Beyond
the numerous fisticuffs, explosions, and shocks, the Indiana Jones films make strong moral
statements. Their creators, led by George Lucas and
Steven Spielberg, are forced to demarcate; that is bad, this
is good. The results are sometimes
fascinating, always complicated, and the films are entertaining not in spite of
the messages, but because of them.
A moral framework guides the films, giving the hero a motivating grand purpose while painting the
enemy as irredeemably evil, and thus, more threatening and formidable an
adversary. But the films could be much
better if the moral framework was stronger, less nuanced, more direct,
plausible.
Remembering that The Temple of Doom is a prequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark, let's consider the hero, Indiana Jones, in
the former. He dismisses the villagers'
account of famine and pestilence commiserate with the theft of the Shankara
stone. But when he is told that the
children were stolen, he becomes more sympathetic. He decides to undertake a mission to recover
the stone because of the "fortune and glory" inherent in presenting
the lost Shankara stones to the world.
Of the three films, this has the least to do with archaeology.
Soon Jones is captured and converted
into a numb adherent of the Hindu goddess of destruction, Kali, said to be able
to protect her devotees from fear and grant limitless peace. As unholy wine is forced down Jones's throat,
a prerequisite for his conversion, Mola Ram lays out a plan to use his Thugees
in a march against the British colonizers with the ultimate plan of destroying
"the Hebrew god." Thus, the
film frames this limited struggle in India as a component of the ongoing war of
God versus Satan (working through the mindless adherents of Kali). Indiana Jones becomes an unwitting emissary
of the Lord's work. He is the means by
which this encroachment of the Occult may be halted. Because he never willfully converted, Jones
is brought to his senses by his youthful counterpart Short Round, who is able
to break the spiritual shackles with the grazing burn of a waving torch. This does not make a lot of sense, and seems inconsistent with the involved process of possession. Regardless, Jones takes up the fight with
renewed vigor, and emerges victorious by calling down the wrath of Shiva (a
rival Hindu god) on Mola Ram for his covetousness, he having exclaimed that the
Shankara stones were his. Thus Hindus
are not necessarily evil, just those who get violent about it or, like Mola
Ram, use religion as a prop to develop a personality cult. Subtext is made explicit in the portrayal of
the villagers, Hindus all, as they seem to be good people wanting nothing but
their children back. Jones tells the
village elder that he now understands the power the stones possess. Indiana Jones is now a spiritualist.
One short year later, Indiana Jones
sets out to recover the Ark of the Covenant.
Repeatedly warned to fear the Ark's power, Jones refuses to concern
himself with anything besides the lethal cunning of his opponents. Jones is a strong and daring adventurer,
still stuck on fortune and glory. His
rival, Bellocque, is correct in asserting the two men's similarities; we root
for Jones because we are forced to follow him every step of the narrative, and
because he is up against Nazis, who cannot be good in anything but a Lesi
Riefenstahl film. Near the story's end,
the protagonist Jones makes an astute decision—he encourages his female
companion, Marion, to close her eyes as the Ark is opened. Indeed, there's no downside in such an
action—it is prudent and wise. But it is
not grounded in faith. God kills the
detestable Nazis, but leaves Indiana and Marion to relate the event to the
proper authorities. As the film ends,
Jones can be considered quasi-agnostic.
Two years pass,
and 1938 finds Indiana Jones up against the Nazis again. The race is on for the Holy Grail, but the
familiar structure is enlivened by the introduction of a new character, Henry
Jones, Sr., Indiana's father. His voice
is the conscience of the film. It is he
who has searched for the Cup his whole life, he who takes a dim view of
Indiana's gleeful killing, he who denounces blasphemy, and he who reminds his
recalcitrant son that theirs is a "race against evil." It is no treasure hunt.
The character of Dr. Jones, Sr. is
the most interesting of the film, but it is also the least consistent. He exasperates his son and unearths
resentments never seen in the earlier films.
His deliberative, cautious approach to overcoming challenges is a
humorous contrast to the sledgehammer style of Junior. When he uses seagulls to down an enemy
fighter plane and save their lives, his actions engender great respect in his
son. Before long this professor of
Medieval literature kills a dozen Germans with one pull of the trigger. When his old friend Marcus protests, Henry
rejoins, "It's war!"
But his moral voice is clouded by the
revelation that he had intimate relations with Dr. Schneider. Though he may dismiss his dalliance as
"two ships that pass in the night," his behavior is incompatible with
a man of God on a holy quest. George
Lucas reportedly had major misgivings about this plot point—Indiana and his father having sex with the
same woman. Spielberg prevailed on
him. Though the latent humor of such a
situation is skillfully exploited in the script, the film ultimately suffers
because of it. In Raiders of the Lost Ark and Temple
of Doom Indiana does not have sex.
