[NO SPOILERS]
Once upon a time, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg were on exactly the same page, and it was glorious. That time was roughly 1973-1983, and their careers were nearly mirror images: two film-school brats from the California suburbs who had each made intriguing debut features (THX-1138, The Sugarland Express) and extremely profitable follow-ups (American Graffitti, Jaws) before plunging into the sci-fi world (Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind). Spielberg hit the golden jackpot first, in 1975 (movie about sharks; top-grossing movie of all time to date) and Lucas took a couple of years longer (movie about space; top grossing movie of all time to date); along with his older, pig-faced mentor Coppola (movie about gangsters; top grossing movie of all time to date) they were the leading lights of the Hollywood Renaissance of the 1970s. So it was a Marx/Engels, Lennon/McCartney –level marriage when they joined forces to create an adventure movie called Raiders of the Lost Ark. It was their victory lap; a fused amalgamation of talent and enthusiasm that represented the summation of what they both believed about movies: they threw in everything they liked (ILM, John Williams, Harrison Ford) and everything they had "always wanted to do:" a James-Bond-style disconnected opening; a plot that was all "good parts;" a serial-adventure story like the pulp they'd grown up watching, with animated maps and treasure and chases and fistfights and cheeseball matte paintings and a spunky heroine ("I'm your goddamned partner!") and Nazis and snakes and bugs and mumbo-jumbo and melting villain faces and a big room full of crates, Citizen Kane style, for the finale. They put all that into their movie and added their own unique genius for turning straw into gold and trash into sublime art, and, with seven trumpet notes and the crack of a bullwhip, a legend was born.
Thirty years later, the world is different and movies are different, but what's interesting is that Raiders, as pure an expression of boyhood movie nostalgia as could be imagined, is now old enough to be a vital part of our nostalgic past. The troika of creators behind the fedora and the whip are now gray-haired senior citizens, themselves, and their original memory-piece is as much a part of cinema legend as the Saturday Matinees they were all lovingly mimicking, back when they were young men. But what's especially fascinating is how much these two filmmakers have diverged, moved in opposite directions, in the years between; it's a great cautionary tale, an applicable lesson that can be useful to anyone who's working in the arts. After Star Wars, Lucas stopped directing. He didn't want to do it any more; it was too much trouble. He handed his Star Wars sequels over to other directors and became a producer, exclusively. And then he vanished from the scene, working on improving ILM and developing Skywalker Sound and THX and the early versions of Pixar, basically disappearing into the wings of the cinema world. Spielberg kept directing, because he loved it and because he was so unbelievably successful at it, but, like Lucas, he also showed signs of fatigue. Three times, he tried to get out of the box he was in as "the world's most popular director" who had focused his energies on kiddie fare, popcorn movies, American tales of windswept suburbia and friendly aliens and happy endings. While Lucas got out of the kitchen, Spielberg tried to change the recipe. First, he got the rights to Alice Walker's The Color Purple and filmed it. Everyone scoffed, because how the hell could Steven "E. T." Spielberg possibly do it justice? (It's the only Spielberg movie not to have a John Williams score; he got Quincy Jones to do the music, for obvious reasons.) Purple was nominated for Best Picture but not Best Director; it was an obvious snub and it obviously bothered him. A few years later (while Lucas was turning his attention to television) Spielberg tackled J. G. Ballard's novel Empire of the Sun, working with John Malkovitch and playwright Tom Stoppard and a young Christian Bale (in his film debut) and making a movie that's breathtaking in its scope and power and visual genius...and got no respect. It must have burned him because his next two movies (Always; Hook) are the worst he's ever made. But then something amazing happened: after an energizing return to form (Jurassic Park) he finally got his third at-bat—and finally swung for the bleachers and hit his home run, Schindler's List, an unbelievable personal breakthrough that, I think, succeeded in carrying him into full-fledged creative maturity simply because it forced him to tap into his own darkness, his own anger and fury (as a sometime-repressed American Jew) and unleash the full force of his creativity. Everything since then (the entire Spielberg-Kaminski project, I call it, referring to the Polish cinematographer he's made every subsequent movie with) has been genius, in my opinion. (Okay, maybe not The Lost World Jurassic Park or The Terminal, but still: Amistad, Saving Private Ryan, AI, Catch Me If You Can, Minority Report, War of the Worlds and Munich have a scope and range and maturity that rivals Hitchcock or David Lean or Kubrick). I used to ask, "Wouldn't it be great if there was a Spielberg for adults?" and then answer: "There is! It's Spielberg!" and be very pleased.
