AustLit
Latest Issues
AbstractHistoryArchive Description
In a post-apocalyptic Australia, law and order has begun to break down due to energy shortages, despite the efforts of Main Force Patrol (MFP) officers like Max Rockatansky. After Rockatansky encounters Toecutter's motorcycle gang, who are running runshod over isolated communities, he grows disillusioned with his role in the MFP. At first convinced by his superior officer not to resign, he is driven into a state of cold-blooded revenge when Toecutter's gang murder his wife and young son.
Notes
-
This film is included in Australian Screen's collection 'Horror in Australian Cinema'.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
-
y
Trauma and Disability in Mad Max : Beyond the Road Warrior’s Fury
Oxford
:
Oxford University Press
,
2019
18451060
2019
multi chapter work
criticism
'This book explores the inter-relationship of disability and trauma in the Mad Maxfilms (1979-2015). George Miller’s long-running series is replete with narratives and imagery of trauma, both physical and emotional, along with major and minor characters who are prominently disabled. The Mad Max movies foreground representations of the body – in devastating injury and its lasting effects – and in the broader social and historical contexts of trauma, disability, gender and myth.
'Over the franchise’s four-decade span significant social and cultural change has occurred globally. Many of the images of disability and trauma central to Max’s post-apocalyptic wasteland can be seen to represent these societal shifts, incorporating both decline and rejuvenation. These shifts include concerns with social, economic and political disintegration under late capitalism, projections of survival after nuclear war, and the impact of anthropogenic climate change.
'Drawing on screen production processes, textual analysis and reception studies this book interrogates the role of these representations of disability, trauma, gender and myth to offer an in-depth cultural analysis of the social critiques evident within the fantasies of Mad Max.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
-
Mad Max and Disability : Australian Gothic, Colonial, and Corporeal (Dis)possession
2018
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Studies in Gothic Fiction , vol. 6 no. 1 2018; (p. 65-72)'The Australian landscape has a long Gothic history, as Gerry Turcotte writes: “long before the fact of Australia was ever confirmed by explorers and cartographers it had already been imagined as a grotesque space, a land peopled by monsters” (10). This grotesque space is brought into focus through the films, the graphic novel, and the videogame of the Mad Max franchise and transposed onto this landscape are survivors and remnants of society, many of whom are coded as disabled. These characters are set against the omnipresent Australian landscape, an unwelcoming land that opposes their very existence, yet whose presence compliments it. This paper will focus on the literary understanding of disability to explore the preponderance of physical differences in the Mad Max franchise. It will focus primarily on the latest releases, dealing with the Fury Road portion of the series, where living with physical impairment is a banal reality. This paper will ask whether the Gothic landscape of the Australian Outback in Mad Max codes the characters as disabled, or whether it is the able bodied characters that are outside the norm, as well as considering the positive (or negative) implications of representations of disability in the franchise.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
-
Leaving Home : Kennedy Miller in Melbourne
2017
single work
essay
— Appears in: Senses of Cinema , December no. 85 2017;Kennedy Miller has been located in Sydney since the early 1980s, when its reputation as Australia’s most successful production house was established. But its origins and trajectory as a company are intimately tied to Melbourne. Drawing on textual, historical, and archival sources, I argue that Melbourne’s screen culture and industry at the time of the Australian film revival played a fundamental key role in shaping the abilities and sensibilities of the company’s founders, George Miller and Byron Kennedy.
-
Mad Mix : V8s and Vintage Synths
2017
single work
column
— Appears in: FilmInk , 27 December 2017; -
Killing Time With Damien Power
Dov Kornits
(interviewer),
2017
single work
interview
— Appears in: FilmInk , 22 August 2017;
-
Iconic Moments in Cinema : Australia, Part 1 : [Mad Max]
2008-2009
single work
review
— Appears in: Senses of Cinema , no. 49 2008-2009;
— Review of Mad Max 1979 single work film/TV - y The Mad Max Movies Strawberry Hills : Currency Press ScreenSound Australia , 2003 Z1040121 2003 single work criticism "Martin compares the three Mad Max movies and shares his views on which works best and why. In a chapter dedicated to each film, he looks at their critical reception and their themes, examines Miller's shooting techniques and provides a shot-by-shot analysis of integral scenes."--Currency Press Newsletter, April, 2003
-
y
Not Quite Hollywood : The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!
Collingwood
:
Madman Entertainment
,
2008
Z1636275
2008
single work
criticism
(taught in 1 units)
Not Quite Hollywood is the story of Ozploitation.
More explicit, violent and energetic than anything out of Hollywood, Aussie genre movies such as Alvin Purple, The Man From Hong Kong, Patrick, Mad Max and Turkey Shoot presented a unique take on established cinematic conventions.
In England, Italy and the grindhouses and Drive-ins of North America, audiences applauded our homegrown marauding revheads with their brutish cars; our sprnky well-stacked heroines and our stunts - unparalleled in their quality and extreme danger!
Busting with outrageous anecdotes, trivia and graphic poster art - and including isights from key cast, crew and fans - including Quentin Tarantino - this is the wild, untold story of an era when Aussie cinema got its gear off and showed the world a full-frontal explosion of boobs, pubes, tubes...and even a little kung fu!
-
Dying to Come to Australia : Asylum Seekers, Tourists and Death
2007
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Our Patch : Enacting Australian Sovereignty Post-2001 2007; (p. 167-196) Imagined Australia : Reflections around the Reciprocal Construction of Identity between Australia and Europe 2009; (p. 57-87) -
Battlers Take Top Spot in Movie Poll
2010
single work
column
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 7 October 2010; (p. 13) -
Nitrate Overload
1993
single work
column
— Appears in: Arena Magazine , August/September no. 6 1993; (p. 53-54)
- Australian Outback, Central Australia,