Not a post about art, but a post about a consequence of not producing art. I have actually been doing things, but it's been paid commission work (which is great, but not stuff I can share - other people's family trees and the like). And then there was the storm, which saw the kids home for an extra week of holidays (like they complained). And then everyone seemed to walking around coughing and spluttering. So guess what? My suppressed immune system did its usual trick of not protecting me and I have a cold.
At least I hope that's all it is. You know the sort of thing - face feels like it's going to explode from sinus pressure. Head full of cotton wool. Non-productive cough. And so, so tired. Sleeping two or three hours in the day and STILL sleeping right through the night. Given I am generally an insomniac, this is a little weird.
I seem to be over the worst of it, but the last few days have had to be written off in terms of actually achieving anything (other than the usual things a mother has to do, like get the kids to and from school, make lunches, make dinner, do housework, moan like a demented zombie and so on).
To be quite honest, I spent two days collapsed on the lounge (when I wasn't doing all the mother stuff) watching Blu-Rays. The Mad Max Collection, to be precise. So you are getting three film reviews. Stop reading now if you want. I won't be offended.
We went to the cinema for Avengers 2: the Age of Ultron (such fun, despite some silliness). There was a big ad for Mad Max: Fury Road, which the Steamgoth expressed a strong desire to see. Her dad and I talked about it and we felt that some idea of what Mad Max is might be in order before she sees Fury Road (she told me TWICE that Robert Brown has given it good reviews, so she has to see it). Up the escalators to JB and there was a boxed set of all three films on sale. With an R rating. Oops.
The deal was I would watch them first, decide if and what she could watch and then we'd talk about it again. We made the mistake a couple of weeks ago of watching Hardware with her because we thought we remembered what it was like. Um, no. So now when we talk about films and series she asks "more inappropriate than Hardware?" My dear, just because that horse has bolted doesn't mean the gate stays open.
Finding time when I have the leisure to watch films without children around or other things happening isn't straightforward. Nice to know there is a use for the common cold after all.
So the other morning, after taking the kids to school and sleeping for two hours, I put on Mad Max. Now before you start, I mean MAD MAX. As in NUMBER ONE. As in NOT the Road Warrior. Mad Max was made in 1979 on a shoe string budget and filmed in and around Melbourne, Victoria.
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| Mel Gibson struggles to remember a line while Steve Bisley worries about his career |
I had never seen it before. And I never want to see it again.
I know why it was rated R. But really, if I am to be honest, it should have been rated B (for Boring) or D (for Dull), or most probably ID (for Inexorably Dull). The Steamgoth, when she got home from school and found out how I had spent my day, asked if she could watch it. I told her no on the grounds that it is not worth the time or effort. Her time could be better spent watching grass grow, or staring at the wall, or sitting with her eyes shut.
What was wrong with it? Where do I start? The violence is gratuitous and nonsensical, the script risible, the acting laughable and the musical score irritating and domineering. Was there a plot? Beyond "a highway patrolman encounters bikie gangs. His family is murdered, he goes on a revenge rampage"? By the way, those last two take up the final ten minutes of the film. And no, I don't think they are spoilers because they are so telegraphed as to visible from the moon. Did I say there was a real pacing problem?
Don't get me wrong. There is a lot of action in Mad Max. It starts with a mad car chase (actually, no, it starts with another highway patrolman perving through his rifle scope on a couple having sex, but that is immediately followed by a mad car chase). But the action is tedious. And repetitive. And often ridiculous.
The lines the actors were asked to deliver - I suppose they deserve awards for actually saying them, but then the desire to eat and pay rent can motivate one to do all sorts of things. The acting ranged from more ham than a piggery to so understated as to be non-existent, with understatement clearly mistaken for menacing (yes, Bubba, I'm looking at you). I now understand why everyone raves about Steve Bisley as Goose, because he was the only one who actually turned in a performance. He took his part and made it believable and fun and meaningful. Well, as meaningful as he could. He really is the standout in the whole thing.
