A hero for the New Agers

Rating: 1/10 (25 October 2010)

I watched this film on the opening night, and I was extremely perplexed walking out. The first thing that puzzled me was how on earth the film got away with a PG rating. I figured it this way. It was trying to be a kids adventure film, but was so poor that it needed to compensate through over the top violence and horror. So my puzzlement was how on earth Lucas and Spielberg managed to bend the arms of the censors to get their PG rating, which allowed them to keep on marketing the film as children’s fare. And the other thing that puzzled me was that the movie was over before it had even started. I hadn’t noticed a story starting anywhere, so I was wondering how the movie could have finished. In other words, there was no film, just a blaze of action, and then suddenly the lights coming on. I heard someone comment on the way out, “I’ve never seen anything like that before.” I don’t know if she meant it in the same way as I did, but it was exactly my sentiment. I had never seen anything like that before! A film that’s not a film at all! Just an excuse to put one action sequence after another. In fact, the censors should have banned the film on account of its having no story. How could Lucas and Spielberg get away with this?! The overall impression I got was that there’s something very rotten going on in the film world now.
The above response was instantaneous, and it was before all the legend around this film had grown up. I didn’t think the film was going to be a hit. In fact, I thought it was going to fall flat on its face. But the film went on to break box-office records everywhere, and after the legend had cemented, I started to have different feelings. I reasoned that I may have missed something the first time, and after reading the umpteenth glowing review the film began to look better in my memory. However a recent viewing helped to dispel all these false notions. It must be stated out and out. This film is bad!!! There’s nothing more to be said about it, but there’s a lot to be said about the audience. I think it’s high time that we said a few things about the “movie brats” and the popular appeal that they court. The thing started proper with Star Wars in 1977, and this is where the Raiders phenomenon begins really. Star Wars is an equally bad movie, but it had a few things going for it. It was presented as a myth, or fairy tale, for the modern age, and it worked too. Three reasons for this. One, the groundbreaking special effects gave it an epic quality, exactly in keeping with the space mythology being presented. Two, the Hollywood narrative was totally disbanded, giving way for an episodic structure. This helped the myth-making, because without a narrative drive people could read whatever they liked into the movie. And three, the notion of an omnipotent “force”, with both a good and dark side, captured the imagination of a world moving towards “new ageism”. So, Star Wars started it all, and the “new age” of the Hollywood blockbuster had begun. These films don’t rely on the traditional virtues of film anymore. Their aim is no wow audiences with something else, more specifically, the expensive, special effects laden set piece. They cater to the New Age mindset of “me me me”. People don’t go to the watch the stories of other people anymore. They go to participate in the megalomania of the filmmakers who were making inflated films with inflated budgets and inflated subjects. It was the “me me me” for the filmmakers, and the vicarious “me me me” for the viewers. In short, the pornography of self worth. And Raiders is only another early landmark in this trend.
Lucas and Spielberg claim to be reviving the B movie adventure serials of the thirties, but there is something horribly ingenuous here. B movies are cheaply done, purely escapist, and never meant to draw attention to themselves. A film like Raiders does nothing but draw attention to itself. It’s only an excuse to use the episodic structure, so that one set-piece can be followed by another without worrying about character or plot. But all this doesn’t explain why Raiders became so popular. I guess the secret lies in the hero – Indiana Jones. When Star Wars kicked off the whole thing, there was an epic but no hero. Luke Skywalker is in no sense a hero. Only Hans Solo has a semblance of heroic about him, but was much too roguish. I guess the original idea was to get Harrison Ford a new vehicle so that he could be a braver and less cynical Hans Solo. So that’s my theory. Raiders is only a continuation of Star Wars, supplying the hero which the first film sorely lacked. So Indiana Jones comes along, and the definitive American hero for the “new age” is born. He is up to his neck in Hollywood excess and that’s all that matters.
So don’t be fooled by all these reviews here that praise this film to the skies, calling it escapist fun. There may have been some thrills for the audience back in 1981, but most of the excitement was from the audacity of breaking with tradition, ignoring story and engagement with the characters, concentrating on spectacle and excess, and participating in an experience of concerted megalomania. After Star Wars, this film really cemented the ground for Hollywood excess. Most of the people here are not judging the film itself. When people say that Star Wars is good, I think they are in their New Age pious mood. The same sort of thing when they say that Raiders is good.