Without Words: George Miller and Wong Kar-Wai

The Art of Visual Storytelling in Mad Max and the Films of Wong Kar-Wai

Still from George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road

George Miller has said repeatedly in interviews that he wanted to make Mad Max: Fury Road, as Alfred Hitchcock said, “where they don’t have to read the subtitles in Japan.”

Still from George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road

Seems like most folks agree: He succeeded. On a massive scale.

That drive to invest so much into the image, though, that resonates. How many filmmakers really burn such an indelible imprint on your cerebral cortex? How many director’s really share a rare, fresh vision with you? Something you know will linger with you? Will send you off to Google image search, looking for wallpapers and screensavers images and hi-res files to squirrel away into your desktop folders?

Still from Wong Kar-Wai’s Fallen Angels

That’s exactly how I felt watching Wong Kar-wai’s Fallen Angels the first time I saw it. Gorgeous, visual storytelling where you didn’t need to understand a word which was said. But still you identify with the characters, even as you want to pause each scene and take a screen capture, so you can frame it.

Still from Wong Kar-Wai’s Chungking Express

That mid-90s viewing prompted me to watch the rest of his films, repeatedly.

Still from Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love

Chungking Express, In the Mood for Love, Happy Together, 2046 — they’re all visual masterpieces.

Still from Wong Kar-Wai’s 2046

All of those films, I might add, coaxed into being by Wong with the aid of the masterful and painterly cinematographer Christopher Doyle. He happens to be an Australian. As is George Miller. Co-incidence? (Well, I’m biased.)

Still from Wong Kar-Wai’s Happy Together

Doyle is self-taught and this is how he explains his method:

(The camera is) just a tool. I still don’t really know anything about it. I mean, I know a little bit because I forced myself to know it, but it’s really the same thing as before — just another tool. You’ve still got your eyes, you still have got to know how you perceive things and how you approach the technology and the possibilities you’ve seen in their application. That makes the art.

Still from Wong Kar-Wai’s Happy Together

Art that’s a feast for the eyes. Still. Turn up the sound. Wong has a lovely ear for music and sound, too. (Despite the language barrier, he introduced me to Massive Attack via a cover of questionable legality in Fallen Angels.) But, if like me, you’re a stranger in a strange land — watching a Hong Kong flick at the time in Pusan, Korea with Korean subtitles — you don’t need to speak Chinese to appreciate the world he’s depicting.

Still from Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love

Just let those glorious images wash over you.

@stribs