At almost exactly the same time that Spielberg was enjoying the full fruits of his creative epiphany, Lucas was returning to directing, and going back to the well, making more Star Wars movies. The results were not good. Although the Star Wars prequels represent an incredible, astounding breakthrough in visual effects and film production, and the third prequel, Revenge of the Sith, is, in my opinion, an absolutely legitimate and impressive return to form, the whole thing is just a big, profound disappointment; profound because it's so inexplicable and maddening (as maddening as Lucas' pig-faced mentor Francis Coppola managing to completely destroy the Godfather franchise). Something obviously went wrong in Lucas' brain and creativity over the intervening decades; whether it's a result of not directing movies for twenty years, or becoming increasingly isolated in his mogul-dom, or some other reason, it's a fundamental change in his identity as an artist and it pollutes everything he touches. As Spielberg has grown, Lucas has diminished; as Spielberg has continuously eclipsed all his imitators and everything that's been done since, Lucas has completely fallen from grace.
So what happens when these two one-time mirror-image filmmakers re-unite and attempt to re-create their moment of greatest simpatico, decades later? The result is Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and it reminds me of what it looked like when Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley had a kid. The result is one-half unbelievable, radiant, exuberant brilliance, and one half Jar-Jar-level idiocy and infuriating clumsiness, but, like the Joel/Brinkley kid, it's very hard to find any kind of seam between the two halves; they're blended together on the genetic level. It's fair to say that Harrison Ford is great, and Cate Blanchett is great, and it's wonderful to see Marion Ravenwood again and Shia LeBoeff is totally passable and charming, and that, sequence by sequence, the movie dazzles the eye and excites the senses and ignites the aesthetic sensibilites. Spielberg does "1958" so well that it makes Zemekis' "1955" look like bad television. Janusz Kaminski mimics Douglas Slocome (the cinematographer of the first three "Indy" movies) so flawlessly, so selflessly (while adding his own superior visual flair) that shot after shot made me gasp in astonishment and wish I could make the projectionist freeze the image so I could admire it more. ILM did the most incredible job they've done since Sith and War of the Worlds (it almost beats those two movies, but not quite). And the clues and maps and traps and fights are all outstanding, incredible. But, on the other hand, the whole thing has an undeniable case of Phantom Menace -itis; the plot is convoluted and gimicky and doesn't hold together; the characters are barely sketched in; the emotional content is glib, rushed and barely present in the movie, like an unwanted afterthought; the "McGuffin" involves a lot of "midichlorean"-type embarassing nonsense, and the whole thing is peppered with the trademark "burping Sarlacc pit"/"Ewok hits himself with projectile" George Lucas cringe-inducing humor that we've all come to hate.
So what's my final verdict? I don't have a final verdict. I'm too confused. Spielberg is a magician; a sorcerer who continues to create some of the most incredible cinema I've ever seen. Lucas is a fallen angel; a visionary-turned-schlockmeister who excels at trashing his own creations. Together they're the yin and yang of this movie, and I don't really know who wins and who loses. I like to think of it this way: we already got our great Indy movies; if you're curious about what that beloved character did later, when he was sixty-five and Eisenhower was president, the answer is that he was still living in that magical parallel universe where archeologists fight Nazis for possession of the Holy Grail; it's a world of fantasy and legend brought to dazzling life, and of course by the 1950s it would have become a cold-war flying-saucer dreamland. Sure, it's soured a bit, and, sure, this movie has crippling, deal-breaking problems (I actually think that Temple of Doom is a much better Indy movie, unlike some others on Horrorthon), but don't you want a fourth slice of last night's birthday cake, no matter how stale it may have gotten?
40 comments:
Well, if you're gonna come back, why the fuck not come back strong?
Great review Jordan.
I am gonna pay you a compliment that I hope I am an eloquent enough writer to get across.
I watch movies on a different level than you do. I know very little about cinematography, CGI, or the like, I just know I like being taken away by movies. I can't describe what made it so amazing, but I know the robot/robot fight scenes in "Transformers" took my breath away. I almost always roll my eyes at those that dissect movies, with the exception of my brother, who was an actor for a number of years...and now you, Jordan.
You manage to inform in your reviews without pretense. The references you make may not have occurred to me, but I almost always find myself saying "oh yeah" as I read them. I hope this reads as admiration, because it is...bravo.
Alright, enough ass-kissing for one night, now I'm going to outside and beat myself up....
Yes, great review.
Slight spoiler below.
Here's what Urban Dictionary (www.urbandictionary.com) has to say. This offers a slightly different opinion, but I think it's pretty funny.
