Chiasmus cult cinema trailers - "Mad Max" (1979). *These will be ongoing posts, courtesy of the A.Glass DVD collection. As I offer via Chiasmus Cult trailers, my summarized overviews*

What better movie encapsulates the turmoil of the late 1970s inflation, oil crisis and violence, then George Miller's "Mad Max" (1979).  And did not the1970s warn us, that pending Far Right politics, neoliberalism and attempts to reestablish conservatism, were creeping back after the 1960s.  Yet held back, well into the 1980s by the 'boomers' imprinted hedonism, which was their counterculture buffer, which kept the whole thing rolling until Generation X, turned twenty in the 1990s and threw it all into the dustbin, and look what we have today, that dystopian future predicted in the 1970s.  Miller's Mad Max, was that perfect fit of the beginning of the end of the grindhouse shockers, which bypassed censors, and the time, laying down the groundwork in creating edgy cinema for the mainstream.  And Miller on a shoestring budget was able to tap that creative sweet spot, as we moved into the 80s.

"Mad Max" was George Miller's debut, and eight years earlier creating a postmodern - esque documentary titled Violence in Cinema Part 1 in 1971, the idea that violence and cars, are  inseparable, also playing in tune with the late J.G. Ballard's 1974 novel "Crash" set the stage of this uniquely Australian dystopian drama, with some of the best, for its time, car stunts, action sequences and popular culture imprint years later.  Filmed in Melbourne City between 1978 and 1979, with locations in and around the Southern part of Victoria, you can be forgiven, if you grew up watching this movie, imagining, while on a roadtrip with your parents, motorcycles and supercharged V8s roaring down the expansive countryside. And what it would be like, when everything begins to go to shit, and you're living in Melbourne City, and it kinda all makes sense, at least aesthetically.  And that is what Mad Max is, essentially an aesthetically well crafted, violent, dystopic movie with fantastic Australian accents.

And to think when "Mad Max" when it was released in America in 1980, the Americans, bless them, dubbed the accents to suit an American audience.  But, the Americans, yes bless them again, embraced the Australian aspect of the movie, particularly Miller's ability to film car chase sequences in his 35mm, wide screen style, utilizing a retrofitted filming rig, at street level to give it his trademark Mad Max car chase style.

So, sit back, buckle up, pretend that we are living in pre collapse, gritty 1979 (not our current 2026 global Fascism), and the "white line nightmare" is real, and enjoy "Mad Max", followed by "Max Max 2" (1981), while wishing for a prequel to be made (some point in the future, yes that was a pun), between the events of Mad Max and Mad Max 2, and it is created in the same vein as those two iconic Australian movies.  

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(A.Glass 2026)

All CHIAMUS Cult Cinema trailers/commentary to date: chiasmusmagazine.blogspot.com/search/label/Chiasmus%20cult%20cinema