Monday, October 19, 2015
Mad Max Nihilism
In the movie Mad Max Fury Road: Fury Road nihilism is portrayed throughout the film. One point being is that the setting takes place after nuclear warfare and it is a violent movie with road battles between Max and the women in the war rig verses a couple of civilizations trying to catch and kill them. The primary civilization that is chasing after the main characters believe that that sacrificing themselves by risking their lives while in battle will reward them in the after-life. In Mad Max: Fury Road, one of the focused main characters, Nux, soon realized that their leader, Immortan Joe, was corrupt and controlled everything but before he changed his views he tried killing himself in a kamikaze type way in to the war rig yelling, "I live, I die, I live again." Spray painting themselves in the mouth and getting ready to commit suicide shows nihilism in the movie by explaining life is meaningless until they sacrifice themselves for their leader. Throughout movie the story tends to lose some of the nihilistic views though. The first half of the movie seems more nihilistic than the second half because there isn't a lot of dialogue in the beginning. Max and Imperator seem mysterious and the audience does not know why or where they are escaping to. It just seems like a bunch of people killing and blowing each other up until we learn that their purpose is to find hope and do better for themselves and others by saving the people from the civilization.
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In the dystopian Mad Max: Fury Road, I agree that a nihilistic world is portrayed. As was written, the beginning of the movie had more of a nihilistic point of view than the second half of the movie. The beginning, it seems, was merely set on creating the nihilistic setting of a post-apocalyptic world. Life itself is reduced to a mere chore; each person existing has a specific role. Nothing has any means unless it is for the better of the community. To support this idea, Max had said at the beginning of the movie, “… A man reduced to a single instinct: survive…” This helps the audience realize how belittling and meaningless it is to be alive in Max’s era.
ReplyDeleteIn the movie Mad Max: Fury Road, I agree the idea of nihilism was throughout. The idea like said above of simply surviving helped get the point of nihilism across that, characters, especially Max and the heroine, was they didn't care about life and the meaning, they just wanted to survive. But in the end with "where we must go, we who wander this wasteland, in search for our better selves" changes my ideas if Max really is as nihilistic as the film portrayed, showing that in the end, he started to question who he was and what he was doing with his actions.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Mad Max: Fury Road portrays nihilism throughout the span of the movie, though its setting, characters and dialogue. The beginning scene portrays a desolate environment, with a voice over that explains about how it came to be. The entire setting is set in a desert, so no water which makes the people more willing to follow whoever controls the water. At one point about half way through the movie, after the girls find out there’s no “Green Place”, Max says that “hope is a mistake. If you can’t fix what’s broken, you’ll…you’ll go insane.” Which I thought was a very nihilistic way of looking at their lives. They don’t have a home and they are trying to decide if they should take over the Citadel’s compound to give themselves a chance at making a life for themselves somewhere they can make safe for them.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the nihilism point that in the beginning Nux believed that there was no meaning to life that in his words “I live. I die. I live again.” This shows that life to him was no big deal that no matter what happened to him he would always be alive. The same went for Max, not until the end of the movie did his nihilistic point of view go away. When Max said “My name is Max. My world is reduced to a single instinct: Survive.” Is a perfect example of what a nihilistic mind set encompasses, he believed that nothing except his survival mattered. The lives of others did not matter to Max nor did the possessions of others, not until the end did Max see the importance in actually caring for something. Once Max finally saw the importance in not having a nihilistic view of everything, he finally became happy.
