#chris george | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

damienkarras73 · 5 months ago

Text

An essay on Furiosa, the politics of the Wasteland, Arthurian literature and realistic vs. formalistic CGI

Mad Max: Fury Road absolutely enraptured me when it came out nearly a decade ago, and I will cop to seeing it four times at the theatre. For me (and many others who saw the light of George Miller) it set new standards for action filmmaking, storytelling and worldbuilding, and I could pop in its Blu Ray at any time and never get tired of it. Perhaps not surprisingly, I was deeply apprehensive about the announced prequel for Fury Road's actual main character, Furiosa, even if Miller was still writing and directing. We didn't need backstory for Furiosa—hell, Fury Road is told in such a way that NOTHING in it requires explicit backstory. And since it focuses on the Yung Furiosa, it meant Charlize Theron couldn't return with another career-defining performance. Plus, look at all that CGI in the trailer, it can't be as good as Fury Road.

Turns out I was silly to doubt George Miller, M.D., A.O., writer and director of Babe: Pig in the City and Happy Feet One & Two.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is excellent, and I needn't have worried about it not being as good as Fury Road because it is not remotely trying to be Fury Road. Fury Road is a lean, mean machine with no fat on it, nothing extraneous, operating with constant forward momentum and only occasionally letting up to let you breathe a little; Furiosa is a classical epic, sprawling in scope, scale and structure, and more than happy to let the audience simmer in a quiet, almost painfully still moment. If its opening spoken word sequence by that Gandalf of the Wastes himself, the First History Man, didn't already clue you in, it unfolds like something out of myth, a tale told over and over again and whose possible embellishments are called attention to in the dialogue itself. Where Fury Road scratched the action nerd itch in my head like you wouldn't believe, Furiosa was the equivalent of Miller giving the undulating folds of my English major brain a deep tissue massage. That's great! I, for one, love when sequels/prequels endeavour to be fundamentally different movies from what they're succeeding/preceding, operating in different modes, formats and even genres, and more filmmakers should aim for it when building on an existing series.

This movie has been on my mind so much in the past week that I've ended up dedicating several cognitive processes to keeping track of all of the different ponderings it's spawned. Thankfully, Furiosa is divided into chapters (fun fact: putting chapter cards in your movie is a quick way to my heart), so it only seems fitting that I break up all of these cascading thoughts accordingly.

1. The Pole of Inaccessibility

Furiosa herself actually isn't the protagonist for the first chapter of her own movie, instead occupying the role of a (very crafty and resourceful) damsel in distress for those initial 30-40 minutes. The real hero of the opening act, which plays out like a game of cat and mouse, is Furiosa's mother Mary Jabassa, who rides out into the wasteland first on horseback and then astride a motorcycle to track down the band of raiders that has stolen away her daughter. Mary's brought to life by Miller and Nico Lathouris' economical writing and a magnetic performance by newcomer Charlee Fraser, who radiates so much screen presence in such relatively little time and with one of those instant "who is SHE??" faces. She doesn't have many lines, but who needs them when Fraser can convey volumes about Mary with just a flash of her eyes or the effortless way she swaps out one of her motorcycle's wheels for another. To be quite candid, I'm not sure of the last time I fell in love with a character so quickly.

You notice a neat aesthetic contrast between mother and daughter in retrospect: Mary Jabassa darts into the desert barefoot, clad in a simple yet elegant dress, her wolf cut immaculate, only briefly disguising herself with the ugly armour of a raider she just sniped, and when she attacks it's almost with grace, like some Greek goddess set loose in the post-apocalyptic Aussie outback with just her wits and a bolt-action rifle; we track Furiosa's growth over the years by how much of her initially conventional beauty she has shed, quite literally in one case (hair buzzed, severed arm augmented with a chunky mechanical prosthesis, smeared in grease and dirt from head to toe, growling her lines at a lower octave), and by how she loses her mother's graceful approach to movement and violence, eventually carrying herself like a blunt instrument. Yet I have zero doubt the former raised the latter, both angels of different feathers but with the same steel and resolve. Of fucking course this woman is Furiosa's mother, and in the short time we know her we quickly understand exactly why Furiosa has the drive and morals she does without needing to resort to didactic exposition.

Anyway, I was tearing up by the end of the first chapter. Great start!