As for Mel, the members of International Rescue have a wider range of expressions. There is one moment where he finally shows emotion, and completely over does it, when he goes to visit Goose in the hospital and sees his friend burnt to a crisp. I laughed and then groaned at the sheer ridiculousness of his extreme reaction, and wondered if he was going for broke because he was finally allowed to have a reaction. It wasn't till later that I realised he probably wasn't acting at all. It was just that the terrible truth dawned on him that the only other real actor in the film had done his last scene and he, Mel, was alone in the mire. Cue look of shock and horror. I wasn't too thrilled either.
The real surprise for me was that the film was 88 minutes. It felt much, much longer. I kept thinking "is it going to end?" (when I wasn't thinking "gods, get on with it"). I kept thinking, "will it pick up when his wife and baby die?" (seriously, you knew it was going to happen from the second you first saw them). No. It didn't. They died and within ten minutes all the bikie gang were dead and Max was driving away, and that was it. Stop. And I mean stop. The film didn't end, it didn't finish, it just... stopped. Woeful.
At the beginning of the next disc, Mad Max 2: the Road Warrior, Leonard Maltin gave a brief history of Max 1 and 2 (I suspect the boxed set has been specially brought out because of Fury Road). He talked about how it bombed in the US (he put it down to the stupid decision by the studio to dub American accents over the whole thing) and how well it did in the rest of the world and especially in Australia. And he revealed that this was the first film Kennedy and Miller had ever made. I cannot say it was a surprise (more a relief really. Explains a lot).
He also made the point that all the action in all the films was well before CGI, meaning everything had to be physically done. So there is a good point for Mad Max. There were some brave stunt men doing some crazy driving. Still not enough.
There are two things that really, really bother me about Mad Max. Firstly, it was the highest grossing Australian film at the time. Box office records tumbled before it. Given its rating, those who loved it looooooooved it, enough to see it multiple times. Other films to come out that year were "My Brilliant Career", "The Odd Angry Shot", "The Last of the Knucklemen", "Dimboola", "Tim", "The Plumber" (all from Australia), "Alien", "Frisco Kid", "Love at First Bite", "the Muppet Movie", "Star Trek the Motionless Picture", "Life of Brian", "Apocolypse Now", "The Lady Vanishes", "Hanover Street", "The Quatermass Conclusion". I could go on. All this and more to choose from, and Australians were going to Mad Max.It made about $5.4 million in Australia and about $100 million world wide (see? you don't need to succeed in the US market to succeed. Another point in its favour).
So what does this say about Australian audiences at the time that they would pay so much for something so second rate? Was it just the sex and violence, of which there was plenty? Was it the unashamedly ocker tone of the whole film, at a time that Australians were throwing off the cultural cringe? The clearly Australian setting? Our ongoing and increasingly obscene love affair with the car? Did some clutch it tighter to their chests because word got out of the US studio dubbing? I can't say. Maybe it's because I have never been mainstream "Australian" I find the embracing of this film opaque and bewildering, and, in light of its blindingly obvious shortcomings, embarrassing. So throw me out of Australia, ostracise me from mainstream Aussie culture. See if I care.
The other thing that bothers me about Mad Max is the squandering of a great opportunity. Mad Max is NOT post-apocalyptic. If you think it is, I suggest you have it confused with Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior. Mad Max is set in a time of societal decline. There are still structures there, attempts at order in the chaos, people and things don't look any different, but something is amiss. Things are on the slide.
Let's face it, fun as an apocalypse is, it has been done to hell and back, particularly lately (okay, fair dos, that wasn't the case in 1979, at least not to the same extent). Here is something much more interesting - disintegration. And it is used just as a backdrop. Okay, there is a sense of it there, but no exploration of it. Maybe I am being unfair. Maybe the pacing of the film is reflective of the pace of entropy, slow at first and then speeding up until, when Max's family is killed, it reaches light speed and tears the world apart, just as Max's life has been ripped to shreds. And maybe I am reading way too much into it in an attempt to find something, anything nice to say about this film, given it started Kennedy and Miller's careers. But I can't. Bring on the apocalypse.
If you can stomach my rantings, stay tuned for "The Only Way is Up: Mad Max 2 The Road Warrior".
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