How to: break my heart. A tutorial by Mad Max: Fury Road
Let’s talk about this scene a little, because I noticed a particular detail in my last viewing that’s had me buzzing and buzzing crying a lot.
Let’s start with the obvious: the whole film Nux has wanted to establish his life has some meaning by dying “historic on the Fury Road.” Of course, all his previous efforts were attempts to continue things the way they were–in Immortal Joe’s terms. Thus, those deaths would not have really been historic. They would have been forgotten, just another blip in the status quo. In crashing the rig and allowing the wives to return to the Citadel, Nux does in fact fulfill his wish to die historic–without his actions, the wives likely would not have been able to return to the city and enact the changes they inevitably do. His death matters in a way none of the other deaths in the film do–it matters to changing the future, and thus becomes an important part of the future Citadel’s history.
Nux only knows how to do that in his own terms, though–the terms of the War Boys. Thus, his death only gains significance if it is witnessed. For Nux, the action itself is not as important as it being seen and acknowledged. This makes a lot of sense in terms of Immortal Joe’s world and its patriarchal structure. Individuals are not important, actions don’t matter unless they are showy and seen–all life boils down not to meaningful actions but to showing off.
But here’s why this film is a feminist masterpiece, and why this scene in particular cements that: Capable’s reaction.
Capable does witness him. She locks eyes and acknowledges the significance of his action, of his inevitable death. But she doesn’t respond like one of the War Boys–when the War Boys die asking to be witnessed, the others respond yelling “Witnessed!” This answer does say, “I have seen your action, it matters,” but hollered with usual the War Boy bravado, it also acts as an attempt for the witnessing War Boys to build up their own importance by making themselves part of the action.
Capable does not yell “Witnessed.” She responds with a gesture–holding her hand out and pulling it toward her heart. This is the Vuvalini’s gesture of mourning–a beautiful gesture that essentially mimics pulling the lost soul into one’s own heart. Capable has only just learned this gesture, but she seems to innately understand its significance. Thus, while she witnesses Nux’s death, she refuses to “witness” him in the sense of the War Boys and instead mourns him in the manner of the Vuvalini. Nux likely sees this–the editing implies he doesn’t turn the rig until after he’s seen the gesture. Thus, he knows he is witnessed, but more importantly, he knows that he will be mourned and remembered. With that knowledge, he finally has the strength and the worthy reason to sacrifice his life for a cause that matters.
This moment is also the moment Immortal Joe’s power is officially broken. Yes, Joe is dead, but Rictus and a whole gang of War Boys and their ilk are photon their wheels, ready to re-establish the status quo. In many ways it is a transfer of power–the last call to witness leads to the first time the Wives truly embrace the culture and ideology of the Vuvalini as their guiding principle. Joe’s power is broken not so much by the explosion–though that is certainly the blunt force that finishes the deal. Joe’s power is broken by self sacrifice–a self-sacrifice born not of bravado or the hope of becoming a legend, but one born of community, of love, of hope. Capable’s response guarantees that Nux’s sacrifice will be honored and remembered, but in a new way in their new world.
Mad Max Fury Road is full of names: weird, inventive, evocative names. But it also uses them brilliantly. There’s so much information packed into what names are spoken, when and how.
Names and titles are a
classic way of revealing hierarchy. Joe is named repeatedly, and each time it
shows his relationship with the person naming him. Nux’s “Immortan! Immortan
Joe!” is all about his godlike status. The Organic Mechanic’s “Joe” is deliberately
casual, not actively disrespectful but certainly not worshipful.
Then there’s
the ongoing tension in what Joe calls Angharad: “Splendid” most of the time,
reverting to her proper name at moments of stress, when he really needs her to
listen. In the canyon scene, he goes from “Splendid, that’s my child, my property” when he’s trying to rebuke her to “Angharad! Get out!” when he realises she’s at risk of hitting the rock. It’s implied that she rejects “Splendid” – certainly the other wives
only ever call her Angharad. (More generally, the wives use each other’s names simply, to get each other’s attention: I don’t get any sense of hierarchy from it.)