2. Lessons from the Wasteland

Most movies—most stories, really—don't actually tell the entire narrative from A to Z. Perhaps the real meat of the thing is found from H to T, and A-G or U-Z are unnecessary for conveying the key narrative and themes. So many prequels fail by insisting on telling the A-G part of the story, explaining how the hero earned a certain nickname or met their memorable sidekick—but if that stuff was actually interesting, they likely would have included it in the original work. The greatest thing a prequel can actually do is recontextualize, putting iconic characters or moments in a new light, allowing you to appreciate them from a different angle. All of season 2 of Fargo serves to explain why Molly Solverson's dad is appropriately wary when Lorne Malvo enters his diner for a SINGLE SCENE in the show's first season. David's arc from the Alien prequels Prometheus and Covenant—polarizing as those entries are—adds another layer to why Ash is so protective of the creature in the first movie. Andor gives you a sense of what it's like for a normal, non-Jedi person to live under the boot of the Empire and why so many of them would join up with the Rebel Alliance—or why they would desire to wear that boot, or even just crave the chance to lick it.

Furiosa is one of those rare great prequels because it makes us take a step back and consider the established world with a little more nuance, even if it's still all so absurd. In Fury Road, Immortan Joe is an awesome, endlessly quotable villain, completely irredeemable, and basically a cartoon. He works perfectly as the antagonist of that breakneck, Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote-ass movie, but if you step outside of its adrenaline-pumping narrative for even a moment you risk questioning why nobody in the Citadel or its surrounding settlements has risen up against him before. Hell, why would Furiosa even work for him to begin with? But then you see Dementus and company tear-assing around the wasteland, seizing settlements and running them into the ground, and you realize Joe and his consortium offer something that Dementus reasonably can't: stability—granted, an unwavering, unchangeable stability weighted in favour of Joe's own brutal caste system, but stability nonetheless. It really makes you wonder, how badly does a guy have to suck to make IMMORTAN JOE of all people look like a sane, competent and reasonable ruler by comparison?!?

…and then they open the door to the vault where he keeps his wives, and in a flash you're reminded just how awful Joe is and why Furiosa will risk her life to help some of these women flee from him years later. This new context enriches Joe and makes it more believable that he could maintain power for so long, but it doesn't make him any less of a monster, and it says a lot about Furiosa's hate for Dementus that she could grit her teeth and work for this sick old tyrant.

3. The Stowaway

Here's another wild bit of trivia about this movie: you don't actually see top-billed actress Anya Taylor-Joy pop up on screen until roughly halfway through, once Furiosa is in her late teens/early twenties. Up until this point she's been played by Alyla Browne, who through the use of some seamless and honestly really impressive CGI has been given Anya's distinctive bug eyes [complimentary]. It's one of those bold choices that really works because Miller commits to it so hard, though it does make me wish Browne's name was up on the poster next to Taylor-Joy's.

Speaking of CGI, I should talk about what seems to be a sticking point for quite a few people: if there's been one consistent criticism of Furiosa so far, it's that it doesn't look nearly as practical or grounded as Fury Road, with more obvious greenscreen and compositing, and what previously would've been physical stunt performers and pyrotechnics have been replaced with their digital equivalents for many shots. Simply put, it doesn't look as real! For a lot of people, that practicality was one of Fury Road's primary draws, so I won't try to quibble if they're let down by Furiosa's overt artificiality, but to be honest I'm actually quite fine with it. It helps that this visual discrepancy doesn't sneak up on you but is incredibly apparent right from the aerial zoom-down into Australia in the very first scene, so I didn't feel misled or duped.

Fury Road never asks you to suspend your disbelief because it all looks so believable; Furiosa jovially prods you to suspend that disbelief from the get-go and tune into it on a different wavelength. It's a classical epic, and like the classical epics of the 1950s and 60s it has a lot of actors standing in front of what clearly are matte paintings. It feels right! We're not watching fact, we're watching myth. I'm willing to concede there might be a little bit of post-hoc rationalization on my part because I simply love this movie so much, but I'm not holding the effects in Furiosa to the same standard as those in Fury Road because I simply don't believe Miller and his crew are attempting to replicate that approach. Without the extensive CGI, we don't get that impressive long, panning take where a stranded Furiosa scans the empty, dust-and-sun-scoured wasteland (75% Sergio Leone, 25% Andrei Tarkovsky), or the Octoboss and his parasailing goons. For the sake of intellectual exercise I did try imagining them filming the Octoboss/war rig sequence with the same immersive practical approach they used for Fury Road's stunts, however I just kept picturing dead stunt performers, so perhaps the tradeoff was worth it!

