Indy v. Indie: Steven Spielberg Thinks You're an Idiot, but Thomas McCarthy Knows Better

...I know, I know, this is all so last week, and Living RomCom should be reviewing We're the Female Audience, Hear Us Roar (aka Sex and the City) right about now, but I'm waiting to see Sex with my honey, who's away in Democracy School.  So instead, this past weekend I went with a few friends to see a little bittie indie pic called The Visitor, which now tops my short list of the Best Movies of 2008.  And having viewed it in the wake of having recently had my consciousness cotton-candied by Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Brain-Dead, I've decided it's time for a good old-fashioned rant'n'rave.

Things One Thinks About After Seeing The Visitor:
The nature of friendship, the roots of empathy, the tenuousness of our supposed status quo (how an entire life can change in an instant), the awesome gulf between Americans and their immigrant population, loneliness as a portal to life or death, the beauty of women, the transformative power of masculine vulnerability, how music could save the world, that there's no such thing as an Average White Guy (or Average Person of Any Color, for that matter), the wisdom of understatement and trusting in an audience's intelligence, how post-9/11 government policies have crippled our capacity for compassion and decency.

Things One Thinks About After Seeing Indy 4:
What were they thinking?


[Warning: the following contains SPOILERS re: Indy 4 (come to think of it, the whole movie is its own sort of spoiler), but if you're really concerned about Indy 4 spoilers you're probably reading the wrong blog.]

My post-Indy 4 experience reminds me of an old '80s gag about cocaine: When you do a line of coke, you feel like a new man; problem is, ten minutes later the new man wants to feel like a new man.  For the couple of hours that I spent watching Indy 4, I was intermittently entertained.  But the moment my heels hit the aisle's carpet, the major disappointment and misgivings started seeping in.  That's the peculiar, dubious brilliance of Spielberg: he's such a superb technician that he makes anything he points a lens at absorb your attention, momentarily.  Armed with a masterfully manipulative moving camera and the best production team money can buy, he imbues a given scene with a vivid, hyper-movie-movie reality.  He's a genius of Sell, and it's only when the hawking's over -- when you've put the coke spoon down, so to speak -- that you realize how little of reality (in Indy 4, it's next to nothing) was actually there.

I'm as much a fan of escapism as anyone, but as any writer knows, the more far-fetched or farcical a story is, the stronger its grounding rules need to be.  Not ten minutes after seeing Indy, I found my figurative jaw dropping at just how many fundamental rules it had broken.  There are "only in an alternate universe" howlers like Indy's ability to walk away from an atom bomb blast completely unscathed (strange, but in a movie obsessed with such scientific phenomena as magnetism, there is no such thing as radiation poisoning), and the idea that five people crashing over three Niagara-sized waterfalls in quick succession would walk away merely wet.

Indy 4's fundamental narrative error lies in its having removed any vestige of genuine jeopardy for its protagonists, and with that loss, sacrificing all tension and suspense.  It should also be noted that conspicuously M.I.A. in this movie are emotionally involving relationships between credible human beings (add the coulda-been-great return of Karen Allen's character here to cinema's Great Missed Opportunities list).  Yes, it's got a couple of bravura set pieces in it, but ultimately Indy 4 boils down to a whole lot of hoopla about absolutely zero.

It's rife with mistakes that would embarrass a rookie writer, such as the inordinate screen time used to establish that teenaged Mutt (Shia LaBeouf) packs a switchblade, that he's good with a knife, is itching to use it, that he's, y'know, got a knife on him... and then, but for one throwaway gag about his "bringing a knife to a gun fight," the lack of any obligatory pay-off scene in the movie where Mutt uses his knife. Similarly, an early scene suggests that villainness Cate Blanchett has psychic powers, and said powers never materialize. 

We can chalk up some of this oblivious sloppiness to what happens when you've had untold drafts of a project over nearly 20 years of development and perhaps as many writers.  But were Steven and George not even in the editing room?  When you cut a pay-off out of a movie, you go back and cut down (or eliminate) its setup: that's the Filmmaking 101 know-how we expect from the supposed Best in the Business.

