FURIOSA : A MAD MAX SAGA - Press Conference - English - Cannes 2024

[Music] [Applause] headphones so I'm just gonna start by introducing you all to my left the producer of the film Doug Mitchell Chris Emsworth back at at the end of the table tomber an joy and George Miller George if you don't mind I'm going to start with you um Mad Max is part of our life for 45 years now this is a and we just audience member and I cannot imagine what it must have been like for you yesterday night during the standing ovation that was absolutely crazy after the screening did you think of all those 45 years that you lived with Max I I didn't last night I was just thinking about about the movie I just saw because we only finished two and a half weeks ago and that was the best sound I've I've heard and I was delighted by the screening and and of course by the response of people so I didn't but I often think about the while I'm making the films I keep thinking about what happened on previous ones and what I learned and so on how do you expand this that it went so long that this popularity is still here you know you can't really but if I had to sort of suggest some things I think by some luck they were allegorical story stories all of them um it was here in France with the first the first Mad Max that they said uh I think critics and people made the com the comments that they're Westerns on Wheels and that suddenly occurred to me yes they have a lot in common um uh with the Western as aligre in the same way that in Japan they said oh Mad Max is a Samurai and there's a connection with all of those things and and probably the most amazing of them of course is kurasawa who was inspired by the Western and the Western were inspired by his work and so on so I think it's within that tradition I think a question for all of you very simply uh what was the feeling yesterday during uh the Salvation at the end let's start with you me yeah sorry uh um it was really nice it was just nice it was like I mean some some asked me what I was feeling like before and I said the two words that come to mind are electric and jelly and uh which was a slightly uh in unstable feeling and and just at the end it was just a very kind of warm warm glow of Pride and Joy yeah Ana oh um it it's really quite extraordinary to experience something Through The Eyes of an audience I think all of us are so in love with but that naturally kind of means that you always have a moment where you you know too much you know too much of the tricks behind the camera like you you can't really distance yourself and yesterday for the first time I really felt like I could watch it like an audience member and I was so blown away by it blown away by the pacing the sound design just absolutely every single element that our incredible team brought to it and that's really a testament to George because you know there there are people that have worked on this movie that were retired and they come out of retirement for George Miller they come out of retirement to make furiosa um so I just felt really proud of our whole team CHR yeah I came out of retirement uh yes incredible this is my first time to the festival and to be here with George and and this cast and production uh the Mad Max franchise and World holds a very special place in my heart being Australian so it was uh Vivid and had a wonderful sort of nostalgia about my childhood um and the response at the end it just rang the bell of gratitude in my heart for the opportunity and um you know to to to thanks to George for bringing me into the space um and also to the audience who have such a passion for these films and have kept them alive for so many years so it was a real honor D look it's a it's a privilege to be in France you know with with thank the and IIs for inviting us but this this is a spectacular film to watch on the best screen in the world today uh yesterday rather and the other two quick observations is I've been with George for 43 years and watched him Evol into a filmmaker of great you know one of the best in the world perhaps one of the best ever but but also what you don't realize is the size of this Australian film you know on the table everybody's an honorary Australian if not hensworth you know and and very proud of that but but the other the other part of that is George um you know has this ability to lead with uh by example he's he's the hardest working I mean this film started 10 years ago after Fury Road well it was written before that but you know the actual bill to get the film up and it shot with 1300 people in the crew each of them you know admires and is loyal to George because of what he does he leads from the front and you know it's a very difficult film to pull off off we we covered like 1300 people two units shooting Thousand Miles thousand kilometers apart uh and and it's eight months you know hard work for everybody but nobody worked harder than George and then on through postproduction to deliver the sound and the visuals that we saw last night I'm very proud of that also the risk that Warner Brothers took in this world where we have difficulty funding any film every film is like a war this one's a massive one not a war I'm glad again to be here in the in a troubled you know world that we have but but yeah it's it's a massive film and it's very expensive and to do that Warner had to take a risk which they've done and and supported by the Australian governments who have massive rebates that allow us to make the film so thank you to all of us here particularly and to you guys and hopefully the audiences will embrace it yeah thank you no doubt about that H I think very question Jason welcome back welcome Jason gorer from Canada uh George over the last decade I'm wondering if you talk about you're you're you're a pioneer of hybrid between Digital Cinema and practical effects I'm wondering if you could talk how much that has changed compared to shooting Fury Road with this production and if we could talk to the actors this have been a big year people talking about stunties and and actually giving credit to those that actually help you bring the physicality on screen if you could talk about your own physical moments on screen but also those individuals that actually help make you so heroic on screen so thank you very much and congratulations on the film thank you well the the one thing you