4. Homeward

Around the same time we meet the Taylor-Joy-pilled Furiosa in Chapter 3, we're introduced to Praetorian Jack, the chief driver for the convoys running between the Citadel and its allied settlements. Jack's played by Tom Burke, who pulled off a very good Orson Welles in Mank! and who I should really check out in The Souvenir one of these days. He's also a cool dude! Here are some facts about Praetorian Jack:

He's decked out in road leathers with a pauldron stitched to one shoulder

He's stoic and wary, but still more or less personable and can carry on a conversation

Professes to a certain cynicism, to quote Special Agent Albert Rosenfield, but ultimately has a capacity for kindness and will do the right thing

Shoots a gun real good

Can drive like nobody's business

So in other words, Jack is Mad Max. But also, no, he clearly isn't! He looks and dresses like Mad Max (particularly Mel Gibson's) and does a lot of the same things "Mad" Max Rockatansky does, but he's also very explicitly a distinct character. It's a choice that seems inexplicable and perhaps even lazy on its face, except this is a George Miller movie, so of course this parallel is extremely purposeful. Miller has gone on record saying he avoids any kind of strict chronology or continuity for his Mad Max movies, compared to the rigid canons for Star Trek and Star Wars, and bless him for doing so. It's more fun viewing each Mad Max entry as a new revision or elaboration on a story being told again and again generations after the fall, mutating in style, structure and focus with every iteration, becoming less grounded as its core narrative is passed from elder to youth, community to community, genre to genre, until it becomes myth. (At least, my English major brain thinks it's more fun.) In fact there's actually something Arthurian to it, where at first King Arthur was mentioned in several Welsh legends before Geoffrey of Monmouth crafted an actual narrative around him, then Chrétien de Troyes added elements like Lancelot and infused the stories with more romance, and then with Le Morte d'Arthur Thomas Malory whipped the whole cycle together into one volume, which T.H. White would chop and screw and deconstruct with The Once and Future King centuries later.

All this to say: maybe Praetorian Jack looks and sounds and acts like Max because he sorta kinda basically is, being just one of many men driving back and forth across the wasteland, lending a hand on occasion, who'll be conflated into a single, legendary "Mad Max" at some point down the line in a different History Man's retelling of Furiosa's odyssey. Sometimes that Max rips across the desert in his V8 Interceptor, other times driving a big rig. Perhaps there's a dog tagging along and/or a scraggly and at first aggravating ally played by Bruce Spence or Nicholas Hoult. Usually he has a shotgun. But so long as you aren't trying to kill him, he'll help you out.

5. Beyond Vengeance

The Mad Max movies have incredibly iconic villains—Immortan Joe! Toecutter! the Lord Humongous!—but they are exactly that, capital V Villains devoid of humanizing qualities who you can't wait to watch bad things happen to. Furiosa appears to continue this trend by giving us a villain who in fact has a mustache long enough that he could reasonably twirl it if he so wanted, but ironically Dementus ends up being the most layered antagonist in the entire series, even moreso than the late Tina Turner's comparatively benevolent Aunty Entity from Beyond Thunderdome. And because he's played by Chris Hemsworth, whose comedic delivery rivals his stupidly handsome looks, you lock in every time he's on screen.

Something so fascinating about Dementus is that, for a main antagonist, he's NOT all-powerful, and in fact quite the opposite: he's more conman than warlord, looking for the next hustle, the next gullible crowd he can preach to and dupe—though never for long. For all his bluster, at every turn he finds himself in way over his head and writing cheques he can't cash, and this self-induced Sisyphean torment makes him riveting to watch. You're tempted to pity Dementus but it's also quite difficult to spare sympathy for someone who's so quick to channel their rage and hurt and ego into thoughtless, burn-it-all-down destruction. When you're not laughing at him, you're hating his guts, and it's indisputably the best work of Chris Hemsworth's career.

It's in this final chapter that everything naturally comes to a head: Furiosa's final evolution into the character we meet at the start of Fury Road, the predictable toppling of Dementus' precariously built house of cards, and the mythmaking that has been teased since the very first scene becoming diagetic text, the last of which allows the movie to thoroughly explore the themes of vengeance it's been building to. A brief war begins, is summarized and is over in the span of roughly a minute, and on its face it's a baffling narrative choice that most other filmmakers would have botched. But our man Miller's smart enough to recognize that the result of this war is the most foregone of conclusions if you've been paying even the slightest bit of attention, so he effectively brushes past it to get to the emotional heart of the climax and an incredible "Oh shit!" payoff that cements Miller as one of mainstream cinema's greatest sickos.

