Within the late Seventies, George Miller was a doctor-turned-filmmaker toiling away on his debut characteristic, “Mad Max,” a kinetic cop flick set within the close to future starring a then-unknown Mel Gibson. Although “Mad Max” would in the end revolutionize motion filmmaking and spawn 4 sequels, together with “Furiosa,” Miller was pissed off at his incapability to totally notice his imaginative and prescient and struggled to get the immersive chase sequences he envisioned on display. Fortunately, he had a collaborator who not solely confirmed him the ropes when it got here to conceptualizing and executing stunts but additionally offered a brand new manner of filmmaking that gave him the inspiration to maneuver ahead.
“If there wasn’t a Grant Web page, there wouldn’t have been a ‘Mad Max,’” Miller instructed IndieWire when he was a visitor on an upcoming episode of the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast. “He taught me issues concerning the work and strategy it that I nonetheless remembered whereas I used to be capturing ‘Furiosa.’” Web page was the stunt coordinator on “Mad Max,” and he’s a legendary determine within the historical past of Australian cinema — not only for his ground-breaking set items in Miller’s movie but additionally for his work on a number of classics by Brian Trenchard-Smith (“The Man from Hong Kong,” “Stunt Rock”) and his efficiency because the killer in Richard Franklin’s “Street Video games,” a film praised by Quentin Tarantino and others in “Not Fairly Hollywood: The Untold Story of Ozploitation!” as one of many best of all Australian thrillers.
In that very same documentary, Trenchard-Smith referred to Web page as “the man you get to dodge the automobiles, slide down the cliff on fireplace, soar into the water and battle the shark,” however for Miller, Web page was greater than one of many nice daredevils in a occupation crammed with them. “He had a really scientific strategy to issues,” Miller mentioned. “He was doing issues that nobody else was doing on the time. After we requested him to do ‘Mad Max,’ we had hardly any cash and we had no expertise in any respect.” Ten days into the shoot, earlier than the corporate had even shot any stunts, Web page’s motorbike was hit by a truck whereas he was touring to the placement, and he ended up within the hospital. “After three or 4 days, he checked himself out of the hospital and turned up on the set in a wheelchair. There are pictures of him carrying a plaster forged on his face as a result of his nostril needed to be corrected, and he had plaster on his leg.”
Finally, Web page minimize off his plaster and directed a number of of the film’s awe-inspiring stunts; he additionally carried out one of many film’s most well-known stunts, a automotive flying by way of an RV. “He was simply wonderful,” Miller mentioned. Web page additionally gave Miller a perspective that the younger director desperately wanted because the movie wound down, and Miller feared he had misplaced management of each his film and his crew. “He mentioned, ‘George, you ever hear concerning the Indian courageous who would exit each full moon and fireplace an arrow on the moon? Everybody thought he was loopy. Now, he by no means hit the moon, however he fired an arrow additional than anybody else had.’ And that basically caught with me. He had an enormous affect on my work and life and was a normal inspiration for try.”
Web page handed away in a automotive accident on the age of 85 whereas “Furiosa” — his ultimate credit score as a stunt performer — was in post-production. “I noticed him a month earlier than he died,” Miller mentioned. “He mentioned, ‘We don’t get outdated, we get lazy. We get caught in our personal orthodoxies. It’s virtually denying that the whole lot is all the time adapting. The world turns into too bewildering for us, so we now have to lock into dysfunctional views of the world which don’t acknowledge that we’re consistently altering and evolving, by way of tradition and the whole lot else.’ That’s Grant.”
Search for IndieWire’s Filmmaker Toolkit podcast episode with George Miller on podcast platforms Could 28.