The word for June 03 is
nuke the fridge
A colloquialism used to delineate the precise moment at which a cinematic franchise has crossed over from remote plausibility to self parodying absurdity, usually indicating a low point in the series from which it is unlikely to recover. A reference to one of the opening scenes of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, in which the titular hero manages to avoid death by nuclear explosion by hiding inside a kitchen refrigerator. The film is widely recognised by fans as a major departure from the rest of the series both in terms of content and quality.
Guy 1: "Wow. Did you see the new Indy movie? What the hell was that? It was like I was having some kind of flu induced absurdist nightmare."
Guy 2: "Yep... did or did not that series permanently Nuke the Fridge?"
Guy 1: "Oh, totally Nuked the Fridge! But I guess Spielberg is happy as long as he has the money of the people who trusted him."
Guy 2: "Guess so..."
jordan, love the review, as always.
not sure it makes me want to see the movie in the theater though... those lucasian touches may irk me excessively. julie's post doesn't help either.
Aw come on, it's Spielberg, Lucas, and Ford creating another installment of Indiana Jones, how can you not want to see this on the big screen? It's the last time this will ever happen.
The indiana Jones films were always supposed to be B-movies with A-movie budgets. Escaping in a refrigerator is no more silly than jumping out of an airplane with a raft (Temple of Doom). All of these movies are ridiculous, they're supposed to be. Lucas and Spielberg were inspired by the old movie serials, which had their heroes placed in, and escaping from, ridiculous situations. Lucas created Indiana Jones after being inspired by a single film image, Zoro jumping from a horse onto a moving truck. I recently re-watched the Indy films for the first time in 15 years or so and I was struck by how silly (but fun) they all are. In my opinion Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is no more outlandish than the other films. Lucas created and wrote the story-lines for all 4 films and the the new one fits in well with the others. Sure there are some groan-inducing moments, but all the Indy films have them. I have read a lot of very negative reviews about the new film and I just think that people who watched the first 3 films as kids are watching the 4th with adult eyes. Crystal Skull might be a mixed-bag, but all of the films in the series are.
Awesome review, Jordan, by the way!
I agree: Outlandishness is NOT the issue. All that "nuke the fridge" stuff is just silly. That sequence was flawless, amazing; one of the best in the whole Indy series.
Glad you all liked the review BTW.
(mild spoiler)
My problem with the whole Nevada opening is more formal: it breaks Indy tradition by having way too much to do with the rest of the movie. We're supposed to come in on Indy while he's doing some totally random other thing!
I agree, that entire sequence was perfect. I love when he realizes that he's on a testing site. Spielberg spent a lot of time making all the mannequins look really creepy. I love that the town was painted in those vibrant 50s colors. Also, the jungle chase was simply amazing. The choreography that went into that must've been time-consuming.
Yes, I too was disappointed that we weren't seeing Indy wrap up another adventure at the beginning of Skull. In fact, for a few minutes I thought we were. I like that per tradition, Lucas got his American Graffiti moment in there.
ALL the 1950s/American Graffitti stuff was so excellent! Per my remarks about Lucas, I love when he does that stuff because it signifies his return to the land of the living: when he actually cares about something, he seems to wake up from his slumber and make it work better. I meant what I said about this movie's 1950s totally destroying Zemekis' version twenty years ago. Every billboard and sign and item of clothing was great. (It was as perfect as Spielberg's 1944 Normandy, which was as razor-sharp a bad dream as this was a fun dream).
The small town of Ramelle from Private Ryan (actually an elaborate set built in England) is one of my favorite fictional places ever. Remember how it looked as the late-afternoon light coursed across the blasted church steeple and the soldiers sat listening to Edith Piaf on that gramophone?
Speaking of Spielberg's 1950s, it makes me remember how totally awful of a job Coppola (Lucas' pig-faced mentor) did with 1979 in The Godfather Part III. It didn't even come close to looking like 1979, and this from a series that was famous for getting not just 1947 but also 1901 and 1917 so exactly right. You'd think 1979 would be easy, but he fucked it up. Milena Canonero, the costume designer for pt. III (who, I think, won an Oscar for Amadeus) said that she looked at 1979 fashions and then just decided that she "didn't like them" and used a lot of gold and scarlet for the clothes in order to create a "wonderful operatic feeling" or whatever. I read that and I was like, "Just do your job, idiot! It's 1979, and this is The Godfather, not South Pacific!"
Excellent history lesson and review, Jordan. Though I'll take Altman/Scorcese when it comes to leading lights of the 70s in Hollywood.
