Many artists have tried to construct an image of the future, and whether taking a more idealistic or unsettling stance, it has led to some tremendously entertaining and insightful films. It may not be easy to view Mad Max as a film set in the future, primarily because it was made with a shoestring budget. As a result, it didn’t have the necessary resources to fully realise its main objective, which was a post-apocalyptic action thriller about a chaotic, violent version of reality in the aftermath of some world-shattering event. George Miller, in his directorial debut, creates a character that would go on to be the lead of one of the most beloved franchises in film history, starting with this fascinating germ of an idea and allowing it to flourish into one of the most ambitious and daring films in a genre that was constantly taking shape during this period. Miller, who had transitioned from a career as a doctor and chose instead to realize his dream of being a filmmaker, proved to be effortlessly talented from the outset, and working alongside a gifted cast and crew that blindly leapt into this bizarre world with him through simply trusting his vision and subscribing to his accurate belief that he had a strong concept in mind, he can lay the foundation for what was to become not only a beloved franchise that has been the subject of an equal amount of tributes and parodies over the years but also a series that became emblematic of a very specific era in Australian cinema, which has continued to challenge and redefine the country’s artistic output, even if not directly. It may be a canonical classic of action cinema, but Mad Max still feels so fresh and exciting for several reasons that have all played a part in retaining its spectacular cinematic cache, and we find that a rewatch yields exceptionally rich results, especially since there is so much more beneath the surface that we may have initially imagined from this film, which is as daring as it is ingenious, the two working exceptionally well in tandem.

Miller’s greatest gift as a filmmaker has been his approach to style. Considering his career ranges from action epics about the fall of society in the aftermath of the apocalypse, to dancing penguins and lascivious witches, it’s clear that he has both a penchant for the absurd and an extremely versatile set of ideas that drive his work. Stylistically, Mad Max is quite raw and unpolished, which was to be expected of an independent production made on little more than a box of recycled resources and a tonne of ambition, which proved to be just enough to create an unforgettable film. While it may be defined by the “do-it-yourself” style of filmmaking that many rambunctious independent directors have to employ, Mad Max never comes across as cheap or unprofessional – much of the credit must go to the great work done to ensure that this film is consistently in a state of restoration (a privilege that countless other Australian films from this era deserve as well), and the cultural relevance that keeps it in the public consciousness. However, it is the originality of the premise that encompasses the lion’s share of the acclaim, primarily in how Miller was driven by the idea of making “a silent film with sound”, which refers to the fact that dialogue in this film, while present, is almost entirely inconsequential and useless, existing only to fill in the gaps between action sequences by offering vital details. Pure action is the primary narrative device, and even if one wants to view Mad Max as nothing but ninety minutes of consistent action, there’s value in this opinion based on how much of the film’s brilliance relies on the visual component. Car chases and gruesome fight scenes abound throughout this film, which is certainly par for the course for both Ozploitation and the Australian New Wave, cinematic movements that have attempted to claim Mad Max as part of their repertoire, when in reality both are applicable, with the film acting as a bridge between the two periods, which is ultimately part of its acclaim and the reason it has remained such a cultural touchstone for over forty years.

In his pursuit to find the perfect actor to play the titular part of “Mad” Max Rockatansky, Miller had a few options but was consistently guided by the fact that he wanted an American actor in the part, mainly because Mad Max was being designed as something of a throwback to those broadly entertaining American action films with dashing heroes of indeterminate origin battling sinister adversaries and emerging triumphant. The definition of “silent but violent”, Max is a fascinating character, so it is not a surprise that it ultimately ended up being the breakthrough performance for Mel Gibson, who has understandably come to be entirely associated with this franchise, which remains perhaps his best work, at least in terms of profiting off his particular star persona. There is arguably not much acting to be done in this film, and we find that Mad Max is not a film that dwells too long on extracting the best possible performances from its actors, so Gibson and the rest of the cast were not expected to do much, especially since the action was the main attraction. Yet, Gibson immediately forges an iconic hero that we can truly support, whereas the supporting cast, which includes some genuine icons of Australian cinema like Hugh Keays-Byrne, Sheila Florance and Roger Ward, turn in exceptionally strong work as well, or at least the closest approximation of it that could have been expected in a film that is proud in the fact that it is far more invested in providing a broad spectacle rather than paying attention to the underlying substance, which is perfectly understandable considering how much Miller was trying to evoke an era of cinema in which it wasn’t the depth that mattered, but rather the images presented on screen, which made the most significant impression, with Mad Max being one of the few films that can effectively disregard narrative structure based on the strength of its filmmaking, a rare but admirable accomplishment.

Much has been written and discussed about the mythology of the universe Miller created here, which entails a deeper reading of the film and its implications. Arguably, the mythology ofthis series was fleshed out more in the later films, after Miller and his cohorts had time to sit and expand on the world in which these characters exist, so there is not much present in Mad Max, since it was the first foray into what is unlikely to have been initially designed as a multi-film franchise. However, this doesn’t mean that this film is lacking in nuance or meaning – if anything, many of the most interesting elements, both within the narrative and in its visual manifestations, were found scattered throughout this film. The main theme that Miller was interested in exploring is life after the apocalypse – it may not appear like it, since the film was made with quite paltry resources and thus could not have done much to evoke a true apocalyptic wasteland, but the story constantly draws our attention back to the fact that these events are taking place in either the near future, or in some alternative reality whereby some cataclysmic event occurred that may not have wiped out humanity en masse, but instilled a sense of chaos, where violence was not only common but seemingly the only acceptable means of communication. It does not take too much effort to figure out exactly what it was that Miller was aiming to convey with this film, and the message doesn’t need to be made too overly explicit for us to understand these broad inferences. Not someone who has necessarily been an “issue filmmaker”, with nearly every one of his films prioritizing the spectacle over the social message, but it’s clear that his attention was on commenting on humanity’s penchant for violence, and how society can descend into pure chaos if free will is allowed to fester into something that simply cannot be regulated. There is a fascinating amount of deeper reading that can be done into these elements, but it ultimately becomes more present in the later films, which is where they’ll be more appropriately dissected.

Mad Max (and its sequels, which we will discuss in due course) is the kind of film in which just about everything that can be said about it has been well-documented for years. It is merely a matter of showing this film to new viewers and seeing how they react to what is essentially nothing more than 90 minutes of wall-to-wall action, which somehow manages to be timeless for several reasons. Firstly, the refusal to restrict it to a particular time or place prevents it from ever ageing – as said previously, we aren’t entirely sure if Mad Max takes place in the future, or in some alternate reality to the present moment, but knowing the precise answer is mostly quite irrelevant, since it is never a case of needing to understand its origins when all that Miller and his team seemed to do in terms of character development and historical context being some surface-level exposition that is only relevant to shading in the motivations of these characters and situating the story within a specific kind of structure, from which it manages to be extremely effective. The imperfections present throughout this film, whether it be clunky effects, an overemphasis on the visual component over the story, as well as some slightly stilted acting and a relatively cliche-addled screenplay, are not only entirely understandable given the constraints on this film, but appreciated. This is a raw, brutal and daring piece of cinema, an ambitious debut from a profoundly gifted director, and a film that has stood the test of time better than countless other films from within this very genre. It has successfully grown into a franchise that has been celebrated as some of the most innovative and compelling storytelling of the era, and its slight shortcomings are repurposed into the very aspects that many celebrate as part of the film’s enormous ingenuity. It’s quite simply challenging to not find the value in Mad Max, a film that is as audacious as it is endlessly entertaining, and a truly incredible piece of Australian cinematic ingenuity.