Prior relations between Indiana and Marion are implied, but Jones falls
asleep before anything gets started on the steamer. And while he and Willie Scott engage in
suggestive banter, they never get around to it, either. Perhaps because Indiana's father takes the
place of the woman as the partner/foil in the course of this latest adventure,
the woman's importance needed to be addressed clearly, early on. Elsa Schneider's character is necessary only
for the immediate frission she
produces between father and son, and because she greedily hoards the Cup at the
film's climax. Her character is
irrelevant.
When Indiana is forced to run the
gauntlet in order to save his father's life, his decision to take the
"leap form the lion's head" is portrayed as an act of great faith. His father intones through parallel editing,
"You must believe, boy."
Clutching at his heart, Indiana steps forward.
If he had gone back, his father would surely
die. He has no choice but to move ahead,
but is his decision grounded in faith or expediency? What is he supposed to "believe"
in, God Almighty or the designer of these Middle Aged booby traps? The fear he is working through and the reasons
informing his decision are deliberately obscured. Thus, the fascinating parallel of a strong
man undertaking a journey while his soul is undergoing a journey of its own is
left to wither in story construction.
Soon after this, dangling over the fissure, Indiana
wisely abandons the Chalice. Outside,
his father tells him that Elsa had thought she had found a prize. She did not take seriously the Author behind
all the wonders she had seen—Donovan withering before her eyes, Henry restored
to perfect health, the earth breaking apart.
Indiana asks his father what he found in the temple, to which his father
imparts, "Me? Illumination."
This response
poignantly echoes a moment form the past.
We had seen earlier that in 1912, Henry, copying a stained glass window
relevant to the Grail search, said "May He who illuminated this illuminate
me."
Henry returns the question, asking
his son what he found inside. We
remember an early scene in the film, in father Henry's house. A point of repose and stillness in the
ransacked living room, Indiana concentrates on the picture of a faithful knight
reaching for the Cup of Christ across a deep chasm into which his enemies
summarily fall. Indiana asks Marcus if
he believes its powers are a fact.
Marcus replies that the search for the Grail is the search for the
divine in each of us. Indiana has seen
the power of God in the Ark, but he cannot accept the truth and conclude that
if the same power of the Ark was invested in the Grail than it would be
dangerous. If the Grail lacks that power
then it would not be dangerous, but, either way, God is the One with the
power. No magic is involved, no
mysticism. 
So we have Marcus's view of the Cup
and Henry Jones's view of the Cup. Both
are vaguely humanistic—the Cup has the power to awaken our souls. Knowing Indiana's answer to the question
posed by his father, the question of what he found, is critical to resolving
the disparity. But instead of addressing
this highly relevant, intensely difficult and personal question, he whines about
what his name is once again. We never
find out if he changed his mind. Working
under the assumption that morality is dependent on a single, inerrant arbiter,
God, and since the film is intent on drawing lines between Good and Evil, then
the film undermines its very story by refusing to go the whole way. Through three films the issue of morality has
been paramount, Indiana has become more cognizant of spiritual forces, and a
great summation seems due. But we get no
answer. All we get is the four buddies
riding off into the sunset together.
These jaw-dropping events have not changed anybody. Religion has been used,
for a third time, as a prop to launch
an adventure made more memorable by
flavorings of the suspenseful
and mysterious.
Lucas crossed into new territory by
permitting a shift in sexual mores, but Spielberg, assuming he cares, also
acquiesced to a shift. In Raiders of the Lost Ark the religious
framework is Jewish, but in The Last
Crusade it is Christian.
If
Spielberg is a cultural Jew and not a practicing one then making the first film
would be just as easy, and hard, as making the third.
Lucas, the reluctant Methodist, and Spielberg
struck a delicate balance in the third film.
It can be viewed from a Christian perspective or a Humanist one. Hearing Dr. Henry Jones say at the end,
"Me? I found Jesus
Christ, the
Author and Perfector of our Faith" would be a lot to handle, and could
torpedo the film's box office.
But we're still left to wonder how those four men
could step out of that temple
and not fall
on their knees in gratitude and awe before God.
When Indiana Jones is bashing a man's
head against the dashboard of a truck, scaling the side of a submarine, hurling
a spit of flaming kabobs, crashing through a window to rescue his father, and
cutting the rope bridge, we cheer because
the fight is a moral fight. It's not the violence that is inspiring, but heroism, valor, in the face of Evil. Despite
the films' internal confusion, Jones
is an ambassador against all that is wrong.
In The Last Crusade, against
the backdrop of a Nazi book burning, in response to Elsa
Schneider's pleas for sympathy, he rails, "You stood up to be counted with the
enemy of everything that the Grail stands for;
Who gives a damn what you think!?"
It's inspiring stuff and it's what these stories thrive on. Jones is clearly showing progress from where he was a few years previous, but his transformation is left frustratingly incomplete.
If the Indiana Jones movies are
designed as a method for an audience to enjoy a thrill ride, then the thrills
are undermined by inattention to the moral framework that makes the thrills
compelling, not merely rousing. These
are good films that miss greatness not because they are not True, but because
they are not true to themselves.