I also agree that Temple of Doom is the better movie. The thing about the outlandishness complaints that I "get" is that the first movie was an homage to pulp matinees, but it still took itself seriously. It was smart AND fun. When Indy is explaining the grail stuff to the G-men at the beginning, there's a sense of awe and an intelligence there.
In the three sequels, and I think this becomes increasingly true with each one, that intelligence is lost in favor of silliness. There's nothing in Raiders (or in the old matinees that Spielberg is paying homages to) as silly as Shia swinging through the forest faster than a speeding car. Johnny Weismuller never pulled that crap!
In the end, I'd say that this latest movie is more parody than homage. And I think it's more a parody of Raiders than of the old matinees. There's so many parallel scenes (car chase, big room full of crates, early exposition with a big old book, etc.) that I'm not even sure Spielberg didn't intend the film to be read that way.
That tidbit about Godfather III is unbelievable, sh didn't like the fashion so she changed it??? I also like how perfect the 50s vernacular was in skull. I really love film noir and I've seen many, many films from the 40s and 50s. Spielberg and Lucas nailed the dialogue, which was especially evident in the diner sequence ("Don't get heated, kid!")
Landshark, I recently discovered the 12 Johnny Weismuller Tarzan films and I love them! There's one amazing underwater sequence where Jane has full-frontal nudity. These were definitely pre-code films and they're a treat.
Landshark, you're correct. As I tried to indicate in my review, the paradox is that Raiders, the movie-as-nostalgia-machine, is now itself a target for nostalgia, not just for us but for Lucas and Spielberg too. The Spielberg I describe in my review, the one who's busted out of the box so exuberantly (to the extent that critics don't even blink when he takes on D-Day or Mossad) has to "put on the clothes" of an Indy movie; it's a style he's returning to rather than an exploration of his current thinking. As he said in that comiccon clip, he's making the movie for us, not for him.
To that extent, I have to give props to Lucas for something he tried to do with the Star Wars sequels: they aren'tvisual retreads of the original series (until the final half hour of Sith. Starting with Queen Amidala on the phone with that round screen and the theramin sounds, he tried to go back to a Flash Gordon 1920s/1930s stylization that is nothing like the punked-out techno of the original trilogy (and he could do it, because the digital technology let him give spaceships sensual curves rather than surfaces dusted with vacuum-cleaner parts). Coruscant is like Fritz Lang's Metropolis or the Emerald City brought to glorious life, and all of that is wonderful and a fitting precursor to the universe as we see it "later" in the original trilogy. As I've insisted many times, whatever's wrong with the Star Wars prequels, it's NOT the visuals, which are mind-blowing. I'll watch Phantom Menace just for that chrome spaceship and the pod-race.
But you're right; Crystal Skull is "about" Raiders in the way that Raiders is "about" older movies. It's even got the original Paramount logo (but the new Lucasfilm logo).
I like that Spielberg kept the same (boring) title look. When "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" comes up on screen, it's in the same style as its predecessors, no flash, just a matter of fact, "this is what you're watching" statement.
Pauline Kael, reviewing The Godfather Part III in The New Yorker said (from memory):
"Coppola made The Outsiders in the style of Gone With The Wind; he's made this movie in the style of the first two Godfather movies. It looks and sounds like a Godfather movie but it's not about power and it's not about family: it's about a filmmaker's king-sized depression."
By that standard, Skulls is a triumph; easily the best of all the latter-day retreads we're discussing. I hope I made that clear in my review: the thing works; you can watch it (unlike Phantom Menace and Godfather III). It's got minor problems that loom very large given what we're comparing it to.
JPX, yeah, it's exactly the same two fonts. I kept my eye out for that. They've all got those fonts except for Temple of Doom.
The only difference (since you brought this up) is Harrison Ford's title. In Raiders, it goes "RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK" and then "STARRING HARRISON FORD." For Last Crusade, Ford has become an above-the-title star, so it says "HARRISON FORD STARRING IN" and then "INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE." This one does the same thing except reduces it to "HARRISON FORD IN."
This is the only Spielberg since Last Crusade to have any opening titles (except for Catch Me If You Can, which has a dazzling animated title sequence). Nowdays he just goes "Universal Pictures Presents"/"An Amblin Entertainment Production"/"Jurassic Park", which leaves John Williams with no place to put the theme music, so he's got to innovate. (Remember those pizzicato bass notes over the three titles I just recited in Jurassic Park? "BOOM." "BOOM." "BOOM." With the ghostly strings coming in over them and then the wind rustling the jungle foliage. Yeah.)
