Darren Glazier
Coracle Archaeology
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny film poster © Walt Disney Studios 2023
Warning: Throughout this review, I have endeavoured to avoid spoilers to Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, the latest film in the Indiana Jones franchise. I have, however, been a little less careful with the earlier films. These have been around for quite a long time.
It is would not be controversial to state that Indiana Jones has had a profound impact on the discipline of archaeology. These films are seared into the collective consciousness of a generation, and there can be few that have come to the discipline in the last 40 years that do not have a deeply personal relationship with the franchise. I grew up with the early films, watched them and re-watched them as a teenager. As an undergraduate student in the mid-1990s, I was encouraged to think critically about the iconography of Indy; by the mid-2000s I was asking my own students to consider the role of the franchise in the construction of knowledge. Yet I still got married to the theme tune from Raiders of the Lost Ark. For this archaeologist, at least, familiarity did not breed contempt.
So it was with some trepidation that I greeted the news of the arrival of the fifth (and potentially final) instalment of the Indiana Jones series. That trepidation was heightened when I was asked to review the film for TEA. Could I maintain the requisite critical distance? And—perhaps most importantly—would it actually be any good?
I needn’t have worried. The plot of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is nothing if not familiar. The metaphorical curtain opens in 1944 with a digitally de-aged Indy (Harrison Ford; not as distracting as it sounds) and his colleague Professor Basil Shaw (Toby Jones, essentially reprising the role of Denholm Elliot’s Marcus Brody) snatching the Antikythera mechanism—for the purposes of this film at least, Archimedes’ dial—from the Nazis, as the Third Reich literally crumbles around them. Fast forward to 1969 as German scientist Professor Schmidt (a delightfully villainous Mads Mikkelsen) searches for the same Antikythera, the titular Dial of Destiny. What follows is a two-hour romp from location to location as Indy and Schmidt race for the dial, each assisted and thwarted at various turns by Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), daughter of Basil and Teddy (Ethann Isidore; channelling Ke Huy Quan’s Short Round from the Temple of Doom). The final act of the film has been derided in some quarters as preposterous, but the final acts of all the Indy films are preposterous. This is a franchise that has never taken itself too seriously.
Unsurprisingly, the film retains a focus on the search for artefacts, the quest for what have become known in cinema and fiction as ‘McGuffins’ (items necessary for plot and character advancement, but irrelevant in themselves), with all but the merest nod to archaeological practice. There is the ubiquitous lecture scene which encourages us to recognise the dichotomy between Indy the academic and Indy the adventurer, and one involving the plunder of an ancient shipwreck. But then these films are not about the practice of archaeology per se, and a review that focuses on historical inaccuracies or inaccurate portrayals would surely miss the point. To paraphrase Helena Shaw as they race through the streets of Tangiers, the discipline of archaeology probably should not be taking lessons from an ageing grave robber anyway.
More problematic is the recognition that the earlier instalments of the Indiana Jones franchise are deeply imbued with orientalist, colonialist and at times overtly racist tropes. The theme of white-saviourism is dominant in The Temple of Doom, while a low-level misogyny runs throughout the Last Crusade: Elsa is a complex, conflicted character, it is true, using the Nazis, Indy and Jones Sr to further her own ends. Yet she is also portrayed as a harlot, consumed by an obsession that ultimately ends in her downfall. Viewed through a modern lens, these earlier films are jarring. The issues with the Crystal Skull are myriad and merit an article in and of themselves; to highlight the plot’s reliance on Von Daniken and the inherent racism of ancient alien theory is enough here.
Unfortunately, not all of these issues remain in the past. The use of a white actor (John Rhys Davies) to play a returning character of colour (Sallah) in the Dial of Destiny is clearly an issue in the 2020s, especially when that character is essentially a caricature of the orientalist tropes propagated in earlier films. That the character is incidental to the storyline makes their appearance even more puzzling.
The decision to establish a quasi-familial link between Indy and Helena Shaw does at least mean that the film manages to avoid some of the potentially problematic pitfalls around their relationship, and there is little of the underlying misogyny that plagues both The Last Crusade and Temple of Doom. That these films have come to embody the idea of the archaeologist is nevertheless an issue for a discipline that is still defining itself in a post-colonial world.
It is, nevertheless, possible to argue that the character of Indiana Jones is not really an archaeologist at all, but merely the archetypal action hero – the socially awkward academic (a common trope) contrasting starkly with the bull-whip wielding, gun-toting adventurer. In this, he is no different to Bruce Wayne and Batman, Bruce Banner and Hulk or indeed many of the other action or fantasy heroes that have appeared on our screens in the last century. The contexts and motivations may be different, but the characters themselves are interchangeable. It is noteworthy that the first words uttered by Indy in the Dial of Destiny are “I like to be alone”.
