Re: I need your help

Posted by schwammy from 157-18.dsl.scc.net on March 16, 2001 at 13:40:19:

In Reply to: I need your help posted by MK on March 15, 2001 at 22:42:44:

I think the Indy films to some extent changed our expectations of how an action hero should look at the end of the day. Spielberg and Lucas were coming out of the 70s style of filmmaking, which elevated realism above style. They were reacting to scenes like Paul Henreid's entrance in Casablanca, where we see a man who has supposedly just escaped from a Nazi concentration camp walk into Rick's Cafe looking like a well-fed stockbroker at the racetrack. Or think of Sean Connery's James Bond swimming to shore, stripping off his wet suit, and having on a perfectly tailored tuxedo underneath.
Spielberg and Lucas consciously set out to create a character who looked like an actual archaeologist / soldier of fortune from the 1930s, so that as Indy goes through his adventures, his clothes get dirty and stayed that way, and he ends up stiff and sore and covered with bruises. It's a very humanizing touch, so that even though the movie is complete fantasy, it has that believable aspect that says, "hey, it hurts when a guy gets puched and shot and thrown through a windshield."
Much is made of Indy's appearance in the first two films. (What are you supposed to be -- a lion tamer?) Katanga's line "Your appearance is exactly the way I imagined" works so well because it's such a logical thing to say. Sallah has told him to expect an archaeologist, so Katanga pictures a guy in a tweed jacket and a pith helmet, not this unshaven, disreputable-looking vagabond. Only in Dr. No does James Bond ever look as bad as Indy does pretty much all the time.
I think this was mostly Lucas's doing, because he introduced the idea of a dirty, unglamorous universe that bore little resemblence to the pristine utopian vision of most science fiction. It's simple cause-and-effect that says, "If this landspeeder is used on this hostile desert world with 2 suns, it makes sense that it's going to look like a worn-out jalopy rather than a shiny new Roadmaster. It's the same common sense that has Indy fall asleep during his big love scene on the Bantu Wind. Come on, Marion, what did you expect? The guy got dragged behind a truck today.
We see this kind of internal logic working today in films like Die Hard, where Bruce Willis just looks worse and worse as the film goes on, or Three Kings, where every bullet that is fired is accounted for, including a detailed post-mortem of what happens when someone gets shot. Or any movie fistfight where someone throws a punch and then howls in pain, shaking their sore hand.

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:      I think the Indy films to some extent changed our expectations of how an action hero should look at the end of the day.  Spielberg and Lucas were coming out of the 70s style of filmmaking, which elevated realism above style.  They were reacting to scenes like Paul Henreid's entrance in Casablanca, where we see a man who has supposedly just escaped from a Nazi concentration camp walk into Rick's Cafe looking like a well-fed stockbroker at the racetrack.  Or think of Sean Connery's James Bond swimming to shore, stripping off his wet suit, and having on a perfectly tailored tuxedo underneath.  
:      Spielberg and Lucas consciously set out to create a character who looked like an actual archaeologist / soldier of fortune from the 1930s, so that as Indy goes through his adventures, his clothes get dirty and stayed that way, and he ends up stiff and sore and covered with bruises.  It's a very humanizing touch, so that even though the movie is complete fantasy, it has that believable aspect that says, "hey, it hurts when a guy gets puched and shot and thrown through a windshield."
:      Much is made of Indy's appearance in the first two films.  (What are you supposed to be -- a lion tamer?)  Katanga's line "Your appearance is exactly the way I imagined" works so well because it's such a logical thing to say.  Sallah has told him to expect an archaeologist, so Katanga pictures a guy in a tweed jacket and a pith helmet, not this unshaven, disreputable-looking vagabond.  Only in Dr. No does James Bond ever look as bad as Indy does pretty much all the time.
:      I think this was mostly Lucas's doing, because he introduced the idea of a dirty, unglamorous universe that bore little resemblence to the pristine utopian vision of most science fiction.  It's simple cause-and-effect that says, "If this landspeeder is used on this hostile desert world with 2 suns, it makes sense that it's going to look like a worn-out jalopy rather than a shiny new Roadmaster.  It's the same common sense that has Indy fall asleep during his big love scene on the Bantu Wind.  Come on, Marion, what did you expect?  The guy got dragged behind a truck today.
:      We see this kind of internal logic working today in films like Die Hard, where Bruce Willis just looks worse and worse as the film goes on, or Three Kings, where every bullet that is fired is accounted for, including a detailed post-mortem of what happens when someone gets shot.  Or any movie fistfight where someone throws a punch and then howls in pain, shaking their sore hand.

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