Having not seen the movie yet - but maaaaybe tonight - I am not reading or participating in this post today. Even though I want to read all about it, I also want to go into the film with no major preconceived notions.
That's another aspect of the new film I loved, the Williams soundtrack! It's the old Indy soundtrack we love with some new themes. I get chills every time I hear Indy's theme.
Man, the Catch Me If You Can title sequence is fantastic!
Did you notice he blasted the Last Crusade theme when Sean Connery's picture was onscreen?
Once again I feel like Peter Brady after getting a life lesson from Mike. "Gosh, I never thought of it that way..." So thanks for another kick-ass dissection.
I can't wait to own this movie so I can give it the proper "repeat viewing" test. I have a feeling it'll go the distance.
Holy crap! I just hit "refresh" and the comments leapt from 1 to 23!
Excellent review. Delicious stale birthday cake indeed. I'm glad you went with no final verdict; when I spoke to you the other night you were still thinking it through and were in a more negative place out the movie.
Ultimately I think Harrison Ford is such a class act it's worth it to see this movie just to see Indy again.
Octo, you're totally right about Harrison Ford. He's just so damn good. And well, the rumor is he's also high all the time, and that affected the production schedule. That cracks me up.
Same spoilers everyone else has been talking about below.
Re: the fridge, I have to say the Urban Dictionary entry resonated with me. I enjoyed the film, but in spite of the fridge and in spite of the monkeys. But I guess I was viewing those moments with adult eyes. I mean, really, they're no more outlandish than Indy riding a submarine all the way to the Nazi base in Raiders.
Another aspect of that fridge thing is that Indy comes out really unscathed. Harrison Ford has always been the greatest action hero to me, because he suffers so much. He gets banged up and bloody. He's not suave and impervious. Most of the time he looks like he doesn't know what the hell he's going to do next, and that's so great. But he came out of that fridge pretty intact. So that didn't work for me. I "bumped" on it, as we would say about a weird moment in a script at UCLA.
And I think I just bumped on the whole idea of nuclear testing as any kind of comedic context.
And you know...then I just moved on. It wasn't worth wrecking the movie for me. I guess I just wanted to like it!
But nuclear testing is just the absolute essence of that era! Dig the "Atomic Cafe" sign (a great inside joke, I think). And Indy contemplating the mushroom cloud (and the force that obliterated the enemy in the war he fought the opening skirmishes of in two of the other movies) is a very primal image (not to mention a sublime Pablo Helman shot). It's thematically crucial to the movie. Recall the discussion with Blanchett later when they both quote Vishnu by way of Oppenheimer. 1950s sci-fi/horror is all about nuclear force; "tampering in God's domain", and, with the Vishnu quote, it even connects directly with the non-Nazi Indy movie (and the sacred stones in the Temple of Doom). Knowledge is power, quite literally, in the nuclear age; remember Einstein's letters from Princeton's Institute of Advanced Studies to FDR, warning about the coming nuclear age. Indiana Jones is a series of speculative portraits of Western and Eastern legends superimposed on the real-life conflicts of the twentieth century; the new movie takes that to its final logical step, into the era of the Cold War and the Atomic Cafe, when biblical force is supplanted by scientific might. "I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds." Of Course Indy faces down a nuclear blast; he has to, thematically. That's what this movie's about; what all flying saucer movies from that era are about, as much as the Japanese monster movies are about Nagasaki. Remember that Spielberg actually showed the Nagasaki bomb, from a distance, in Empire of the Sun.
And anyway, who said it was a "comedic context"? Respectfully, I just think you're missing the larger thematic picture, "bump" or no "bump."
If anything, it's the most "adult" moment in the movie; the one that resonates most clearly to "adult eyes," as I've tried to show. Spielberg does not play games with Nuclear blasts.
Interestingly, the original title of this film was "Indiana Jones and the Destroyer of Worlds". There was also a big argument between Lucas and Spielberg about Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Lucas wanted "Skulls". In the end he said he didn't care as long as it had the word "Kingdom" in the title.
I was just coming back to chime in on how cool that mushroom cloud shot looked and Jordan beat me to it, and of course with the extra credit of naming the visual effects supervisor. It was actually the unique drama of that shot that got me back in the groove after the "nuke the fridge" bump (mostly because the image is so darkly beautiful, but also because I don't think I've ever seen a mushroom cloud depicted from that angle).