can say about Cinema is that it's always evolving and changing and particularly the technology I mean I'm I started making films in the analog ERA with Celluloid where it was quite different uh and I was lucky enough to work at the at the beginning of the digital era roughly the early '90s particularly with the Babe films and and consequently with the Happy Feet movies where I really got to understand understand it a lot and it's one of the the vectors which really drives my film making story is above all else and then it's what tools are now available that we can do this with and um it is really interesting how even though it's only nine years how the tools we used on furiosa were quite different and more advanced in in many in many ways the cameras the prev visualization of of all of those things were're a different level and no doubt as the years march on that will as we know that that will change that's one of the Fascinations for me about the process about the stance somebody I mean listen no action movie specifically Mad Max exists without an absolutely unbelievable stunt Department we had the incredible guy Norris who was a stunt man on the first ever Mad Max leading our second unit that was in charge of all of stowaway and beyond that I think when George and I first had a conversation it was very important to him that I was willing to throw myself into it as much as I possibly could but even if you are throwing yourself into it as much as you possibly can there's somebody that has prevised that that is tested that has tested that that has taught you how to do it like my stunt double Haley right is my sister she has been with me consistently we met on this movie she's now one of my best friends in the entire world everything that she did I did too and the most important thing is rather than it being an environment of aggression in any way of like you have to do this it was I love you I believe in you you can do this and I'm going to help you do it in the best possible way that you can God I love these stum people they're so wonderful they're so incedible and you know what best people on set easy always can I just add one add on to what's being said here the other aspect of what this film represents is that every day we all wake up especially George with the reality that we could injure somebody or kill somebody so the stunt Department isn't just there as talented as they all are to to madly do something this is broken down from the get-go it has a tremendous amount of infrastructure underneath it and there were 264 women and Men on that stunt Department one of the sequences took 79 days to shoot every day you're subjected to bad weather covid and just exhaustion and it's important our one priority led by George is not to injure anybody that's our first responsibility the second is to make the film that we enjoy I just wanted to it doesn't make any sense how safe this film was it doesn't make any sense at all all right take we got a question about that hi question here hodri F from janeir question to Mr hamsworth uh amazing character dementus seems to have the cruelty of Dar Vader with the tust of the Looney Tunes what do you believe to be his code of honor and how would you define his sense of humanity and mercy um I like that description thank you uh I I'm I'm a big believer in in in the playfulness of work and and one the know the two not having to be separate entities um no matter what the subject matter I think it should be joyful and um the interesting thing about this character initially that struck me was there was this villainous uh persona but it was very important for George and I we discuss this at length to find the humanity in the character um and to sprinkle in moments of vulnerability and understand that he too was a product of the Wasteland he too had suffered tremendously and and had a traumatic past not to excuse his horrific uh actions but you know to understand that um he was responding and trying to survive in a very brutal space uh there was a a Vibrance and a bombastic sort of nature on the page I felt that this script was very different to the other Mad Max films we discussed this as well at length and wanted to lean into the absurdity of the character wanted to lean into the polarity of him and and have him be contradictory and um hopefully surprising I like the way that humor can lull you into a false sense of comfort so then when you do do something that is violent um or or you know um violent it's unexpected you know as opposed to kind of hinting at it or setting it up um in a sort of more obvious way but to have the the freedom to sort of to be inconsistent as we as humans are uh I found creatively very satisfying and and uh and I love every second of the experience and I really thanks George so much for that I love this one oh hello I'm Helen bow from kuji Australia but I live live in par haris Ashley Hi how are you Tom great bloody Aussie accent mate Ultra convincing um I would just I once saw this uh saw one of the madmax movies with Tom with uh Mel Gibson dubbed into American so it's great that this is just so Australian congratulations for that a lot of you but um but George you you came from Western Queensland you grew up in Western Queensland and I'm just wondering how the desert infected your personality and made you want to set movies there these movies there in particular is it a personal thing a little bit for you well you know uh I I grew up in a rural town where at a time there was no television there was no internet there was just schools Comics school books and the Saturday mat and it was little bit like the the the movie theater in town was like a secular Cathedral or church and we'd go there and we'd see a cartoon News Real a seral and two features and the rest of the time uh we were lucky enough with my brothers and I to play uh we played and played actively making things based on what we saw in the movies acting out what we saw we were on horses we're painting up garbage canned Lids to to look like nights and and things like that and and I think I'm doing a very very similar thing all these uh decades later it was a big influence on me in that life we're going on the other side of the room Ming from C Metropolis Mr Miller with Fury Road you help audience value action movies as art as it should be valued and with fosa you gave it an operatic