ReplyDeleteI agree that in the movie Mad Max: Fury Road nihilism is portrayed. The main characters escaped from their dystopian society and were fighting many other dystopian civilizations in the process of heading to “The Green Place,” Imperator Furiosa’s original home. Life in the movie seems meaningless, like it’s a job to live day by day. The first part of the movie, as Nick said, was more nihilistic than the second part. The characters in the beginning portrayed nihilism a lot by sacrificing their own meaningless lives for their leader, Immortan Joe. The second half was more focused on the characters surviving and the ending where Imperator Furiosa and Max killed Immortan Joe. In the end Max and Furiosa show the audience that they overcame Nihilism and that their lives have all the meaning in the world now that have regained their freedom along with everyone else's.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the movie Mad Max: Fury Road was a nihilistic dystopia. In the beginning of the movie the main character, Max, talks about a ruined world and how it messed up the people on earth “Once, I was a cop. A road warrior searching for a righteous cause. As the world fell, each of us in our own way was broken.” I think the quote hints that many people lost a sense of purpose after the nuclear holocaust. I also think that many characters sacrificed themselves throughout the movie for Max, because he seems to have a purpose in life whether it was for his blood or just needing him to lead the group to the “Green Place”. Max himself might not have seen a purpose in him being alive, but the other characters did and did their best to protect them. For example, Angharad could have let Max die, but instead sacrificed her and her unborn child’s life to protect him.
ReplyDeleteI agree Mad Max has many elements of Nihilism, in a world after a gas war and a water war, nothing but a barren landscape is left. Max not only has to live in this world but is eventually captured by a gang of “Half-life’s”, and is used as a blood donor to keep one of them alive. There are other gangs in the world that fight each other for supplies. In the movie Mad Max explains that this world has hardened him that he has no emotions left, that “I exist in this wasteland, reduced to one instinct: survive”. The world is so tough that all he can do is survive he has no time or energy to do anything else. This is what I picture as a Nihilistic movie, post-apocalyptic and with little to no hope left.
ReplyDeleteThis movie does show major effects of nihilism because the whole skull community live and breath for their leader to make him happy as well as sacrifice their body, mind, and soul if needed. The workers all look the same, having bald heads and pale skin. I also noticed everyone’s eyes, including the higher authority, are light colors, shinning through destruction, bombs, and racing dust in the air. The workers regulate the women and their breast pumping for the higher authority, while the leader of the skull society controls the water that he scarcely gives the people with no work food or water. These people worship him and love him because of the water he gives. They do not realize he is holding so much back from them. Also in the movie, later on there are multiple groups of racers who all follow their own rules ad regulations. This movie is very nihilistic because of those multiple groups.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the idea if nihilism is portrayed in the movie Mad Max: Fury Road, but as the movie goes on this idea is rejected more than it is embraced. The thought of hopelessness is very present closer to the beginning of the movie. The viewer can see that Max thinks this when he makes the comment that “You know, hope is a mistake. If you can't fix what's broken, you'll, uh... you'll go insane.” He's saying that in the end being hopeful will drive one mad. However, as the storyline progressed there is a shift in this kind of thinking. Max begins to have hope again when he states “At least that way we might be able to... together... come across some kind of redemption.” When he says this it shows how much this adventure and the people with him have changed his perspective. They all have hope and are doing this for a reason. They are risking their lives because they believe it will be worth it in the end and are hopeful of a better future.
ReplyDeleteI agree that nihilism is shown throughout the movie. At few times the movie seems to lose track of this ideal. The part where Max wants to go back and fight the citadel is a way that nihilism shows itself again. It’s like their attitudes show that they are ready to die. Without that dictatorship going down, there is no point of them to be alive. There is a meaningless feeling that they all have in them that much be fulfilled in only one way. To make a change in the catastrophic world that they live in. This careless for a person’s own self is actually pretty surprising knowing what time of environment these people live in. All of these people know that dying for themselves is nothing. That they must die for the community is what they believe is the right thing to do. Spray painting themselves to prove that they are committed to death is just outrageous and crazy.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Nick because in this movie at the beginning, there is a clear set of who is in control, and who has clearly less power. The people working in the valley this movie portrays are all physically the same. They had a bald head, very pale light skin, and wore no shirt. The in charge people show greediness. The commoners down in the lower area of the valley have no food, no water, and no clothes. These people praise the master because when they see him, they have the hope of maybe being able to catch some water from the wells opened for a few seconds. These people are so used to having a certain time and place to get what they need for survival. This shows nihilism because all the working class protect and look the same, while doing everything they are told to do by the master.
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