It's shite like this that leaves you thinking, What were they thinking?  After some deliberation, I can only come to one conclusion: Steven Spielberg and George Lucas think we won't care, that we won't notice, that it doesn't matter.  In other words, they think we're idiots.


It's for this reason, among many, that I want to draw your attention to one Thomas McCarthy, the writer and director of The Visitor (and before that, The Station Agent).  McCarthy, working with a budget that was probably equal to a couple days of craft service table food on the Indy set, has created a moving, disturbing, ohmyGod thought-provoking film that lingers in the head and heart for days afterward.  Unlike Indy 4, it's about something, and it takes place in the world we live in.  In fact, it does what the best art is supposed to do: it helps us see the familiar with new eyes, while opening our eyes to the unfamiliar.

Family, and what it means, is central to The Visitor's concerns.  It has the audacity to suggest that there really might be such a thing as a family of man and an actual global community; it believes in hope, even as it acknowledges the prevalence of hopelessness in our strife-torn life.  McCarthy (pictured right) gives his audience the benefit of the doubt -- he trusts that we can understand ambivalence, comprehend conflicted emotions, that we can hold more than one feeling or thought in our consciousness at the same time.

While the often ridiculous Indy 4 script piles on chunks of tedious exposition trying to explain back story nonsense that means nothing to us, McCarthy's movie leaves things out: deliberately, intelligently, banking on the radical notion that we'll be smart enough to get it -- get what's in a glance, a gesture, what's implied when a scene ends early, letting us fill in the gap as it jumps to the next meaningful moment.

Impeccably cast, beautifully shot and directed, The Visitor is just the kind of sharp, poignant, devastatingly affecting little indie pic that all too often slips under the radar (its forgettable title and lack of marquee names won't help -- though fans of Six Feet Under will recognize and appreciate lead Richard Jenkins).  But it's timely (as well as timeless) in its concerns, refreshingly substantive -- and even romantic and deeply funny, too.  So I urge you, as the usual summertime behemoths roll loudly in and out of town, to catch it if you can.

Meanwhile, I can't help being amused, in a healthily mean-spirited way, by how Sex and the City just totally trounced Indy 4 at the weekend box office, surpassing even conservative expectations (and did Living RomCom not tell you that it would?  It did).  While Sex is certainly no indie, and may not even be a good movie, its success at least demonstrates that assuming your audience is made up of low-IQ suckers is no longer a sureshot proposition (it's pretty telling when a relatively low budget feature that isn't aimed at the famed under-25 male demographic bests a 1000-pound gorilla's second weekend).  Who knows?  There may be some life left in the moviegoing mind, after all.

Comments

[E.C. Henry]

Billy,

Sorry to hear you didn't like "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." Me and my family saw last weekend and we all LOVED it. Haven't seen "The Visitor," or even heard of it for that matter, but I respect your opinion and evaluation of film, and now I am interested in seeing it when it travels north into the greater Seattle area.

I don't think your side-by-side comparision of "Indiana Jones" and "The Visitor" is a fair one. They seem SO DIFFERENT in the results they're trying to achieve. "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" is a rollercoaster ride, it's built for in the momeent thrills. From your review, "The Visitor" sounds like one of those films trying to make a point, and based on what you said it sounds like it succeeded.

Anyway, glad to hear you're still finding films you do like. I'm finding the longer I write scripts, the more I appreciate film and what does work, and an apprecition for all involved in the process. Hopefully with your position in the industy, Univeral will kick out more thought provoking films, maybe even in the action/adventure arena. Yeah, I think m'man Mernit is up to the challenge.

- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA

[Maestro]

Sorry to make my first post a negative one. Rest assured, I'm a long-time fan (since you held a two-day version of your romcom class in Hawaii) who's been enjoying reading your blog for the past few months. But I do think you're being a bit hard on Mr. Spielberg. The way I heard it, it was Mr. Lucas who vetoed draft after draft of the script. So maybe Mr. S was just doing the best he could with the material he was given.

I mean, when you need to get script approval from the guy who wrote the Star Wars prequels...