Fury Road remains the greatest Mad Max film, but Furiosa might be the best thing George Miller has ever made. If not his magnum opus, it does at least feel like his dissertation, and it makes me wish Warner Bros. puts enough trust in him despite Furiosa's poor box office performance that he's able to make The Wasteland. Absolutely ridiculous that a man just short of his 80th birthday was able to pull this off, and with it I feel confident calling him one of my favourite directors.

848 notes · View notes

g-xix · 1 month ago

Text

Where would the Chaos Crew give you hickeys?

feat: George Clarkey, Arthur TV, Cam Kirkham, ChrisMD, Arthur Hill, and Italian Bach

George Clarkey -veinophobes + ppl sensitive ab wrists may wanna skip this one -But hear me out on this one... G Clarkey just loves leaving hickeys on your inner wrist. -He'll be holding your hand, his fingers overlaying yours and enveloping your hand with his larger hand, practically blanketing it when he just trails his fingers down. His touch lingering and loving every fraction of flesh he came in contact with -He has your attention at this point, and you turn your head to look at him - eyes meeting and holding eye contact as his fingers coil around your wrist and hold it up so that he may press his lips to the back of your hand softly, ever so gently placing the most light of kisses as though you're delicate china just waiting to break, eye contact unyielding as his lips make contact with the back of your hand chivalrously -Then his fingers loosen and slide across your skin, fingers tracing and moving across the skin until they feel a soft beating meet his touch; your pulse. -Thumb pressing down and feeling your pulse - the beating of your heart - the flow of blood around your body that keeps you alive - he breaks eye contact to press his lips to the spot, soft kiss replacing his thumb before he forms a suction -still ever so gently - and leaves a hickey over your pulse point as reminder of his love for you and appreciation for having you within his life. -And you always wear your bracelets and watch on the other wrist. Only the rose quartz beaded bracelet and simple gold chain with your anniversary etched onto a small plate would sit on that wrist. Tightened to stay in place and sit on your wrist, on either side of the hickey that decorated the underside of your wrist - Clarkey's physical bracelet he'd imprint onto you and use to remind you of his love.

Arthur Televisionnnn -Shoulders :] -He's such a lil hugger and cuddler, always has his arms around you whether he's tired, drunk, busy - it doesn't matter. -Just loves cuddling with you between his legs, resting back against his chest so that he can wrap his arms around your middle and rest his head against yours or pull you back and watch TikToks with you from your phone... -Sometimes from your fave cuddle position however, Arthur likes just resting his head against the crook of your neck and resting there for a bit... -And Arthur just loves laying down a hickey in that position sometimes -Idk, he just finds it comforting whilst your body is squished against him and he can't really move or do anything of his own, to just move his mouth or have something to do with his mouth -Sometimes, that something will just be filling his mouth with you, and just biting down on your flesh n muscle... And he never bites hard or with intention to hurt you - just lovingly sorta resting his mouth there and giving muffled "mhm" or "mnmm mnmm" responses to whatever short questions you'd give whilst he held you in his mouth. -And other than biting, Arthur does sometimes also put his mouth to use by pressing his tongue against your skin, sometimes licking you just to make you yelp an EW get off! but other times grazing his teeth over your skin and creating a little hickey on your shoulder. Maybe a few hickeys on that shoulder. Maybe he lays down loads of little hickeys on your shoulder until you realise he's going overboard and shrug him off, rotating yourself to lie against him and use him as a body pillow instead. -Good thing about those hickeys is that they're in quite a useful place, in the fact that it sorta looks like it could've been caused by a simple collision with a cupboard or something. Not that you have the height to do that, but we digress. -Only becomes a nuisance when wearing something sleeveless - but even then you don't care, because secretly you're all ooey-gooey inside like a lava cake, knowing that those bruises were formed from the tender moments you spent in your boyfriend's arms whilst he hickeyed you up

