Future Worlds: Communicating the Post-Apocalypse Mise-en-Scene and Mad Max

Mad Max (1979)

The sense of a dislocated post-apocalypse society is communicated in Mad Max by the continued use of the road as position of action. The main community we see is the biker-gang of Toecutter. Their violent and brutal gang community is a significant signifier of the loss of respect and lawlessness of the future world being portrayed. The use of the bare road set amongst scrub ground also dislocates us from those structures of culture and the past. The bare vision of scrub ground is similar to the wide-vista’s of the western, however the function is radically different. As the western is set in the past the nothingness signifies at least something to conquer and build on. The small towns we know will develop into prosperous cities full of life, law and order (mostly). However because the nothingness of Mad Max is set in the future that nothingness doesn’t signify potential but rather something lost, something worryingly absent. Even the roads surrounded by structures are worryingly vacant as chain link fences occupy the space where houses and drives should be. A lack of work place and offices are also worrying as no driving force for change and redevelopment can be seen. The dilapidated “Halls of Justice” signify the loss of order and law. The damaged and rusted sign symbolises this. Mad Max communicates a dislocated post-apocalypse future world easily by continuously using motifs such as leaving the shots vacant of buildings that signify culture. The use of open roads and scrub land also communicate this a sense of nothingness.

The Symbolic Ending of Mad Max

Mad Max (1979)

The final scene in Mad Max communicates the cost that society must levy on the individual if it is to function smoothly. Max stands over Johnny the Boy. Johnny is handcuffed by the ankle to a wrecked car. Max sets up a symbolic test for Johnny, which will gauge the sincerity of Johnny’s protest that the crimes committed weren’t his fault. Max sets up the car’s dripping fuel into a time bomb that will explode shortly.

As he hands over a saw Max explains to Johnny that it will take him ten minutes to saw through the handcuffs, but only five to saw through his ankle. This gruesome test is symbolic for Johnny’s inclusion into society; he must amputate himself – remove his ability to function as an individual – to survive. Max offers him death or mutilation. Lawful society requires the individual to sacrifice their ability to function in isolation and Max sets up the symbolic test to examine if Johnny is able to submit to domination.

 

Max himself doesn’t survive this symbolic test unfazed; as the film ends we are given a symbolic image. The camera speeds along the white line in the middle of a road, Max is symbolically on the edge between two opposite lanes; Max is situated between madness and sanity, law and criminality.