Themes aside, how can you miss the comedy? His "that isn't good" when the countdown starts, his "oh yeah, don't wait for me!" yelled at the carload of departing KGB agents he was just hiding from -- and he hides in the fridge! There's an undeniable dash of frivolity mixed in here, along with the spookiness of the town and the nuclear gravitas.
I suppose we could push the fridge thing even further, vis-a-vis the 1959 Nixon/Khrushchev "Kitchen Debates." But I'm probably just opening a can of worms.
I'm not saying the setup lines aren't funny. (Indy's always saying something amusing right before the hammer falls) I'm saying that Julie's construction of "I am pulled out of the movie because this 'nuclear test' sequence is making a big joke out of something serious' is a misread. He yells out some funny stuff, and hiding in the fridge is funny, but to say "This sequence 'bumps' me or whatever because a nuclear test is an inappropriate subject for a joke" is to miss the point. The nuclear test is NOT a joke in the movie. It's an essential part of the story, thematically crucial. You could argue that the big stone sphere in Raiders is more of a joke than the mushroom cloud here. It's got nothing to do with "adult eyes," either. My "adult eyes" appreciated the sequence more than my "child's eyes," which know nothing about the 'fifties or Oppenheimer or Vishnu or apocalyptic thinking.
Wow, is a cigar every just a cigar?
A cigar is a cigar, and a nuclear explosion is a nuclear explosion.
Look, Indana Jones himself has a conversation with the villain about Oppenheimer and Vishnu. I'm not making that up; it's right there in the movie.
In an interview shortly before his death in 1967 Oppenheimer spoke with philosophic melancholy of his first gut reaction to the atomic bomb. Besides the science, the math imagery, and satisfaction that the 1945 device had really worked as his team of scientists and military liaisons had struggled so long for, Oppenheimer also recalled the words of the Hindu god Vishnu as that god was trying to compel an earthly leader to follow his dictates. To intimidate the human,Vishnu re-formed himself into the visage of a huge multi-armed writhing figure, enormously immense beyond the scale of simple human proportions. "Now I am become Death", he told the human, "destroyer of worlds." Oppenheimer was experiencing the foresight and knowledge of what his creation was going to mean to the world - to this frail fragile planet - if we foolishly toy with the incredible powers residing in dormant hibernation inside the atoms of our own existence. This weapon was not just another device that injured or dismantled the ability of an enemy to pursue violence. This explosive weapon unleashed the ongoing radiative destruction of things, far beyond any human ability to control that destruction.
In other words, "Marion! Don't look!" It's what Marcus Brody (and Belloq) try to tell Indy about the Ark of the Covenant. By the end of WWII, it's the Americans who have unleashed the "power of God."
Remember, too, that whatever you want to say about Lucas (and I'm madly dissing him in my review), this movie was written by David Koepp, who did a spectacular job integrating post-9/11 themes, symbolism and imagery into Spielberg's War of the Worlds. There was a lot of controversy about how Spielberg was using H.G. Wells to talk about the contemporary world; Stephanie Zacharak (in Salon) hated the movie because she found its 9/11 themes "exploitative," and Slate's David Edelstein responded directly by pointing out that Sci-Fi and Fantasy always use symbolism to discuss present-day reality. Spielberg went on record saying that the "time" was right for War of the Worlds, But my point is that, when it came time to sift through all the post-Darabont wreckage and pick a writer to put together "Crystal Skulls" (and get sole writing credit), they got Koepp, who is no stranger to geopolitical topicality. I'm absolutely sure he's responsible for the Oppenheimer business, and the "knowledge is power" theme is exactly the kind of rhetorical flourish that Koepp employed so well in War of the Worlds (and, to a lesser extent, in his Jurassic Park script).
Jordan, as an admitted ignoramus when it comes to the depth with which you watch movies, wasn't any movie that depicted mass destruction after 9/11 bound to be accused of "integrating post-9/11themes, symbolism and imagery"?
Were "Independence Day" made after 9/11 if would be boycotted. I am not debating that such ties can be found, and backed up, in film, I just wonder if they are always intentional on the part of writers and directors.
As to what the US unleashed, it is a function of hindsight and a post WWII alliance with Japan that allows us to question the decision in the first place. In a war where civilian cities had been viable targets on all sides, and projections of 100's of thousands of US casualties sat on his desk, Truman's decision was the only choice for a commander of men. (sorry, military tangent)
miko, fair question. I can answer two ways: by talking about the actual movie War of the Worlds or by talking about the surrounding discussion. I'll start with the second one.
