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As the latest Indiana film hits the screen, Ervell E. Menezes looks at the series that have entertained cinegoers for decades
So, 19 years after Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), the fedora-toting Indiana Jones is back again with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. But then, that’s Hollywood for you, they gauge the market, feel the pulse and then take the risk, Last Crusade be damned, we shall have another they mean to say. Whether they succeed or not is a matter of conjecture but at least they are willing to take a chance. Didn’t veteran Steven Spielberg say at the press conference at Cannes recently "if you want more, we’ll give it to you". There’s a touch of the garment industry in it and hence, they can even try to set a trend. The first film was Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) which is set in the 1930s and has American archaeologist and explorer Harrison Ford beat the Nazis (Hollywood’s pet peeve) to a priceless artefact, the magic box containing the fragments of stones on which the Gods wrote their laws. Since then Spielberg and George Lucas (who writes the stories), wunderkids of the 1970s have been together at all these Indiana Jones films. This one is Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. That Lucas now owns the Industrial Lights and Magic (ILM), special effects company that does the FX for most of Hollywood films today is purely academic. How the aging Harrison Ford rakes it from here remains to be seen but they have really built on that persona. Why, the latest film describes Indiana Jones alias Harrison Ford as "the whip-toting, punch-packing, snake-hating, globe-trotting archaeologist with the fedora" which apparently sums up all his roles in the trilogy. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) is a prequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark and is about Indiana finding the sacred Sankara stone, as slow-starting adventure romp with much ingenuity and too much brutality and horror and which set in a new Censor certificate PG (13) in the United States. It is probably the weakest of the trilogy. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) deals with Indiana’s search for his father who disappeared while looking for the Holy Grail. Variety magazine describes it as "the formula as before, which still works thanks to some splendid set pieces and the genial interplay between Ford and Sean Connery who plays the father." The thing about Hollywood too, they know how to touch the heart and use the right players for the purpose, with the lisping Connery stealing the show. All the three films are usual formula stuff but they had some cute inventive touches. I can still guffaw at the sequence where Ford is about to go into a fencing match with his opponent when he suddenly takes out his gun and shoots him. The surprise element and the timing is just perfect. By then, Spielberg had assembled his team of men behind the camera — George Lucas (script), John Williams (music) and Michael Kahn (editor). In this trilogy, he also used legendary British cinematographer Douglas Sloacombe whom this writer met in India when he shot the "invoking of the UFOs" scene in Close Encounters of the Third Kind in Hal village, near Khopoli near Bombay in 1975. Then Spielberg was a brash, youngster of 26 and had already made a mark with Jaws and it was his dad’s involvement with India during World War II that led him to come here. In those days, the American companies could not repatriate all their earnings and they had to find ways and means of spending their blocked money. Interviewing him at the Taj Mahal Coffee Shop his impetuosity came across loud and clear when on seeing an airline stewardess, he remarked "I love that woman." Three decades later and now a movie mogul by any standards, you won’t expect anything of that kind. Along with Spielberg came the French legend Francois Truffaut who played a minor character in Close Encounters of the Third Kind and it was interesting to see how the past and future master gelled. Incidentally, it was a beastly hot day and poor Truffaut had to be rushed to hospital with a heat stroke. "Ah Jaa Re," was the invocation to the UFO that became the theme song and one Baba Sheikh was in charge of arranging that sequence and a right good job he did too. How Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull fares one wonders and the crystal skull surely lends itself to horror possibilities but the fact is that they have kept the subject alive for three decades and that’s what Hollywood thrives on. Didn’t The Godfather last for two decades? The original Marlon Brando film was made in 1972, the sequel Godfather II in 1974 and the last one (hopefully) in 1990. Hitchcock’s masterpiece Psycho (1960) was too sacred to be touched and it took 33 years for them to think of a remake but when they did Psycho 2 in 1983 it was a real disaster. Of all things unthinkable it was shot during daytime. Imagine horror in daylight? Psycho 3 was made in 1996. Ironically Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Crystal Skulls was premiered at the Cannes film festival which was started to compete with Hollywood and give European cinema a wider platform, but today they seem to have been bought over by the American movie moguls and the way things are going it isn’t likely to change. Money talks and Hollywood walks. Nay, runs.
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