Indiana Jones and the Meaningless Void

" 'Indiana' will get us out of this," the headline reads.

There's something to that, beyond box office economics. Indy comes along just in time, satisfying a craving in American audiences for his insouciant bravado, the sort of bravado that has no political consequence, safely up there on the movie screen, set in another time.

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He's changed (thicker torso, craggier face) and we've changed (vanished attention spans, deadened senses). He's 60-something now, and we all think we're 23. They've got him running around in 1957, fighting the Red Menace, with a Roswell/space alien story line in the background.

When Lucas and Spielberg announced in 2006 that they were going to make a fourth Indy film, and that Harrison Ford, then 64, would play him, fans immediately got online to talk about it. Although they pondered what the story would be, they were more consumed by technique. Passionate "Indiana Jones" fans want to know about camerawork. They care whether Janusz Kaminski, Spielberg's longtime cinematographer (but first-time "Indiana Jones"-er), would adhere to the original series's "bright," cheap look. It was about carbon arcs and 2:4 light vs. 8. The fans conducted their own CGI debate while the movie was shot on secure locations and locked-down studio lots: Would Spielberg do things the "old-fashioned" way, or would he give in to his friend George's dependence on digitally created effects? (Spielberg went old-school. Fans love that the new movie has been cobbled together on old-model Moviola editing consoles, except for the ones who don't, who prefer, like Lucas, the digital way.)

"Star Trek" fans write. Harry Potter fans write. "Star Wars" fans play dress-up. And what do Indiana Jones fans do? They are the ultimate "Making of . . ." technical geeks, wanting to know everything about storyboarding, stunts, squib explosions, editing, matte backdrops, sound mixing and John Williams's musical scores. They almost never want to know about character development or theme. (Even though everyone who made the new "Indiana Jones" says the biggest hang-up to making a fourth movie was the lack of a good story.) The question for Indy fans is always "How did they do that?" and not "What does it mean?" They shun analysis. They abhor movie reviews, except their own. In this way, they are the ideal audience.

In a recent interview in Entertainment Weekly (the big "summer movies" issue), Spielberg and Lucas sounded like an old married couple in the car, arguing over directions and process. They differ even on what to write with: "When Steven works on his scripts, he does his work on a computer. I wouldn't touch a computer," says Lucas, the man who subjected the world to computerized Jar Jar Binks. "I do mine on nice yellow tablets with a Number 4 pencil, and I will not change." (The yellow pads on which he wrote "Star Wars" in the 1970s are part of the holy archive. The first thing you notice when you look at them, in the "Making of 'Star Wars' " tome, is that Lucas is one of those people who draw girly circles for the dots of their i's.)

"This interview must seem like we're in Bellevue," Spielberg observed.

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"Archaeology is the search for fact . . . not truth. If it's truth you're looking for, Dr. Tyree's philosophy class is right down the hall."

-- Indiana Jones

Perhaps it was only ever about the fedora. Indiana Jones wasn't about anything, except the triumph of brown leather jackets, and the way men felt wearing them on their adventuresome, tiresome Casual Fridays. It was about a time when every Banana Republic store had a Jeep parked in it, and palm fronds, and sold chambray oxford shirts. Every office still has that guy who thinks he looks great in a fedora.