undertone that heighten its artistic Ambitions it surely is an awesome time to be an action fan and yet I still think that movie goers see it solely as an entertainment es scapis Fair without the same AR artistic value that drama has for instance how to change this perception oh that's that's an interesting observation I I I think from the beginning um Cinema has been kinetic the um I've said this many times but the I'm with Kevin Brownlow who wrote the parades gone by where he stated that the language of cinema this new language which ter just told me was 130 years uh old next year brand new language that we learn before we can read in our own language that was that that was defined that that be for sound uh by the silent filmmakers and almost all of them the key ones were making let's call them action movies bust Keaton in particular Harold Lloyd and so many others so for me it's pure Cinema for me it's visual music I like I like to think of movies um as as in two ways silent movies with sound or as as Alfred Hitchcock said I like to make movies where they don't have to read the subtitles in Japan I think it's the core of Cinema so I don't think we have to even worry about your question even though it's a it's a really interesting observation and you can do you can do anything with this with with with with Cinema and it differentiates self from any other art form it can only be experienced in a cinema on the screen it can't be in the theater it can't be in in life it can't be written on a word it can't even be done with graphic novels so but interesting observation thank you if you don't mind a little follow up on this one uh what I find really amazing with your mmax Mr Miller is that not one film is like the other you always find a visual way to tell the story that is different and I'm not only talking about the story themselves I mean your Cinema is evolving in through each of the movies could you talk a little bit how you want that how you want each one of the man Max to be different well for me for me there are two things there I think if you just repeating what you've done there's sort of no appetite to do it you've explored that and the second thing is um I I why I'm still going and I never thought I'd be making f I never thought I'd make two madmax movies and now I'm on my fifth I and I'm I I've often wondered am I crazy and then I then I realize I'm driven by my curiosity it's a thing and and I I feel that I'm learning and I'm really interested first of all as I said before in the story and then to find the ways that we can best tell that story through the tools available as I said so each story has to be different what was really interesting about this story it's it it there's a marked difference between a film that like Fury Road that you tell on the run and see how much backstory you can pick up that happened over 3 days and two nights the B basically extended scenes almost played in real time compared to something that's a that's a saga that happens over 18 years and watching someone come from a child in an extreme world world and grow into essentially a Mythic Warrior to some degree can I just make one observation I mean just in context of the 45 years Georgia has been making Mad Max I Chris summarized it beautifully when he said that the Americas have they're Batmans and Supermans England Has Its Harry Potter and Australia proudly has Mad Max yeah yeah all right we're going to the back of the room of there yes hi my name is Marcus I work for one press tv in Sweden uh first want to say it was amazing movie I really love the movie and I love the effects the environment the locations and the costumes so George could you just tell us a little bit more about the choice of the locations and the choice of the costumes well every everything that you design or want to be seen in the frame has to serve the story so every costume uh is an extension of course of of the character every prop every weapon every vehicle and if you look at all these stories there there's a a very strong connection between the aesthetic of the vehicle and in a sense the aesthetic of the character so that's really important and so it is with the locations we um there has to be a progression uh through through the story of those things everything serves the progression of the story um and and that's not just something that we do casually that's something that we we we with everyone coming together working on the film that we discuss endlessly we discuss the guide organizing ideas that kind of construct that so that we get we have a coherent internal Logic on absolutely everything you see in the film every gesture people make every bit of makeup every hair so everything uh I I think that answers your question and to be fair that actually kind of connects with this question over here because the thing about the action sequences is that every single one of them is um an extension of a characters want or need none of them are Superfluous and so because of that you are being consistently drawn into people and drawn into what they want and because all of this extends into the exact vehicle that they're driving exactly what they're wearing everything serves to make the world deeper and richer it's not very often that you can be part of a universe where it looks very detailed from far away and then you walk into it and you go oh wow as I get closer everything's just more and more multi-layered um there's nothing by accident and I think you can feel that in the film making could I just something I meant to say about our Australian colleague here yeah you know when you mentioned that we the first Mad Max was dubbed in the United States was dubbed with American accents even though Mel Gibson had was American himself uh and the film completely flopped in in America uh huis Burns who played Tok was from the Royal Shakespeare company and yet he spoke with a Southern American accent it took all this time for every accent in almost every accent in this story to be American uh to be Australian and we never even we never even really discussed it you started speaking uh in Australian accent I think the accent of your grandfather and then we have someone like Tom arrive and says I want to do an Australian accent I said don't try it it's too difficult and and and and and great people have tried it really great people it's not a