Mad Max: Fury Road - Black and Chrome Edition

Mad Mad: Fury Road is an unadulterated masterpiece. Quite how a $150 million film that contains little dialogue and mostly visual storytelling with bizarre character designs and an unrelenting pace got green lit by a studio is a mystery. The now 72-year old director George Miller threw his all into making this one, with an infamously difficult shoot, which ultimately led to one of the greatest action films of all time. In my opinion, one of the greatest crimes of Oscar history was Miller not winning best director in 2015. Sure, Alejandro Inarritu shot The Revenant in the woods. And, sure it's a great film but Inarritu did win best director the previous year for Birdman ... and this is the film George Miller had been building up to directing for decades and he deserved more credit. 

Fortunately, the film was a huge hit with audiences and critics as they latched onto a 21st century take of the classic post-apocalytpic series with stunning action sequences, minimal dialogue, breath-taking shots, great acting, brilliant art design and a feminist undercurrent. In fact before returning to writing, I contributed to a YouTube channel called Absence of Waldo and we did our initial reactions/review after just coming back from seeing it way back in 2015. Our original review is probably still floating around on there, so check it out (I'm the one on the right). My appreciation has only grown for the film with each subsequent viewing. It's certainly one for the ages and is a masterpiece of action cinema. However, after the film's release, George Miller revealed that he originally wanted to make and release Fury Road in black-and-white. The studio, already taking a bit of risk, decided to veto this in favour of a colour production. However, six Oscars later and a successful box-office run meant that Miller could return to his original vision for Fury Road. This cut, entitled the Black and Chrome Edition has been floating around for a while now on home video and has seen limited release in cinemas. However, finally, for one day only, UK fans are able to experience, what George Miller calls, "the best version of the film" on the big screen. 

I won't get too much into plot details, as those seeing this have likely already seen the film several times. Max (Tom Hardy) is a loner drifter in a post-apocalytpic world. He encounters a colony, under the rule of the tyrannical Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), who controls the local water supply out of gigantic skull shaped monolith in the middle of the desert. Max finds himself captured by Immortan's crew, including the brain washed War Boys and future defector Nux (Nicholas Holt). However Max soon finds himself brought along for the ride when Furiosa (Charlize Theron), a commander in Joe's army, escapes the compound with several of the villain's 'breeders' - women capable of carrying non-mutated children. Furiosa's goal is to the reach the mythical 'green lands', somewhere out in the wastelands, and escape the grasp of Joe. Max and Furiosa form a tenuous alliance as they embark on an insane road trip across a hellish landscape as they desperately try to outrun the onslaught of Immortan Joe's crew.

This is still the same film you love. The story beats are perfect, the visuals are breath-taking, the art-design is wonderful and the stunts and action sequences are some of the best ever committed to film. Now, the first time I saw this film in the cinema, the sound was a little bit off. To be honest, this is part of the reason why I was desperate to see this re-release. I have a great sound system at home but nothing can match a high-quality cinema presentation. Now, seated in a much better cinema, the true masterpiece that is the sound design of this film can be fully appreciated. However, the biggest attraction is of course to see the black-and-white version and consider if this is the superior version. Filmmakers continue to be fascinated by black and white in a post Technicolor world. There is something fascinating about how black and white can frame scenes in unexpected ways and to be used as part of a wider thematic portrait for a film. It's been used either for budgetary reasons (Eraserhead), style (Sin City), impact (Schindler's List), nostalgia (Manhattan), to pay homage to older source material (Ed Wood), to evoke gritty realism (La Haine), to comment on a character (Raging Bull) or to pretend that your rubbish is really art (Clerks). George Miller continues in this vein of exploring the possibilities of black and white and has presented audiences with a fascinating counter-balance to the original version of Fury Road. This initially seems a very odd conceit. After all, one of Fury Road's greatest attributes is its vivid colour palette. George Miller in an interview said that "the default position for everyone is to de-saturate post-apocalyptic films. There's only two ways to go, make them black and white ... but people reserve that for art house movies ... [or] really go all-out on the color (sic)" (1). The vivid teals and oranges of the sky and desert respectively are beautiful to behold. However, here is the Black and Chrome Edition, which allows audiences to make their own minds up. 

There is something fascinating and hypnotic about the colour being completely stripped from this film. Suddenly sequences from the original make more sense in black and white. The whole film takes on an even more epic look and suddenly the barren wasteland of the original becomes even more hostile. The wide shots best show this, as tiny black dots are backed against stark white landscapes. Suddenly that prospect of hope that the characters are trying to attain seems even harder to reach in a world sucked of its colour. It soon becomes clear that Miller had this version of the film in the back of his head when he was composing these shots. Even the close-up shots better illustrate the determined rage of the characters' eyes. The two most important liquids in the film, blood and water take on a clear black and white contrast - which works within the story - both are crucial for survival. Night shots in particular benefit greatly from the conversion. I always felt before they had a bit too much digital gleam in the original. Now the haunting shots of the crow men in the bog suddenly become more menacing and Furisoa firing that sniper shot to take out the head-light of a rig in pitch darkness becomes even more satisfying. One of the most powerful moments in the film, when Furiosa discovers that her green place has been claimed by desert, now has added weight as her shadowy body collapses into the encroaching white desert. Better yet, the conversion now highlights the shifts in the sand, which makes it clear that eventually time will consume all. One of the most beautiful sequences now is the venture into the sand-storm from the opening chase scene. It is whirlwind of blacks and grays, with the occasional sudden flash of white. Honestly - it brought a little tear to me eye. The action scenes are as dizzying as ever and the conversion shows off  the scope and elegance of the explosions, stunts and rigs. 

Mad Max: Fury Road is already essential viewing and any excuse to see it on the big-screen is justified. However, fans now have an interesting counter balance with the Black and Chrome Edition that further shows George Miller's mastery of cinema. The films gains an unexpectedly more desolate and (even more) epic feel, evoking classic movies. By sapping the colour, Miller further makes us consider the conflicts and contrast between the characters in this post-apocalyptic world. The Black and Chrome Edition may well be the definitive version of this modern classic. What a lovely day indeed. 

Rating: 10/10

References

(1) Russ Fischer, 'Eight Awesome Bits of Mad Max: Fury Road Trivia', http://www.slashfilm.com/fury-road-trivia/3/ (accessed 30/04/2017