Movie Analysis: “Mad Max: Fury Road” — Takeaways
This week we launch a new bi-weekly series in which we will be analyzing movies currently in release. Why? To quote the writing mantra I coined over 5 years ago: Watch movies. Read scripts. Write pages. You will note which one comes first. Here are my reflections from that post about the importance of watching movies:
To be a good screenwriter, you need to have a broad exposure to the world of film. Every movie you see is a potential reference point for your writing, everything from story concepts you generate to characters you develop to scenes you construct. Moreover people who work in the movie business constantly reference existing movies when discussing stories you write; it’s a shorthand way of getting across what they mean or envision.
But most importantly, you need to watch movies in order to ‘get’ how movie stories work. If you immerse yourself in the world of film, it’s like a Gestalt experience where you begin to grasp intuitively scene composition, story structure, character functions, dialogue and subtext, transitions and pacing, and so on.
Let me add this: It’s important to see movies as they get released so that you stay on top of the business. Decisions get made in Hollywood in large part depending upon how movies perform, so watching movies as they come out puts you in the same head space as reps, producers, execs, and buyers.
This week’s movie: Mad Max: Fury Road, written by George Miller and Brendan McCarthy and Nico Lathouris, directed by George Miller, starring Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron.
Our schedule for discussion this week:
Monday: General Comments
Tuesday: Plot
Wednesday: Characters
Thursday: Themes
Friday: Takeaways
For those of you who have not seen the movie, do not click MORE as we will be trafficking in major spoilers. If you have seen Mad Max: Fury Road, I invite you to join me in breaking down the movie to its component parts and analyzing why this movie kicks ass in almost every single way.
I’ll kick things off by circling back to something I noted in Day 1 of this series because it bears being stamped into our collective consciousness so that we never stray from this point: In a movie, action is meaningless without meaningful characters. And with that, I just coined another screenwriting mantra.
If a viewer doesn’t care about the characters… doesn’t find them compelling… doesn’t have points of emotional connection to them… then a movie can have the most amazing action ever…
And it will be largely, if not wholly meaningless.
The events of the plot must be tethered to the lives and destinies of the characters. We, as writers, have to actively seek out those intersection points and explore what the action means to the characters.
Characters are scalable. For a movie like MM:FR, we’re not talking Eugene O’Neill or William Faulkner. Rather their wants, needs, and psyches need to be deep enough to grab hold of us emotionally, but not so deep as to detract from the action or feel disjunctive due to an imbalance between plot and character.
Miller and his compatriots did a masterful job of finding just the right balance for all of their characters.
So again: In a movie, action is meaningless without meaningful characters.
What did you take away for your own writing from Mad Max: Fury Road?
Next movie: Ex Machina. The week of June 22nd. To find a theater near you where the movie is playing, go here.
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