common sort of accident but Tom Street well L my baby yes but even Merill at that time as genius as she is didn't quite nail it I I believe that was in the 70s no 80 mid-70s was it was that was 35 years ago 35 years ago it's look when I first went to the United States and we said we were from Australia they said do you speak English they thought we were Austrian and anyway I've just got to say I I thought okay Tom let's see you fail and uh and suddenly he's speaking in this Australian accent he has that ability do it it blew me away and I've spent a year in The Cutting Room listening to it and it that's a really nice thing to happen it's specifically Australia uh in this story Ju Just to just to respond to you apparently there's an entire counter of people in the airport for people who are trying to get to Australia and accidentally end up in Austria which like I don't know about you guys but that would suck [Laughter] all right we got a question on hello Gregor BOS German Bavarian television thank you so much for this was really an experience uh I Mr Miller I thought uh a couple years back with you and with Fury Road you're already basically done it all now there's no more War battles on the street because it's been done and again you surpassed yourself and I asked myself where did you get the inspiration who do you work with how do you pull this off have you been doing this for 40 years and last question to all of you how are you driving yourselves driving um boy uh I look as I said I'm I'm I as I said I'm still curious not only about how to tell stories but why we tell stories and I find that's the thing that I think about so often and I've been doing I realize unconsciously I've been doing it as I said since I was a little kid um e even even when I worked as a doctor the first thing you do with a patient is get a history and I found that was being exercised it's through the history of the patient that you understand you're able to put some sort of narrative and then starting to make films I got caught up in in in the kind of process best described by Joseph Campbell as to as to how stories are told the same stories are told over and over again across all cultures across all time that was a fascinating thing for me that we are hardwired for stories we're telling each other stories now you will tell stories about to your friends and family about what happened when you had at this particular moment and so on so I that's that's a thing that sort of drives me and because I've been fortunate enough to be working in cinema this medium which is uses all the senses and this and and and it is always evolving I just can't be can't help me be swept along in that way if that makes sense uh I grew up in the middle of Farmland so I got a lot of that kind of Need for Speed impulse out of my system so I'm kind of mellow uh arm driver these days one one of the other things about this film I think is that exhibitors are reacting to it because it it's a great film to see in a big Cinema as a medium of you know all the things that are happening it changes the way that we look at film or storytelling mobile phones are now one of the mediums streaming and so a big film that George has been able with all of us but basically with the cast and his his own skills to put together is an audio Feast it really is I an you once described it as a rock and roll sort of ball of some kind which is brilliant so it is worth it is worth pointing that out it is not a normal film it's an exceptional film to see in a big Cinema yeah intellectual uh what was it bab it was intellectual philosophical rock and roll Opera that that think I finally got it all right we got ation right in front hi um my name is Lis lopen from Geek wies nation and this is a question for Ana and Tom um I was wondering if you could explain a bit more about the first scene where they met in like the Chas scene it's both like emotional you can see how they look at each other and don't say anything but you can see what they feel and also it's like obviously a lot of action and we also talked about how you felt when you saw the movie yesterday but I also want to know what went through your head when seeing this scene because obviously the Suns oh my God it's amaz amazing and it hides in so much of the emotions and what the actions So yeah thank you very much of course thank you do you mean stow away yeah the I was just so proud of us I was like go Tom go um I I think it's something that we both talked about a lot with George um is I there's so many different types of love in the world and I think a really beautiful love that's not often talked about is yes it's romantic but it's also just a a true belief in somebody's ideals you know he falls in love with her dream he falls in love with her promise he doesn't fall in love with her body necessarily and I thought that was a really beautiful thing to um experience on screen and especially with somebody is lovely and talented as Tom you know I felt like every time that we were just the two of us together there're so much subtext being played out and we're communicating without words and so that was lovely for me you yeah we we wanted to map that really carefully in the fact is it starts with them being a team without even he doesn't even know who his teammate is he thinks his black thumb and suddenly there it's you know there's this flowing hair at baral creature on it baral baral flowing hair um so yeah it was nice to map that carefully and know that all of us wanted it to be the most interesting kind of gentle journey and not yeah not a version of a version of something yeah it's also my favorite line in the movie it's been a hard day like yeah it has mate it it really has before we conclude just for you uh George do you have more Mad Max in you well there's certainly other stories there um mainly because we wrote In order to tell the story of road we had to know the backstory of furiosa and of Max in the year before so we and that was a tool for the cast and crew and so we we know the max story for the year before but I I'll definitely wait to see how this goes before we we even think about this should be more than all right one last thing Merc thank you very much mer than

Channel: Festival de Cannes

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Length: 31min 9sec (1869 seconds)

Published: Thu May 16 2024