109: Praetorian Jack

I caught Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga a second time last weekend, because I'm working on an essay about the movie for Reactor.com (watch this space). The movie rewards rewatches; its five-act structure is unusual enough that having a sense for the movie's rhythm a second time around really helped me be able to sit back and soak in more of the details. One of the pieces that didn't work for me the first time was the character of Praetorian Jack, played by Tom Burke. He's a driver for Immortan Joe, responsible for getting the War Rig across the desert to Gas Town and the Bullet Farm on supply runs, the same job Furiosa has in Mad Max: Fury Road. Jack threw me off on the first watch because he's so quiet. He has a reputation for being reliable—the War Boys talk about how good he is at his job in hushed tones—but the character is so soft-spoken that he's easy to miss. He doesn't have any of the loud bravado or macabre costume choices of any of the other characters out in the Wasteland. He might even be a good person. In a Mad Max movie, that characterization is jarring.

I think that's the point of the character. He's a nondescript man with nice hair who happens to be very good at a lousy gig; being a driver in the Wasteland doesn't exactly guarantee a long life. Burke plays him almost like a bartender with a long tenure at a dive bar who's seen some shit and who knows that posturing doesn't really add all that much to the job. He just wants to clock in and clock out. Burke delivers one of my favorite line readings in the entire movie when he admits to Furiosa "It's been a hard day," after everyone but them on the War Rig has died in a skirmish. We don't really get to know Jack as a person beyond his ability to drive and fight, but that isn't the point of the movie. The fact that he has a good respectful working relationship with Furiosa is enough. Praetorian Jack puts the lie to all the other colorful characters out in the Wasteland who have taken the end of the world as permission to go completely feral.

What I'm reading:

Miss May Does Not Exist, a biography of the elusive multi-hyphenate Elaine May, by Carrie Courogen. (Full disclosure: Carrie and I know each other, and she's edited some of my work over at Bright Wall/Dark Room.) I'm still in the early chapters of Elaine May's life, and already I'm taken with just how deft Carrie is at pulling out the slippery truth about a subject who wants to perform, but would prefer not to be perceived. I love it so far.

What I'm watching:

I've reached a level of dirtbag cinephilia where I think I'm comfortable with the idea of watching James Bond movies again. I like some of the Daniel Craig movies just fine, but I've always looked down my nose at a series that seems like an excuse for stupid gadgets and misogynist behavior. Not sure what it says about me that I finally got the itch to go back and watch some of the more classic James Bond movies this summer, but I think it's time for at least a few dalliances with the franchise. We watched Goldfinger last night. It's stupid! I had fun in spite of myself and the movie! I'll dip in and out of the series a little more this summer, partly to satisfy my own curiosity and partly to confirm my theory that this isn't a series for me.