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In this chapter Roslyn Weaver explores 'the three Mad Max films to consider their contribution to the apocalyptic tradition. In these texts, the outback is 'the nothing,' a threatening place that is hostile to humans. The trilogy reveals future disaster and appears to envisage a better new world, but then subverts apocalyptic hope by suggesting the new world is a false ideal because it only exists far from the Australian landscape and even then only exists far from the Australian landscape and even then only in ruined, decayed form. The repeated dismissals of hope and the negative image of the Australian landscape undercut any security of feeling at home, presenting instead a picture of exile and punishment in the desert.' (83)
Notes
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Epigraph: This Pox-Elipse happened and that's - it's all finished, just isn't there anymore...[The desert is] worse than nothing. the first place you'll find is a sleaze pit called Bartertown. Now if the earth doesn't swallow you up first, that place sure as hell will. - Max (Mel Gibson), from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Last amended 14 Jun 2012 12:10:19
83-107
An Apocalyptic Landscape : The Mad Max Films

Subjects:
- Mad Max 1979 series - author film/TV
- Crocodile Dundee 1985 single work film/TV
- Picnic at Hanging Rock 1975 single work film/TV
- Wake in Fright 1971 single work film/TV
- Wolf Creek 2005 single work film/TV
- Gone 2007 single work film/TV
- Rogue 2007 single work film/TV
- Black Water 2007 single work film/TV
- Long Weekend 1978 single work film/TV
- Wake in Fright 1971 single work film/TV
- Australian Outback, Central Australia,
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