I'll go find the citations later, but basically I'm drawing from a New York Times Magazine interview with Spielberg (as well as the aforementioned Salon and Slate "dueling critics" essays). At the time of the interview, Spielberg was talking about Munich, and what it meant to do it. Spielberg had decided to make a movie about terrorism and the roots of 9/11 and asked Tony Kushner, the award winning author of "Angels in America," to colloborate with him and write the script (Kushner's first screenplay). The results were amazing -- in my opinion, the very best Spielberg movie there is -- but the movie got him in trouble with a lot of pro-Israel and Zionist groups in Europe, America and the Middle East, since its portrayal of the Israeli/Palestinean conflict didn't correspond to the thinking of a lot of AIPAC-aligned critics and political activists. Munich is a deep movie, to be sure, and a topic for another discussion, but I want to point out that its final shot (mild spoiler warning) shows Eric Bana and Geoffrey Rush (as Mossad agents) talking in Brooklyn Heights in the mid 'seventies. "There is no peace at the end of this road," Bana says, and, as the titles start, the camera pulls up to show Battery Park and downtown Manhattan, and (courtesy of ILM) the World Trade Center is still there. It's not possible to miss the point: 9/11 the end of the road that began with the Olympic massacre.
Go back six months to the release of War of the Worlds and you suddenly realize that the FIRST shot of the sci-fi movie is almost exactly the same: it's a view across the East River at Battery Park and downtown Manhattan, and (of course) the towers are gone. In the NYT piece I mentioned, Spielberg says that he'd wanted to do War of the Worlds for years, but that, when Independence Day came out, he changed his mind and decided to wait. Then he talks about 9/11 and how it affected him, and made him feel, and how, after a few years, it seemed "right" to return to H.G. Wells and film his novel, but "in the shadow of 9/11." As I wrote in an essay about apocalyptic movies:
Movie audiences have always ached to see New York get it, as far back as When Worlds Collide (1951), but the need has become frenzied in the last decade. In the six years preceding 9/11, Independence Day (1996) ($816,969,268 worldwide box office earnings), Armageddon ($553,709,788), Deep Impact ($349,464,664) (both 1996) and Godzilla ($379,014,294) all took aim at Manhattan and its landmarks: the Empire State Building got lasered into oblivion; mile-high tidal waves crushed the towers of Battery Park like sand castles; metor fragments blew through Grand Central Station and the World Trade Center, reducing them to charred, flaming fragments; and a lizard the size of the MetLife building razed a raging path through midtown and laid waste to its landmarks (including the MetLife building). In the aftermath of 9/11 The Onion dared to make the obvious joke: "American Life Turns Into Bad Jerry Bruckheimer Movie," they reported [http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28144] fifteen days after the attacks.
The worldly apocalypse (in all its blasted-concrete, blackened-sky detail) has always been a mainstay of fantasy. "Visions of world cataclysm constitute one of the most powerful and mysterious of all the categories of science fiction," J. G. Ballard (author of Crash and Empire of the Sun) wrote in 1977. "In many ways, I believe that science fiction is itself no more than a minor offshoot of the cataclysmic tale. From the deluge in the Babylonian zodiac myth of Gilgamesh to contemporary fantasies of twentieth-century super-science, there has clearly been no limit to man’s need to devise new means of destroying the world he inhabits. Psychiatric studies of the fantasies and dream life of the insane show that ideas of world destruction are latent in the unconscious mind."
There are political interpretations beyond the primal urges Ballard names. H. G. Wells, the inventor of modern sci-fi, vividly ravaged London in his War of the Worlds (1898), which has been seized upon both as an Edwardian fable of colonialization and a rationalist defense of Darwinism (the germs that kill the monsters save the world, but foreshadow a host of invisible bioterrors to come). Wells' Martian tripods trample the earth, reflecting nightmares conceived before the invention of flight—or the harnessing of the atom, which inspired the world's most enduring reptilian metaphor: "Nagasaki destroyed by the magic of science is the nearest man has yet approached to the realization of dreams that even during the safe immobility of sleep are accustomed to develop into nightmares of anxiety," Edward Glover wrote in War Sadism and Pacifism (1947), and, when a Japanese trawler sailed into the wake of an American H-bomb test in 1954, causing 500 tons of fish to be recalled from ports nationwide, filmmakers Ishiro Honda and Eiji Tsuburaya used "radiation" to explain their giant mutant dinosaur Gojira (renamed "Godzilla") whose fire-breathing demolition of Tokyo and other cities has featured in twenty-seven movies.