Instead, perhaps we should ask, why archaeology at all? Since the adventure novels of the 19th century, the pursuit of the past has been bound up in ideas of mysticism, a trend that continued into the 20th century and the rise of the feature film. Archaeology, then, becomes a signifier for exoticism and adventure: Sean Connery’s Henry Jones Sr states boldly that the “quest for the grail is not archaeology, it’s a race against evil”, while in Raiders Marcus Brody informs government agents that “they are meddling in powers [they] can’t possibly comprehend”. Interestingly, this is largely eschewed in the latest instalment (with the odd exception: “I don’t [believe in magic]… but I’ve seen things”), with its focus on the primacy of science.
Indy is an action hero, sure, but he is also one that is far from perfect. Not all of his decisions are the right ones; not all of his escapes go as planned. Even the titular McGuffin is stumbled upon accidentally as they try to retrieve another artefact from a train full of Nazi plunder. Part of the enduring success of Indy the icon is the contrast between these feats of derring-do and the notion of every-man ‘relatability’; it is perhaps this more than anything that has allowed the character to seep into popular culture, affectionately parodied everywhere from The Simpsons to It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
This sense of familiarity is key to the Dial of Destiny. This is the first of the franchise not to be helmed by Spielberg, though it matters little. There is nothing revolutionary or ground-breaking about the film, but there never was. Nostalgia was written into the franchise from the beginning, a nod to the serials of the 1930s and the B-movies of the 1950s. It is also at the very heart of this film and its focus on the character of Indy himself. In the hands of another actor this might have been an issue. Harrison Ford, however, is an endearing screen presence and talismanic actor who can carry the weight of a franchise into their early 80s (see also Han Solo in Star Wars).
Nostalgia is also present in both the easy familiarity of John Williams’ score and in the numerous nods to earlier films. Indeed, there is something curiously meta about the way it creates a sense of nostalgia through constant references to pivotal moments in earlier films. Some of these are subtle (various set-pieces are often little more than re-shoots of sequences from films one to four), others less so: “why are you chasing the thing that drove your Father crazy?”, Indy asks of Helena. The irony should not be lost on him. These call-backs are built into the structure of the film itself; the audience is encouraged to revel in their favourite moments from the franchise with a knowing wink.
This is a film that is acutely aware of its own history, but it is also one that is obsessed with the concept of time itself. The Indiana Jones of the 1960s is portrayed as man out-of-time, struggling to find his place in a world that has moved on. Is Indy himself the McGuffin that needs saving? The juxtaposition between the moon landings and Indy’s retirement party is stark; he is presented with a clock—a standard retirement gift, it is true, but one that nonetheless further emphasises the desire to control the passage of time. It is no coincidence that clocks and watches are a recurring motif throughout the film.
In this sense, then, perhaps Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is more about archaeology than any of its predecessors. This is evident in the film’s obsession with both its own past and the passing of time. It may even be possible to argue that this latest instalment is actually an archaeology of Indy himself; slowly excavating the complex layers that have been built up in the previous films to reveal a more nuanced central character.
But perhaps that is over thinking it. This is essentially a matinee film, starring one of the last, great matinee idols. The film romps along with a pleasing silliness entirely in keeping with earlier instalments and the 1930s serials from which they drew their inspiration. Constant nods to Indiana Jones’ own past encourage the viewer to wallow in the warmth of nostalgia and recognition. The script is playful and at times overripe, but this merely adds to the sense of familiarity.
Whether the film itself—or indeed any of its earlier incarnations—is an accurate representation of archaeology is not a debate worth becoming embroiled in, nor is it necessary to highlight the numerous historical inaccuracies in the film. These films are created as entertainment, and the filmmakers clearly have no obligation to represent the multi-faceted reality of modern archaeology. Archaeology within Indiana Jones acts primarily as a signifier for mysticism and adventure, the intrepid explorer versus the awkward outsider.
Yet it is undeniable that these films have contributed to the construction of knowledge about archaeologists and archaeology in wider society, perceptions that we have not always been quick to challenge. In truth, the relationship between archaeology and Indiana Jones will always be a complicated one. The films have brought a version of the discipline to the attention of wider society, and undoubtedly encouraged people into the discipline itself (the ‘Indy effect’). Yet the earlier films are also deeply flawed, imbued with plots, scenes and characters that are inherently problematic. This can perhaps be explained—though not excused—by the assertion that they were of a different era; in their rush to embrace nostalgia, the makers of the Dial of Destiny made the inexplicable decision to bring back a character that belonged to another time.
Despite this very obvious –and utterly avoidable—problem, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is a worthy addition to the Indy franchise. It is a film that encourages the viewer to wallow in a well of nostalgia and take delight in the warmth of recognition, from the first trumpets of the Raiders March to its ultimate denouement. Even as the last, telegraphed lines of the film come hurtling toward you, cliché klaxon sounding, we are encouraged to look back to the ending of an earlier film. And if those lines don’t leave you with a broad smile on your face, then yours is a harder heart than mine.
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