Harrison Ford says goodbye to Indiana Jones at 81

The filmmaker has tried to assume everything that Ford and his character represent. “He is one of those few great heroes who is not perfect, who has his own phobias and fears and who is an intellectual rather than a man of action,” explains the director.

In an interview with Europa Press, Mangold reviews the archaeologist’s heritage and past until arriving at his film. “He’s a very inspiring character, at least for me because he’s full of contradictions,” he notes. In order to maintain the essence of the originals in the face of the hero’s farewell, the filmmaker has tried to get closer to the type of action that Spielberg used in the original films. A type of action that, unlike other Mangold films such as ‘Logan’ or ‘The 3:10 Train’, has an inseparable comic vision.

“‘Indiana Jones’ has a great legacy in humor. Nowadays we have a lot of action-adventure movies, young people also have comic book movies and superhero movies, which present a pretty brutal world of action. The action in ‘Indiana Jones’ movies Jones’ must be spectacular, but there is also a lore first created by Steven [Spielberg] and George [Lucas] for the originals where there’s also kind of fun action,” says Mangold.

“It’s a Bugs Bunny, Road Runner, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd or Rube Goldberg kind of action… A kind of madness that almost looks like a musical number,” he adds. In this regard, and despite Ford’s advanced age, for ‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Fate’ the studio managed to include some sequences thanks to CGI technology. It is a technique with which the actor is rejuvenated through computer-generated images, in this case taking Indiana Jones back to his 40s.

A LEGACY OF LOVE FOR CINEMA

Apart from the action and the imperfect character prototype, Mangold also believes that ‘Indiana Jones’ is a unique saga in the cinema because of who was behind it. “The original is one of the great movies of all time and certainly one of the most entertaining. It’s amazing to bring together so many great talents: Spielberg, Lucas, John Williams, Harrison Ford in his first big leading role in a movie… What a work of art it is”, praises the filmmaker, happy to be able to continue that legacy. “They are films made for the love of cinema,” he says about it.

Faced with the criticism that cinema faces in reference to the overexploitation of nostalgia for old stories and characters, Mangold considers that ‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Fate’ cannot be included among the examples. “The film is the fifth in a saga about a beloved character, so it’s inevitable that there will be certain things in the story that look to the past,” he defends himself.

“This is a hero from a golden age who lives in a time when that kind of heroism has almost faded away,” says the filmmaker. “The first three ‘Indiana Jones’ movies take place in a moment of unprecedented idealism. They give that impression of classic Hollywood cinema from the Golden Age, taking place in a time of Nazis against allies, of good guys against bad guys, when the world was very clear”, he says, trying to differentiate his film from those.

“In ‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Fate’ it’s different, as I think it was different for ‘Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,’ because it’s a period of modernity, a world where good and bad are not. so easy to identify. And the world is no longer so focused on history, people are consumed by the culture of individualism and look more to the future than the past”, concludes his reflection.

‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Fate’ was released in theaters this week. Along with Ford, the cast is completed by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Mads Mikkelsen, Antonio Banderas, Karen Allen and John Rhys-Davies, among others. The soundtrack, in addition, is once again composed by John Williams and has Steven Spielberg and George Lucas as executive producers.