Furiosa director: Explicit violence best kept off-screen

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It is 45 years since the first Mad Max film starring Mel Gibson was released. Set in a post-apocalyptic Australia, biker gangs run wild fighting for scarce resources of fuel and water. It was the vision of director and co-writer George Miller. After the initial trilogy, Miller returned to the world of Mad Max in 2015 with the critically acclaimed Fury Road, which introduced the character of Furiosa, a warrior played by Charlize Theron. Now Miller is back with Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, an origin story starring Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth. The BBC's Samira Ahmed asked George Miller about the inspiration for the film. "It came basically out of two ideas - the first was 'can we tell a story on the run?' Almost like a continuous chase or a race and pick up all the backstory and exposition as we go... The second idea was 'what would happen if the thing that was basically fought over, the governing thing driving the narrative and the conflict, what if it was human?', says Miller. A noticeable element of the film is that the violence is rarely explicit, torture is suggested rather than displayed, and there's no sexual violence. Was this a conscious decision? "I've always had the notion that it should be abstracted. Keep the monster off the screen, because then it plays more in the mind of the audience," says Miller. "Once you're explicit, it gives the audience nowhere to go." (Photo: Director George Miller attends the UK premiere of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga in London, Britain, 17 May, 2024. Credit: Maja Smiejkowska/Reuters)