On screen, Furiosa explicitly uses names to form connections. When she asks for
Max’s name, it’s a deliberate attempt to achieve emotional engagement, because
she needs him on side. And it’s rare for her: not only does she not name the wives, she doesn’t use the war rig crew’s names,
either. In a movie that keeps its dialogue sparse, every word counts – and every omitted word counts, too.
Within the Citadel hierarchy,
war boys don’t get named by anyone but each other. “I’ve got a war boy, running
on empty,” says the Organic Mechanic. An imperator later uses exactly the
same phrasing to introduce Nux to Joe: “I’ve got a war boy, says he
was on the war rig”. It suggests that, from the top of the Citadel hierarchy,
war boys are seen as interchangeable.
One describes Nux as if he were a machine; the other – “says he was on the war rig” – implies his lower status, framing his evidence as hearsay.
It’s clearly a huge honour for Joe to ask
Nux his name. It’s also the only time we see a Citadel full-life acknowledge a
war boy’s name.
War boys in this film
are both abusers and victims – terribly fragile, desperate for attention from
the powerful class that exploits and uses them, not questioning its
values. They go unnamed by their superiors, but they name each other as
often as possible: “Morsov!” “Slit, what’s happening?” Though Nux shouts “Crew,
out of the way!” at Ace – maybe they don’t know names beyond their own crews,
or maybe he just doesn’t recognise Ace from behind.
They use names to
encourage each other. Just look at the way they all shout Morsov’s name before
witnessing him. “Witness me” is a plea for affirmation: see what I’m
doing, make it mean something. Witnessing is an act of performative masculinity – I liked @bookishandi‘s post on witnessing Nux’s death. But it’s also framed as an act of mutual support
(which I think is why it’s taken off so much in fandom). Morsov’s death – which is really the viewer’s
introduction to “witnessing” as a concept – is part of a scene that shows
us the war rig crew working smoothly together.
The exception is Slit,
who tries to undermine his colleagues instead, shouting “Mediocre,
Morsov!” rather than “witness”, or telling Nux that Joe wasn’t looking at
him, “He was scanning the horizon”. And of course Slit is the most
insecure of the lot, begging for any scrap of attention: “I got the
blood bag’s boot! Take me, I got his boot!”
Imperators, and others
from the Citadel’s powerful classes, are clearly known by their names. “Furiosa,
she took a lot of stuff from Immortan Joe”, for instance. There’s no sense that
war boys give this recognition to anyone not at the top of that hierarchy. The war boy who
tells Nux about Furiosa talks about the wives as things
– “stuff”, “prize breeders”. Nux’s own reaction to the wives
– “so shiny, so chrome” – sees them as objects rather than people. And of
course he goes on calling Max “blood bag”, even when he thinks they’re on
the same side. It’s not a conscoius insult; it clearly doesn’t occur to him that Max
might mind – any more than Nux minded the way the Organic Mechanic or the imperator talked about him.
Then there’s the scene when Furiosa greets the Vuvalini. Here’s what she says:
“I am one of the Vuvalini, the Many
Mothers. My initiate mother was K.T. Concannon. I am the daughter of Mary
Jobassa. My clan was Swaddle Dog.”
This is a speech proving her identity, but how she does it is so revealing. She doesn’t
use her own name at all. Instead, it’s all about a web of relationships, of
connections, the ways in which she belongs. (She’s also proving that she belongs by demonstrating knowledge of Vuvalini society.) She lists her initiate mother
before her birth mother – her place in the community before her lineage. Her
tenses are interesting, too. Her clan was
Swaddle Dog – she’s left, the clan may no longer exist, she’s talking about the
past. But when she talks about being Vuvalini, it’s “I am”. Even though she’s asking for recognition, it
has none of the war boys’ neediness – she’s naming what she is, how she chooses
to see herself. She’s not seeking approval or affirmation.
And though the
Vuvalini team work is smooth, they do it without shouting
names – to the point where most of the Vuvalini characters don’t have names at
all (which is very unhelpful for fandom, George). Citadel naming is intensely
hierarchical, about who does, and doesn’t, get respect. Vuvalini naming is
about community, identities built up through choices and relationships.
