Smitten With a Whip: Three Appreciations of Indiana Jones

Links (3)

Indiana Jones and The Nature Nature of Heroism
Published 5/21/2008 by Phillip Johnston at MovieZeal
... “Fortune and glory, kid. Fortune and glory,” says Indy to Short Round in The Temple of Doom. Yet Indy says it in an extremely flat monotone, expressing that fortune and glory have perhaps worn out their welcome for him. How fitting that Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom is a prequel to the other two Jones films, for in it we witness an immense change in Indy. Matt Zoller Seitz points this change out beautifully in his recent post on The Temple of Doom by saying, “‘Fortune and glory’ is the lie that the old Indy has ...

Indy Recall
Published 5/22/2008 by noreply@blogger.com (rob humanick) at The Projection Booth
... (effectively detailed here by Matt Zoller Seitz – read all three pieces while you’re at it, they're more than worthwhile) says it all, in that Spielberg isn’t out so much to recreate the effect of Raiders (a fruitless effort, really, since Indiana’s debut stands pretty close to perfection) as he is to have a good time bucking convention. Such scoffing at expectations is made even more immediately apparent in the presentation of the film’s title. As the unlikely heroine Willie, Kate Capshaw – soon to be the second Mrs. Spielberg – has already begun her surreal nightclub ...

Migration and Exodus: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Published 5/26/2008 by Keith Uhlich (noreply@blogger.com) at The House Next Door
... Eden. Nary a surface scratch, of course, when he finally emerges (shaken, not stirred), but the pluming mushroom cloud wreaks havoc with the heroic iconography. Was a time when Spielberg might have had Indy rising into frame full-face and body, the blast behind him merely a source of Slocombe-superintended backlight. But here, in concert with his visual Herrmann—from Schindler’s List on—Janusz Kaminski, he makes sure to dwarf Indy, obliterating him (as per the final sequence of Last Crusade ) into silhouette, forcing character and audience alike to bear witness to the glory ...