[Frank Conniff]

Yeah, it's too bad that Spielberg was forced to work with a weak script. Maybe one day, after he has a hit or two, he'll gain some clout and as a director working in Hollywood. Until then he'll just have to take whatever project he's lucky enough to be assigned by the powers that be. Maybe one day he can get into the front office at Dreamworks and convince his boss to give him better material.

[Phil]

The saddest thing is that Spielberg (allegedly) was more interested in the opening box office takings than the reviews; of course the movie will bring in the money, but do Spielberg/Lucas really value their work on that anymore rather than critical acclaim? If yes, that's a sad state of affairs, and we the audience ARE just idiots to them. Still, negative word-of-mouth will screw up long-term revenue for them.

[Anna]

Hi Billy, Anna from Sweden here. No question today, just wanted to say that I think your reflections on Indy 4 was excellent and absolutely on the spot. When I saw it I was wondering why they had to kill the story so effectively by putting in this much mumbo-jumbo, really overdo it with creatures from space and magic powers that weren't possible to understand at all. Why not stick to the original universe of Indy, with only ancient mystic powers? And of course, as you say, the unbelievable situations with no danger was just a big laugh. I think that very often when there's a project everyone knows will be a blockbuster, the script is kind of forgotten in the process. Fascinating that no-one ever seems to learn from earlier mistakes...
I'm going to see The Visitor ASAP!
Bye now, Anna

[Christian Howell]

I can only reiterate that fluff pays but substance lasts. I truly believe that people want to see real life related from another's point of view.
I know I do. But Iron Man (tentpole) is a good example of action with a little substance.
The relationships were really good. I found no cardboard cutouts.

From what I saw of The Visitor, it will touch people and make them think.
It doesn't seem preachy or demanding of change, which I love in a movie.

[Rachel Hauck]

I hear you about Indy 4, but what major "action" film is not filled with the ridiculous? Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible flying through the air after a car explosion and... walking away unscathed.

The big nuclear ball in Superman Two acting like a big magnet, sinking into the Hudson with the heat of the sun and not drying up all the water? What? My husband said, "Babe, they left physics behind long ago."

So, your review of Indy 4 isn't surprising. :)

I'm glad you brought The Visitor to our attention. It sounds great.

As for Sex and the City. Not going to see it. I believe their attitude and actions regarding women and sex are some of the most detrimental philosophies for today's young woman.

We live in a world with Aids, and hundreds STDs that have no cure. And safe sex is NOT fool proof or a cure all.

Not to mention the emotional trials of a hook up life.

Woman, live above the bar. It's so low, it won't take much effort. IMHO.

:)

[Stephanie]

Thank you for so well articulating Indy 4's problems that have been nagging me for the last week.

In the department of missed emotional opportunities, I was extremely disappointed with the writing choices they made surrounding the introduction of the son. By insisting that Indy continue to be the focus of the story's B-line romantic interlude, they weakened his character in a way that was almost unbelievable (Indy's carrying a torch for someone for twenty years without acting on it? Come on) and, as you mentioned, destroying Marion's spunk.

The emotional theme of father and son has already been explored in the Indy series, and extremely well if you ask me. Why repeat it? Why not do something *gasp* shocking, and write Indy as having a fearless, ahead of her time daughter. And why not shift the romantic focus to the daughter, allowing Indy some room to actually grow as a character, instead of being arbitrarily changed by the writers.

Gah! You still articulated it better, but hopefully I'm getting my main point across. I couldn't agree with you more.

[Judith Duncan]

Hey Billy,I'm with you in regards to Spielberg and Lucas,it's become shameful.
Cheers,
Judith

[binnie]

How about the made-from-metal Jeeps not being attracted to the magnetic object in the crate??
And after all these years all Karen Allen gets to do is DRIVE??? No small feat, but please!
SATC is wonderfully satisfying, btw, and I had my own defining SATC moment, when I was walking home from my mother's apartment in Chelsea to my place in the Village. My ex's Mini pulled up next to me while I was crossing West 21st Street, and driving it was my ex's child-bride, yelling, "EMILY, HI!!! I'M MEETING SOME FRIENDS TO SEE SEX AND THE CITY! CAN I DROP YOU OFF SOMEWHERE?!"
Can't make this shit up.
Looking forward to checking out The Visitor.

