Discuss Chapter 4 - Of Interest to the Bureau (DVD chapter by chapter discussion)

martinland said:

IMHO it doesn't drag at all, on the contrary: I immensely enjoy the elements of craftsmanship that went into the sequence - they don't do much along these lines anymore.

The acting is superb, the way the characters look at each other or in the case of the federal guys interrupt each others - perfect timing. Amplifies the bonding between Indy and his mentor and cracks me up with the two other guys...

On top of that you have very artistic and wide frame compositions by the camera as well as interesting focus/foreground choices.

You have an intriguing plot being told by Indy and Brody.

You have just the right dose of dramatic Williams magic.

It goes on and on.


Just my two cents,
Martin

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Well, I didn't say I disliked the scenes, I like all the elements you did, but I think along with some other scenes of Raiders, it all seems to go on so long sometimes on repeat viewings. But I do really like the part when Brody is warning Indy the ark is like nothing he has ever gone after before, that bit is brilliant.

Spiralout, yea - Indy looks so old in the school clothing! I often can't wait for him to get back in the Indy gear, he looks much younger in it.

Yeah I wish they used a different photo of Henry Jones, still, I like hearing the Last Crusade music along side his dad's photo, reminds you of the epic life changing journey they went on, now Indy's dad is gone and Indy's life is carrying on changing - the age of atomic bombs, Indy's realisaton of alien life (later in the movie), by the time you see Indy boarding the train, it really does seem like Indy' life has kind of become empty and hitting rock bottom.

Benraianajones, I miss your old avatar now I associate you with the user Agent Spalko (not a good association)

WeAreGoingToDie said:

Benraianajones, I miss your old avatar now I associate you with the user Agent Spalko (not a good association)

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Anything goes with me. Willie will return.

I got a question.
Does the opening sequence end with the mushroom cloud, or is the interrogation scene still part of it? The opening sequence of Raiders clearly ends when there's a cut to the marshall college, so I assumed the same thing with this film. Only the scenes aren't divided in this manner on the dvd.

More important than where the DVD lays its chapter starts is where the prologue feels like it ends in the movie itself. While in the other movies the prologues end in a clear, definitive way, I think the FBI scene in Indy4 creates a transition that I'm not sure I like. The end result is like you say - it's hard to know when the teaser ends and when the story begins. Even with Indy4's prologue being less self-contained, story-wise, than the other movies', I think cutting from the mushroom cloud to Marshall would have been the way to go. The FBI scene, good as it is on its own, is redundant.

Udvarnoky said:

More important than where the DVD lays its chapter starts is where the prologue feels like it ends in the movie itself. While in the other movies the prologues end in a clear, definitive way, I think the FBI scene in Indy4 creates a transition that I'm not sure I like. The end result is like you say - it's hard to know when the teaser ends and when the story begins. Even with Indy4's prologue being less self-contained, story-wise, than the other movies', I think cutting from the mushroom cloud to Marshall would have been the way to go. The FBI scene, good as it is on its own, is redundant.

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I agree, though I don't even like the interrogation scene on itself. But worse than that, it's just a bad way to end an opening sequence of an Indy film IMO. It should end on a more exciting note. The mushroom cloud being the end would've been a lot better, I agree. And they could have explained all that FBI business in the college.

TheLastCrusader said:

I agree, though I don't even like the interrogation scene on itself. But worse than that, it's just a bad way to end an opening sequence of an Indy film IMO. It should end on a more exciting note. The mushroom cloud being the end would've been a lot better, I agree. And they could have explained all that FBI business in the college.

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The Darabont script had the interrogation but also a scene at Marshall in which we see Indy's 'communist ties' on the front of a newspaper. They should have dropped the former and kept the latter.

Where does the opening of TOD ends? With the shot of the plane taking off or with the shot of the boat in the river after the crash?

I still think that the opening of KOTCS follows more closely the opening of TOD. We have 20 mins of a little side-story that carry us to the main plot.

