Mad Max: Fury Road Opening Scene Analysis

(Up to 3:04)

In the beginning of Mad Max: Fury Road, there is a black screen with a non-diegetic sound of an unknown man narrating in the background to which the audience will question who this is, we hear him say "My world is fire and blood", this alone indicates that this film may be an action/thriller due to these both being conventions of an action/thriller type film. The black screen then fades into the opening title sequence, this part shows the production company and the opening credits, however in the background we can hear shouting and gun shots, this is another indication of the genre however this also makes the audience question what is happening, perhaps a war of some sort or a battle. The camera soon cuts to a long shot of what the audience will assume to be our main protagonist/character, this shot is also an establishing shot showing an isolated empty location, this may indicate that there was a mass war which eradicated the landscape. The camera then continues to pan downwards, during this, we hear an non-diegetic sound of what sounds to be a young girl saying "Where are you", this may suggest that he has abandoned his daughter or maybe she had died before he could save her. After this we soon hear another voice talking about how Max had "promised to help them". This gives us the idea that Max was either on a mission to save these people or had abandoned them when they were in need, this may have been to save himself instead of the others. The camera then cuts to an over the shoulder shot of Max who is seen turning his head whilst eating a two-headed lizard. The two headed lizard tells the audience that this is a very different world that he lives in compared to us.

We soon see fast paced shots as we see Max enter his vehicle which is seen to have a gun on the bonnet of it, this suggests to the audience that he is in constant danger and has to protect himself. We soon see his car drive off into the distance leaving an empty shot of the location, this shot is held for a few seconds before we see another selection of vehicle on the same route as him which suggests that he is being chased. We can tell that these are the antagonists due to the Mise-en-scene showing that they are barbaric and aggressive and are shown to 'hunt' in groups. We then see an extreme long shot showing the group of barbarians chasing our protagonists car to which we see one of the people in the other vehicle throw a spear at the car causing an explosion and the car to flip. The smoke made from this makes it hard for the audience to see what is happening but can make out that the car is coming towards the camera, this will leave the audience on the edge of their seat to see what happens next. When the smoke clears we see a close up of our protagonist struggling to make it out of the car, at this point we think that Max has cheated death and escaped danger. During this part, we hear a non-diegetic sound of his voice narrating who he is, he says "I am the one who runs from the living and the dead, hunted by scavengers, haunted by those who i could not protect". This tells the audience immediately that this man is on his own and is in constant danger and that he was unable to save his people who stood beside him. We soon see the antagonists stop next to him and hold him down with a gun to his head, this indicates that these people are scavengers and are hunting him down for a reason as yet unknown to the audience. The camera then cuts to a long shot in the distance to which we see the scavengers drive off with Max chained to the back running to keep up with the vehicles or he would die.