I don’t think I’ll ever be over the blood donation scene in Fury Road. The way Furiosa’s dying, and she uses her last moments of consciousness to tell Max “get them home.” That she, ferocious warrior, imperator, stolen child, is, in her last moments of life, so loved, and so full of love and the selfless need to protect these women and get them home. The way Max’s hands are huge, rough and dirty – hands that have snapped necks and fired guns – but they are so gentle when he cradles her. The way he mutters “I’m so sorry, sorry” every time he has to hurt her to make it better. That he’s barely spoken all film but now he’s feverishly muttering to her, “there you go, okay” and stringing together as many syllables as he can muster because the silence is just unbearable. That his body has been abused and exploited and drained of blood without his consent so many times, but now at last he’s free, he has a choice and he chooses to giveher his blood. The way his name – his identity – was the last thing he could call his own, but as he holds her in his arms and waits for his blood to run into her and fill her with life again, as he finally fixes what’s broken, he goes, here, you can have it, Max. My name is Max. That’s my name. And it’s yours.
Because before he met her, he was a man reduced to a single instinct: survive. He was a muzzled animal, a raging feral, and treated as such. But then he got caught up in their escape and she gave him the tools to free himself. She asks him “what’s your name? What do I call you?” She treated him like a human being and in protecting and loving Furiosa and these abused women without asking for anything in return, he recovers his humanity, so of course, here, it’s yours, my name is Max, it’s the last thing I have and it belongs to you.
It’s an extraordinarily beautiful scene visually too, and I honestly think it might be the most profound declaration of love that’s ever occurred in an action film.
This is not “I’m too fucking macho to tell you”, it’s “I can’t handle identity right now or maybe ever”.
IIRC, Furiosa naming him “Fool” is the only time in the whole show that one character teases another. It’s not completely devoid of jokes – Toast makes a sex joke about a pistol, Dag tells her baby to stay put, it’s lost it’s novelty out here. We see affection and care between different characters, especially the five, but we don’t see any teasing in the forms of status games – no physical play, or insults, or reminders of past embarrassments, except this one.
And this is an incredibly high stakes moment. Why does Furiosa do it? She’s insulting Max when he’s already really damn on edge, and she’s about to give him control of the rig and make him responsible for their escape plan. At first glance it looks like a really stupid idea to take a poke at a guy who’s currently holding a gun on you.
The obvious reason is that teasing (when it’s not bullying) is an indicator of a close social bond. You only tease people you’re comfortable with. She’s giving Max an insulting nickname because when you act as though you’re comfortable, it helps you become comfortable. She’s trying hard to deescalate the situation and win him over, and this is one tool for doing so.
I think there’s a more subtle reason too, and it’s that Furiosa sees right through him. She already knows that Max was human once, and is afraid to be human again. Teasing isn’t unique to the human species, but it’s one of our higher order functions and it’s very, very relational. Furiosa isn’t just trying to fake a bond with Max that doesn’t exist yet, she’s trying to remind him of his humanity. He’s just denied his humanity and avoid relationship by refusing to give his name. She’s going to drag him back into humanity by the scruff of his neck if he has to, and by calling him a fool she’s pointing out that she sees his attempts to avoid attachment and that it’s, well, foolish. Not helpful for survival, either physically or emotionally, and she needs him, dammit.
The obvious Doylist explanation of the scene is that names are important in this show (such good meta about that today!), and naming Max ‘Fool’ is symbolic on a number of different levels. It’s one of a million pieces of heart-rending meaning that Miller and co. packed into this thing. But I think that explanation works on a Watsonian level as well. Furiosa doesn’t have time to think all of this through rationally, but she intuitively knows how to draw Max into the group and she does it with consummate skill. By calling him names.
Steel Phoenix Studios 