In America, the 1950s saw the Western world destroyed from within, by more radiation-spawned monsters, creatures from space (during the post-Sputnik panic) and more subtle extraterrestrial forces like Jack Finney's Body Snatchers (a 1955 novel filmed four times). Throughout, the East and West regard cataclysm differently: the Japanese monsters emerge from icebergs or from the sea, unexplained and unfathomable, while their American counterparts are usually brought down upon their victims through hubris: as in the Frankenstein archetype, scientists bend the natural world to their own desires, with disastrous results. The contrast is not difficult to understand. If the 1950s radiation movies are about Hiroshima, then of course the victims will tell the story differently than the perpetrators.
9/11 changed everything, including the sci-fi apocalypse. Steven Spielberg drew intense criticism and praise for re-casting Wells' nightmare as a CNN-era fable, in which the tripods (brilliantly) come not from the sky but out of the ground, brought to life by biblical lightning. The parallels to reality were obvious — the "death rays" that burn people into clouds of ash; the walls papered over with messages to "missing" family members — and Spielberg's critics (including Slate's Timothy Noah) [http://www.slate.msn.com/id/2123008/} were incensed: "9/11 Popcorn Porn," raged Salon's Stephanie Zacharek. But Slate's David Edelstein disagreed [http://www.slate.com/id/2123075/#bookmark]:
[War of the Worlds] has more in common with Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan than with Raiders of the Lost Ark and Jurassic Park. The film does evoke 9/11: in the gray ash that covers the hero after the first attack, the posters of the missing, the incomprehension of the populace, the presence of the ships—reminiscent of sleeper cells—underground. What I don't get is why this elicits outrage. Forgive me: I thought movies—even big-budget summer movies—were supposed to confront national traumas. And I don't find even a whiff of exploitation in Spielberg's treatment.
But Spielberg's monsters, like Bruckheimer's asteroids or Roland Emmerich's aliens, or the giant lizards that ravaged Japan on screens throughout the fifties, come from elsewhere; from outside. They are terrifying because they are not explained; like the airplanes that September morning, these nightmares puncture reality without logic or purpose. In the years since, European audiences see things somewhat differently and their sci-fi apocalypses — masterful films like Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later (2002), James McTeigue's V for Vendetta and Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men (2006) show a world destroyed by its inhabitants: the pharmaceutical poisons and Abu Grahib-style cages and tyrannical governments that shatter the walls of civilization are seen as products of humanity's shortcomings, not death from the skies.
(There, I forgot I included the Edelstein etc. quotes.) Anyway, after Close Encounters and E.T. it's a genuine shock to see Spielberg bringing us monsters from the skys (or, brilliantly, from beneath the ground). I'll see if I can find the New York Times Magazine quote, but hopefully the above will begin to outline my answer to your question.
Also, as to your "military tangent," it's open to interpretation. I think viewing the nuclear strikes as "the only option" is incorrect, although I agree that I'm employing hindsight as many do. I have read many accounts that argue that the Japanese were ready to surrender, or that the bomb had more to do with the politics of the post-war, post Yalta world, or that bombing civilians is beyond the pale no matter what the military tactics are. But, again, that's a tangent as you say.
Jordan, BTW I use the discrepancy of WWII to the Gulf Wars as far as civilians is concerned to try to convince myself the world IS getting better. At least we try to avoid civilians now.
I couldn't agree more about Munich, I think it maybe my favorite Spielberg film. (Christ you got me to write film and not movie, what is becoming of me?). As a person who has engaged in violence to reduce violence against others, the power of such actions is very real to me. I have never killed, but have been trained to do so, and the psychology of that training is to make a decision that you could if you had to, and deal with it after the fact. What I love about the movie is that Spielberg makes no judgment about Israel's decision to assassinate, but instead focuses on the affect such a decision has on those chosen to carry it out. I believe the most powerful thing I have ever seen about WWII was the interviews with real veterans from the war that played before each episode of "Band of Brothers". The actions and events from 55 years prior were evident in the voices and faces of old men, who became young solders again as they spoke. Extraordinary. Spielberg imagined just such actions in "Munich". (I haven't typed this much in some time)
To return to your essay, I believe it is just that desire to “see New York get it” that made the response of this country to 9/11 so amazing. Instead of the movie response, wherein everyone turns on one another, the very same people who wished to see a fictional NYC get destroyed, or claimed to hate the city, rushed to it’s aid and embraced her as an integral part of the USA. It is not what any writer of fiction envisioned on paper or in film.
How did we get here from Indy?
We got here because Indy witnesses a nuclear test.
(And because Spielberg is a genius, but that's my sycophancy showing. Anyway, it's all about looking at movies with "adult eyes.")
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