[Heath Davis Havlick]

Well said! I left Indy 4 thinking, "Really? You've got to be kidding!" I did feel kinda sad for all the folks involved, but after reading your post I just feel insulted by them. The whole sword foolishness, the lack of mind powers, Indy flying through the air in a fridge to escape a nuclear blast? Come on! I can write better than that. And have. And will continue to.
Love your first book, BTW, and so I was glad to find this blog. Keep telling it like it is!

[Tammie]

Well, I wasn't blown away by Indy either as I sat in a packed theater with my family.

I wondered if the long down time built up too much expectation, but then I thought no, it's Indy, it had better be good!

Being told in EXTRA like interviews that they were always looking for the right script, I'm chalking the lack luster to having too many cooks in the Kitchen spoiling it. If they tweaked it over and over they basically did away with the meat.

I can overlook the impossible in action flicks IF there is depth in other places but like you said, they basically blew the relationship between Indy and his past girl. I think at one point there were 5 or more scenes where she didn't say a word???? How does that happen?

[Laura Reyna]

I haven't seen the movie yet but I'v read a bunch of reviews.

Sounds to me like Spielberg and Co succumbed to the "have to please the 13 yr olds - itis". They ramped up the FX to get the younsters in the seats, and forgot to make movie, y'know, good.

Bigger, more spectacle, more CGI FX... more STUFF... this is what filmmakers think the audience wants and this is what we get. This dumbing down of movies is a fundemental mistake that's been going for some time now. This is just another example.

[mernitman]

EC: Yes, of course Indy 4 is a "roller coaster ride," but its makers are idolized and canonized as being among the greatest filmmakers in film history. So if their roller coaster cars are rickety and full of holes, I think they're fair game.

Maestro: As Callie Khouri once said, when needled about "Thelma & Louise" being too hard on men, "I'm not anti-male. I'm anti-idiot."

Spielberg has made some great, substantive movies in a long and hardy career. Vis-a-vis his responsibilities here, I think Frank's comment says it best.

Frank: I know! Didn't we win ANYTHING in the Writers' Strike?!!!

Phil: Having suffered slings and arrows from outrageous critics myself, I can kind of understand that particular kind of artist's bunker mentality. But yes, it would be nice if they paid attention to the audience's response (as measured in under-expectation ticket sales).

Anna: Yes, this sort of filmmaking is a triumph of craft over consciousness. Meanwhile, I look forward to your reactions to "The Visitor."

Christian: I'm hearing much the same from other folks re: "Iron Man," and as a longtime Downey fan, I'm good to go.

Rachel: You're right about the action genre in general. But I think the galling thing about Indy 4 is that it broke the rules of the original Indy and the franchise itself.

Stephanie: The idea of an Indy daughter is way cool -- would've tweaked the movie in a marvelous way...

Judith: I'm still missing the hours of my life lost, seeing the last two Star Wars debacles.

Binnie: It's high time you wrote "Sex and the Village."

Thank you, Heath Davis: I'll bet you can write a movie that has an actual ending, too.

Tammie: What's sad is that Karen Allen was so touched and thrilled to be asked back... and all she was left with was the disembodied wheel of a jeep.

Laura: So true. This is why I used my cranky rant as a platform to promote, y'know, a movie that was about Other Stuff entirely.

[Chera Federle]

Great post. I am eager to see The Visitor. Unfortunately, I live in BFE … and it’s not showing anywhere within a 50 mile radius … I’ll have to wait until I can get it through Netflix.

My husband took me to see Indy 4 for my 40th birthday, and I have to agree with you ... too many far-fetched contrivances and too many loaded guns (that didn’t go off/or shot blanks). My biggest OMG moment was Mutt swinging through the trees with the band of monkeys … despite all of that, I found it very entertaining in a nostalgic kind of way. Our small town theatre was packed full … and I heard a lot of “Dude, that was awesome” and “Cool!” and like remarks from teens, and a lot of laughter on the adult end.

