat
and she's going to put him down.
Max doesn't go that way.
Any of those previous three shots could have been for Furiosa, but then he just
stops.
Then the war party is arriving and everyone has bigger
problems.
Then he tries to drive off in The War Rig.
That does not work and some negotiation is required and off we go.
But Max's act of mercy saves his life because, without Furiosa, he would not have been going
anywhere.
Furiosa then extends trust to him by telling him the kill
switch code and then they trust each other in the gunfight that follows.
But this fight, boy.
It makes sense for the characters, their arcs,
their personalities, and the plot, it is superbly put together, and
particularly, makes brilliant use of the way that Max, Nux, and
the door are all chained together.
You have the wives who are unused to being instigators of
violence because in a world where basically everyone is stronger than
you, but no one actually wants to kill you, violence is not a good
survival option.
They try to help and they do, but they're frightened.
You have Nux, whose goal is to get the wives back and to kill or
incapacitate Furiosa, working with Max because he thinks that they're
on the same side, and you have the contrast of how much Furiosa and
the wives fear Max as opposed to Nux.
If Max had sneaked onto The War Rig, Furiosa would not have let him live.
You have Furiosa, who makes very efficient use of every weapon around
her because when you're fighting someone who's bigger and stronger
than you, and also has two hands, why would you not do that?
Why would you not give yourself that advantage?
You have Max whose life has been reduced to survival, who
is bleeding and weakened, who find space, even if only for a moment,
for a little bit of mercy.
His mercy, in the end, is what saves him.
Fury Road is over the top post-apocalyptic explosions and a plot that
takes you all the way away and then all the way back again, but it
does it so well.
By necessity, it crams mountains of character and
world-building into its action and it makes it look so easy and
beautiful.
Look at this.
Seriously, look at it.
This episode is sponsored by SkillShare, an online learning platform for creatives where
I have learned some appreciation for, and knowledge of, color grading.
Six months ago I'd have been like, 'Wow that looks really nice, I wonder how they did that?'
and now, I know!
Day for Night plus a mask!
Skillshare has thousands of classes to choose from, they're a combination of short to-the-point
video lessons and a hands on project.
Aside from the colour grading I have got some very helpful productivity tips from Thomas
Frank's Productivity Masterclass, and also redecorated my living room with the help of
Interior Decorate Like A Boss.
If you're looking for classes to teach you new skills, or improve the ones you have,
the first 1000 people to click the link in the description get a free trial of Skillshare
Premium.
And thereafter it's less than $10 a month!
Seriously though look at this though.
Look.
It's a work of art all of its own.
A light to keep out the dark.
Ugh, I love this movie.
See you next time.