The only difference is that the alien corpse is in relation with the main plot of the skull. But I also found that the search for the diamond in Obi Wan club is the equivalent of the "Fortune and glory" theme of diamonds inside the Sankara Stones that both Indy and Willie are interested in.

From my particular point of view the McGuffin from the opening is also visually related to the main plot of Raiders and Crusade. I think that the sand inside the ark is like the sand that Indy uses to get the golden idol, and Coronado's cross is visually linked to the image of Jose de Arimatea with the Grail (In the picture at Henry's house). Spielberg likes to use visual metaphors in the story. I always like that the first time he uses his whip inside the lion's cage is later reflected when he has to prove his worth in the leap from the lion's head.

Wilhelm said:

I always like that the first time he uses his whip inside the lion's cage is later reflected when he has to prove his worth in the leap from the lion's head.

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thats a great metaphor,
never noticed it before. which is strange cuz the young indy scene is prolly my fave in THE LAST CRUSADE.

Wilhelm, I think all of that is simply fascinating. I'd love to see a thread on it.

Wilhelm said:

Where does the opening of TOD ends? With the shot of the plane taking off or with the shot of the boat in the river after the crash?

I still think that the opening of KOTCS follows more closely the opening of TOD. We have 20 mins of a little side-story that carry us to the main plot.

The only difference is that the alien corpse is in relation with the main plot of the skull. But I also found that the search for the diamond in Obi Wan club is the equivalent of the "Fortune and glory" theme of diamonds inside the Sankara Stones that both Indy and Willie are interested in.

From my particular point of view the McGuffin from the opening is also visually related to the main plot of Raiders and Crusade. I think that the sand inside the ark is like the sand that Indy uses to get the golden idol, and Coronado's cross is visually linked to the image of Jose de Arimatea with the Grail (In the picture at Henry's house). Spielberg likes to use visual metaphors in the story. I always like that the first time he uses his whip inside the lion's cage is later reflected when he has to prove his worth in the leap from the lion's head.

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You make a good point. Each Indy movie prologue varies in style somewhat. Raiders I think, is the most like a James Bond prologue; self contained and separate to the rest of the story. TOD?s prologue has a clear flight into the sunset shot, but the opening clearly sets up all the main protagonists... as well as propelling them (literally) into the main body of the story/movie.

TLC seems to have two linked prologues. One being the young Indy, the other being Indy aboard the Coronado. KOTCS seems closer to the TOD opener than any other? and indeed is the only other Indy movie that opens with diegetic music (?Anything Goes? and ?Hound Dog?).

I really like this section of the film, mostly because we see Indy about to leave his old life behind. However, I do wish they had included the line from the novelization where Indy and Stanforth discuss their lives and think "Who will they say I was?" That was a great emotional moment that I would have liked to see in the film. I also thought the tribute to Marcus and Henry, Sr. were well done too.

Wilhelm, I think you made some great points (I've always felt that Willie's exclamation of "diamonds!" in the Thuggee ceremonial chamber was some sort of attempt to call back to the Peacock's Eye), and it's true, it isn't as clear in TOD where the prologue ends as it is in Raiders or Crusade, but there's nonetheless a clear part where the main story begins, and that's when the heroes realize they're in India and arrive at the village. From a story perspective, the prologue is a neatly self-contained teaser, just like the other two in the original trilogy. Raiders introduces Indy and Belloq, Temple introduces Shorty and Willie, and Crusade introduces us to Henry Sr.['s voice], but that's really about it. Stylistically and thematically the prologues have much to offer, but strictly from a story standpoint they're basically there to introduce a major character or two and otherwise feel like the last few minutes of some unseen Indiana Jones movie.

Although arguments can be made about subtle nods to the prologues in all the films, they are nonetheless mostly separate, whereas the central storyline of Indy4 really does begin in the first frame. We're introduced to all of the main villains, Mac, and the alien corpse. Nearly everything that happens in the prologue plays a significant part in the remainder of the film.

TheLastCrusader said:

And they could have explained all that FBI business in the college.