ChrisMD -Lower back -Similar to how Arthur sorta relaxes with you between his legs - a common way you and Christopher will spend non-verbal time together, just enjoying each other's presence on that L-shaped sofa in the living room - is with you lying on your front scrolling your phone whilst Chris lies perpendicular to you - on top of your back. -Chris is also much like JJ in the fact that he's not really a massive fan of hickeying, but he finds it funny to leave them sometimes just because they annoy you. -pulls away from your skin giggling you you realise he's been leaving hickeys over the small of your back and you batter his head with a cushion -one thing Chris does is put his hand around your waist by sliding his hand across your back to the place just above your hips where his hand normally sits... -And hearing you let out a little noise at the feeling of his hand brushing over the tender skin where he's left bruises n hickeys always lowkey gives him a little kick + turns him on a bit

Arthur Hill -Jaw jaw jawline jaw -I feel like Arthur is such a kisser, especially after concerts - loves returning back to the hotel, collapsing onto the bed with you on top of him - bodies flush and lips moving synchronously against one anothers' -Fighting belts and zippers to undress one another completely ravenously -Your head inches just slightly upwards, catching a breath of air whilst you can feel Arthur's fingers toying with your skirt - though his mouth is unrelenting and lands on your jaw as you move your head - his mouth latching and leaving a FAT hickey there, right over your pulse point -Does feel bad the next day when you're struggling to disguise it though, especially when you complain about how difficult it is to put concealer over them when that skin is so sensitive -Then he soothes you and apologies with sweet, chaste kisses all over your face - kissing extra delicately over your jawline <3

Cam Kirkham -Ahhh lower stomach mannnnn -Guys. Cam Kirkham is just such a cutie like, he's 100% treating you so so so well in a relationship.... -And I imagine that his aftercare is just so top tier -Like, he's just spending time with you... He's put the show you're binging atm up on the telly, n he's resting his head on his lap whilst you're skimming your fingers through his hair and resting whilst enjoying the show... -And Cam just turns his head, laying down a few wet kisses against your skin, that bit exposed between the top of your shorts and bottom of your crop top... -It's such a sensitive spot too, like, imagine being tickling n feeling lips moving over that? You whine a bit n shuffle, mumbling at Cam about it being sensitive... -He just tells you to lie on down whilst he leaves some little markings on your lower stomach, below your belly button - sorta like his symbol of love n affection -And ofc when it gets sensitive you wrap your legs around his body like a koala hugging a tree -And probs just fall asleep like that. Him falling asleep using your tummy or thighs to rest his head, you yourself falling asleep whilst your fingers are carded through his hair too.

Italian Bach -Oh this is without DOUBT a man that loves just getting all over your neck -Nipping and sucking over your neck until he finds your sweet spot -And ugh he's so tall like is he six foot or more? Idgaf, imagine him sat down - legs manspread out whilst you're sat on his lap, back arched and leaning into his touch whilst he is attacking your neck RAVENOUSLY - leaning down to have his lips absolutely flush with your collarbone n neck, eyelashes brushing over n almost tickling your skin whilst he avidly moves his mouth over your flesh -Ends it off with a passionate make-out session, too - detaching from your neck and smashing your lips together to share the most sloppy n zealous open-mouthed kiss -Will hold you proudly against his side the next day too, just so proud of his work on your neck n markings of what he's done to you -Smug lil smile with his arm around your shoulders, that smile spreading into a grin if he notices anyones' eyes flicker down and look at the almost brutal markings on your neck for just too long

That's the last hickey fic before we move into KINKTOBER 😈😈😈

Hope you enjoyed reading!! Feel free to interact- whether that be a comment, vote or follow! Requests open, feel free to submit what u wanna see... Much love!!

To see more, here's my MASTERLIST

And here's my WATTPAD, with 50+ more oneshots to read

p.s. Customise which Oneshots YOU want to be tagged in by submitting your preferences on THIS GOOGLE FORM + join the taglist!!!

Our lil Chaos Crew Taglist:

@clarkeysbog, @springholland, @mrsnoclue69, @martini4lyfe, @xxkatxgracexx

@sunshinesunny, @danric03, @zandrax, @lyssaluvs, @mekselinaurr

@junodz, @scassty1202, @2themoon-and2saturn, @megaprincesscakes, @softanic

@lilyyxoii, @kennysimp101, @anaaye7, @insomniac4000, @musicalburrage

@x-d1vine, @lordzzz, @lilyyxoii, @amberrrx,

@notalloutofusernames, @imredjack, , @beanhardy, @wh4theduck, @raekensluver,

@ajshabsxxwife, @x-d1vine, @lordzzz, @wh4theduck,

@randombloggggggs-blog, @notalloutofusernames, @pinkpomelo, @kennysimp101

266 notes · View notes