Of course, the film’s most powerful naming scene has nothing to do with the Citadel or the Vuvalini: it’s Max telling Furiosa his name. (OH MY HEART.) It’s the conclusion of Max’s emotional arc, his return to being a human being: accepting a name, accepting his own identity. Crucially, he accepts it by sharing it. Throughout the film, names are meaningful because they’re how people connect with each other. In the “My name is Max” scene, we see Max choosing to do that. Engage to heal.
Since I know there’s probably a fair amount of you out there who haven’t seen the first three Mad Max movies, I’m here to tell you a li’l secret about them:
All the people complaining about how Max “isn’t the main character” in Fury Road are big ol’ Fake Fanboys cause Max’s primary character trait in literally every movie is “I hate this, why is it happening, please leave me alone to brood in the desert in peace”.
He’s much more the central focus of the plot in the first movie but in Road Warrior and Thunder Dome he basically just gets kidnapped or beat up by wankers in weird bondage outfits and spends the rest of the movie trying to leave as soon as possible while other people are like “please solve our absurd post-apocalyptic problems”. There is not one single point where Max actively seeks out being a hero until it is forced upon him. He ACTIVELY TELLS PEOPLE WHO ASK HIM FOR HELP to take a hike.
Mad Max himself would like nothing better than to never, ever, ever be the main character.
He would also like for people to stop stealing his fucking car.
Nobody wants to escape his own movies more than Max Rockatansky.
He understands better than his own fanboys that his life sucks and you don’t want to be like him, to be Max is humiliating and painful. Every time he gets dragged into a conflict, he ends up worse than he started. Max seems to realize no good can come of this, and is weirdly genre-savvy because he’s always trying to make a getaway at the first signs of encroaching Plot. I find this darkly comical and endearing – at no point does he snap off witty quips and save the day and get the girl. Ever. He’s perpetually a weird desert loser with terrible luck. It’s great.
What makes Max a badass is the ability to survive to the end of any movie he’s unfortunate enough to find himself in.
This relates to a theory I have, which is that the archetypal Western Male Hero is James Bond, to the degree that people (Mainly straight white men) start to see every Western Male Hero as James Bond.
Which is to say an aggressively masculine, quip-spitting, hyper violent womanizer. The ultimate Male Power Fantasy. A new supermodel love interest (or two) every film, a gun in his hand, and no consequences for his actions.
Consider:
Captain Kirk: Painted as a headstrong idiot who spends all his time banging green skinned alien queens. In reality, a pretty firmly Feminist character.
Han Solo: Pictured as a suave too-cool-for-school scoundrel. Actually kind of a mess with a ship that’s falling apart. He constantly has people after him, not because he’s some sort of superscoundrel that makes powerful enemies, but because he makes deals with dangerous people, and then fails to live up to his end of the bargain. From what I recall, it’s not even that he double-crosses them or anything, he just screws up.
Mad Max: To quote that one hilariously stupid review that helped make the movie so popular, “In the post-apocalyptic future, it’s going to be MEN LIKE MAX THAT ARE IN CHARGE!” Max just wants to drive his car around the desert and be sad. He doesn’t want any of this.
It’s like, the Male Power Fantasy (as exemplified by James Bond) is so strong that we feel a need to cast everybody we can in that same mold.
Seriously this
Max is not ‘in charge’ of anything Max is a broken shell of a human being who has lost everyone he ever loved and suffers from severe post traumatic stress disorder and his life is a non-stop struggle just to live through another day in the nightmarish hellworld that he is trapped in, he is literally never ‘in charge’ the movies are about him being dragged against his will into whatever bizarre and horrific thing is happening in this Nightmare World this week and doing his best to survive and, sometimes, to just help out the actual heroes of the film because something about them reminds him of the person he used to be instead of the wreckage of a human being he has become
New Year is coming, so my new calendar is coming as well. The theme seems pretty obvious, doe isn’t it? ;) This is probably Miss September, but I haven’t decided yet. More pieces to come soon.
Yeah, I’m recycling my War Rig, but it got better now.