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Heck, even just leaving all of the college scenes as-is might have still worked out. Stanforth telling Indy that the FBI ransacked his office, and later recognizing that "The government's got us seeing Communists in our soup" tells you all you need to know. I think people could have concluded that the FBI was suspicious of Indy due to his association with Mac and for helping the Russians without explicitly saying so. And even if the audience wouldn't have picked up on that, the hysteria that resulted in innocent Americans being accused of Communist ties is all well-grounded in history.

Udvarnoky said:

Stylistically and thematically the prologues have much to offer, but strictly from a story standpoint they're basically...the last few minutes of some unseen Indiana Jones movie.

...they are nonetheless mostly separate, whereas the central storyline of Indy4 really does begin in the first frame.

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+1

With Kingdom, we're coming in just after the prologue, with the pottery pieces being ruined as the only real link, as fleeting as it is.

And while I don't particularly see why making the prologue to Indy4 so connected to the rest of the film was mandatory or the best way to do it, I do think it works. I just really think they should have lost that FBI scene, or otherwise have made whatever preceded the cut to the Marshall College exterior a definite curtain close to the prologue, and the iconic mushroom cloud silhouette just would have done that brilliantly. Even in the movie's final form, without any of the hypothetical rewriting that would have resulted from the cut, I think the information conveyed in the FBI scene is interesting but not necessary. I do enjoy it in a self-contained way but if it had been removed in the editing, I'm confident no one would have missed it.

Interesting point...

I can think of some other parts that if they had been removed in the editing, no one would have missed it... specially nearing the end

I just mean that...nothing anybody says in the FBI scene is stuff we don't know or stuff that we particularly need to know to justify the existence of an entire scene. Did I get a kick out of hearing some specifics about Indy's WWII past and his Colonel status? Yeah, but it felt suspiciously like a "Let's tell you what Indy's been up to" scene, when Indy's war history is already covered by his interactions with Mac. Everything about Spalko that General Ross states was already learned, either explicitly or implicitly. Indy's little rant about the "air force fiasco in 47" was nice I guess, but we already know he was part of the Roswell recovery team - Spalko already said that. It's frustrating - the first 20 minutes of the movie do an effective job of revealing a lot of key ideas in subtle ways...and then the FBI scene comes along and totally ruins all that by treating you like an idiot and repeating everything you've just/scene heard explicitly.

Yes, I like the scene, but I'd probably also like most of the deleted scenes from all the Indy movies if they were ever made available. When scenes are deleted from movies, the quality or whether or not it works in many cases has nothing to do with it. Good footage is always lost for the sake of pace. I just don't think the interrogation earns its existence in the context of the whole movie.

I also like the scene, specially the blocking of the actors and the shots of Ford very angry. It's pure Spielberg-Ford combination. Spielberg is a master of blocking the actors and framing the shots with great precision and this little scene shows his talent.

It's not necessary to the story but knowing that Indy 4 will be the last time we see Spielberg-Ford-Indy in the screen I'm happy to have it.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that even if I do like the scene on its own, its presence in the final movie isn't innocuous. I think it drags the movie, but worse than that it creates the side effect of screwing up the effectiveness of a lot of the plot points introduced in earlier scenes by reiterating them in the form of hammered-home exposition. And finally, coming back to something I've griped about in the past, it gives the "The FBI is after Indy" subplot a rather big impact - a much bigger impact than the remainder of the movie is willing to live up to. Indy's Commie suspicions ultimately are only there as a reason to get him on the train. If the movie only wanted it for that purpose and wasn't interested in addressing Indy's situation later in the movie, why devote an entire scene to the idea, giving the impression of it being a setup to something that will be paid off later? The FBI stuff is conveyed well enough by way of Indy's firing and Stanforth's dialogue - the interrogation scene underlines it, and for nothing as it turns out. Decent actor blocking is a poor justification for including a scene.

As much as I like the FBI scene, I could live without it. It sort of feels like a forced, but enjoyable, coda to the opening prologue. However, if exorcised, I do think something else would be required to explain Indy?s removal from his teaching post.