Comments on: Indiana Jones and the Unattainable FX Past

By: Michael D.

Michael D. — Tue, 27 May 2008 18:05:24 +0000

http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,,2281595,00.html

Nice article addressing what you’re talking about, in case you hadn’t seen it…

[Rant coming]

And another thing, where did this “turn your brain/mind off and enjoy the movie” phrase come from? Why should we turn our brain off? I hear this increasingly when people want to justify themselves enjoying a shoddy piece of cinema that is being critically derided in all the ways it should be.

In the next film history class I teach, one of my opening salvos to students is going to hit on this phrase. Are we expected to “turn our brain off” when we go to see contemporary or historic art at the museum? Are we supposed to “turn our brain off” when we read a Jane Austen novel? Even more interestingly for your interests, Bob, are you supposed to “turn our brain off” when you engage in video games? I’d argue in fact that you need every facet of your brain functions to navigate the increasingly labyrinthine levels of contemporary video game play…

If cinema is considered an “art” as great as any other art, there is absolutely no reason to adhere to such a ridiculous notion. Good, well-made blockbusters engage the brain as well as the sensory nerves…

[Rant over]

By: Bob Rehak

Bob Rehak — Mon, 26 May 2008 15:30:43 +0000

That’s OK! Your thoughts are incisive and interesting as always, Michael. I did see Crystal Skull over the weekend, and plan to write about it shortly — we’ll compare notes.

By: Michael D.

Michael D. — Sun, 25 May 2008 19:53:18 +0000

…I know this above probably doesn’t address anything from your original post, sorry…

By: Michael D.

Michael D. — Sun, 25 May 2008 19:40:31 +0000

Spoilers contained herein: I’m not a hard-core fan of the Indiana Jones movies, but I went out and caught this yesterday, and I was pretty disappointed, I must admit. Yes, the use of digital techniques is really noticeable in many ways, but worse to me was that the whole endeavor really felt arbitrary (normally I don’t like this word, but it fits here). I liked the humor and felt myself laughing more times than I expected to, but from the opening “save my ass from a nuclear bomb in a fridge” I also started shaking my head more times than I thought I would. Yes, this is Indy, yes this is supposedly old-fashioned action adventure, but these are not superheroes, with superhuman abilities and invulnerability, and too many times (WAY too many times) I had no suspension of disbelief in how a 60-something man, 80-something man, 50/60-something woman could survive the kinds of things these characters “survive” in this “film.” And even the humor was kind of waxing off the franchise’s own credibilty (crashing a car into a statue of Marcus Brody, his head falling into a Russian’s lap — a joke that’s probably meant to remind us of the Brody character’s incessant bungling and clumsiness, but only succeeds (in my opinion) to make a joke out of all that has come before. Every plot movement is a device simply to get the characters moved to another location — nothing feels organically character-driven here whatsoever. Would Indy really immediately take the advice of some kid he never met before, and let him tag along on his journey? Did Cate Blanchett’s character have a thing for Indy, or not? They don’t really decide — and most of the time, she just stands around ordering her men to get Indy materials he needs to get to the next step. Did “Mutt” have an in-depth knowledge of fencing and rapier skills that automatically came with his self-learned knife twirling talent? Did he study with Hollywood stuntmen to learn how to swing like Tarzan? Did John Hurt speak to Sean Connery about his role as Indy’s dad (“Henry Jones…Junior” — this was obviously meant for Connery, they’re so lazy they didn’t even change the dialogue!!) I won’t even get into the finale… Did Spielberg really “need” to make this movie? Did Lucas? Ford is the only person who did, his career needed it badly. That’s just the very beginning of my problems with this picture. I know it’s “Indiana Jones”, but come on…

Put simply, this movie didn’t need to me made.

By: Bob Rehak

Bob Rehak — Sat, 24 May 2008 14:11:55 +0000

Jonathan -- extraordinarily well said: filmmakers have indeed "crossed a line they may not know exists between media that industry moguls tend to see as intimately connected and mutually supportive, and pleasures that audiences understand as uniquely suited to different platforms." Perhaps this applies in particular to a class of filmmakers I call the techno-auteurs: George Lucas, Robert Zemeckis, the Wachowski Brothers. In all three cases we've seen movies (Star Wars prequels, Beowulf, Speed Racer) that were great experiments in visualization but crap in terms of critical and audience assessment. It's at times like this that I want to admit that the furor over CGI is really about something, rather than the latest refrain in a neverending story about how technology is changing things for the worse. In the past I've tended to see CG as just another FX methodology, no more revolutionary than the development of traveling mattes, stop-motion animation, or for that matter, Technicolor and synchronized sound. But CG does seem to be driving a more pervasive and profound set of changes, and your statement nails it: it's about what the industry now sees as being possible, even mandatory, in big-budget spectacle, and the audience's sense of rupture with their own viewing histories.

By: Jonathan Nichols-Pethick

Jonathan Nichols-Pethick — Sat, 24 May 2008 01:48:38 +0000

I heard an interesting review on the Bryant Park Project today in which the reviewer said that he “likes all the Indiana Jones movies…this just isn’t one of them.” It’s a throwaway line to some degree, but I think it also speaks loudly to the kinds of distinctions that you are seeing regarding the use of CGI. It’s not necessarily the clumsy script or the under-zealous acting (Temple of Doom was a wash in a lot of ways, too) that damns this film. Instead, the filmmakers seem to have crossed a line they may not know exists between media that industry moguls tend to see as intimately connected and mutually supportive, and pleasures that audiences understand as uniquely suited to different platforms.