I hope you enjoy Sex In The City … my friend thought it would be fun if all us girls got together to see it. We didn’t think to purchase tickets in advance around here, but every theatre (in a 50 mile radius) was sold out. We're heading out to see it this weekend, keep in mind, out of the 5 of us, only one has been a loyal fan of the HBO series, and it’s not me. I have seen a few episodes and looking forward to what the movie has to offer.

On another note, I just finished reading Writing the Romantic Comedy … it was very helpful in jump-starting my current WIP. It was absolutely a fun read.

Chera

[binnie]

I would, Billy, but I'd have to name names!

[MaryAn]

Wait. E.C., why didn't you jump Billy for saying it had a fundamental narrative error? He, too, believes there ought to be a story.

[E.C. Henry]

I NEVER jump ANYTHING Billy has to say about ANYTHING, you are GREATLY mistaken, MaryAn. I respect Billy's opinion emensely. I simply voice my own humble opinion in hopes of seeing how it stacks up to a pro with YEARS of experience in the industry.

I think this comment of yours Maryan stems from one of my responces from your blog. IF you have a problem with me, you have my e-mail address, and a forum of your own to voice your opinions. You shouldn't burden Billy with this.

- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA

[MaryAn]

It was a lighthearted elbow jab, E.C., nothing more. Sorry you missed that.

[mernitman]

...and -- scene! Let's leave it there, EC and MaryAnn, shall we? Peace out. Meanwhile:

Chera: Thank you for reminding me about the Shia-as-Tarzan episode, speaking of howlers. Hope you enjoy "Sex," given the build-up -- and glad you found the book useful.

Binnie: Oh, go ahead. We're at the age where we can use the stimulation.

[Joanna Farnsworth]

What were they thinking? Seems to me they weren't. It looks like everyone on Indy 4 forgot that the real Indy Jones was an archaeology professor aka ARMCHAIR adventurer. He beat the bad guys and won the prize using brains, not brawn. We cheer for Indy not because he walks away from atom bomb blasts unscathed, but because he has the brains to know where to walk in that blast so he won't get hit. But the real Indy wouldn't be in an atom bomb blast anyway, he'd be on an archaeological dig. Come on guys, give us back the real Indy. Just coz he's older, doesn't mean he's brain dead.

[Carlo Conda]

Agreed. Adding the moo-ness of a normal action protag to Indy was a big mistake.

Also, some of the dialogue was... shit.
When Misses Marx touches him on the face while saying "you're a tough one to read, doctor Jones" and Indy sarcastically say "ow, heh", me and my father, and Indy fan, looked at each other and laughed (AT the movie). We were really embarrassed we were watching the movie at that point.

[Carlo Conda]

my father, AN Indy fan*, not AND Indy fan. heh
There was no fourth character in the mix there. Just me, my dad, and the bruised child of abusive and careless parents George Lucas and Steven Spielberg (and sperm donor Koepp).

[Dixon Steele]

I was kinda OK with Indy 4, until the end.

But, Billy, "under-expectation" ticket sales?

It's done about 3/4 of a billion dolars, so far, worldwide.

Like it or not, the public has spoken.

[mernitman]

Joanna: This Indy was a "professor" the way Angelina Jolie might be if you put her in horn-rims.

Carlo: The supposed best minds in entertainment making us feel embarrassed to watch their latest work -- kind of a bellweather moment for popular culture, eh?

Dixon: This post was written just after Indy's opening weekend, and hence that comment, specifically addressed to what the industry termed "under-performing" re: what original domestic opening weekend expectations had been.

But yes, of course the movie has done amazingly well since then... except "the public has spoken" doesn't feel like an apt phrase to me, in this regard. "The Public" dutifully showed up at the theaters to see the latest installment in a beloved franchise; it was a "I do have to go see this" movie. In terms of fans' reactions and that of many moviegoers, disappointment has been rampant and vocal.

People had to plunk their dollars down in order to end up disappointed. So the mere spending of that money doesn't, in my humble opinion, mean that "The Public" was entirely satisfied with the movie shown and seen.