Indiana Jones: one-on-one with Dial of Destiny director James Mangold

CANNES, France –

When the lights came on after a screening on the Walt Disney lot of “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Fate,” Steven Spielberg was in disbelief.

“Damn!” he said. “I thought I was the only one who knew how to make one!” »

“Dial of Destiny,” which premiered Thursday at the Cannes Film Festival, is Indiana Jones’ first film without Spielberg behind the camera. After years of development, Spielberg and Lucasfilm have decided to hand over the reins to ‘Ford vs. Ferrari’ filmmaker James Mangold, who was 18 when he saw ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ at a theater in the Hudson Valley on opening day in 1981.

“When I got over my initial hesitation of just:saint s—it’s a big challenge to step into these really big shoes that Steven Spielberg is leaving, the opportunity, on a very selfish level, to collaborate and d ‘Learning and having the tools and resources to play at this level was hard to resist,’ Mangold said.

Mangold was tasked with not only restoring the shine to one of the most beloved film series after a disappointing fourth film in 2008’s “Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull,” but giving Harrison Ford a poignant sendoff in his final performance as a character.

While no one is saying “Dial of Destiny” matches “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” the consensus at Cannes was that it outperforms “Crystal Skull” by a wide margin. Mangold certainly has Ford’s endorsement.

“He more than filled the shoes,” Ford told reporters. “He made, for me, a beautiful film.”

Ahead of “Dial of Destiny” opening in theaters on June 30, Mangold spoke about the challenges of capturing the “Indiana Jones” lore and pushing it forward. After opening in the 1940s with an aged Ford, “Dial of Destiny” cuts to the 60s and finds an elderly Jones tired and about to retire. The space race has made him a relic of a bygone era.

And the notion of who Indiana — an Errol Flynn-like hero forged in the moral clarity of World War II — would in a more complicated time, without the youthful liveliness, factor heavily into Mangold’s reflection on “Dial of Destiny”.

Notes have been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

PA: How did you react when this opportunity presented itself?

Mangold: When Harrison, Kathy (Kennedy) and Steven came to me about it, you only talk about the heroes in my life. George Lucas. John Williams too. The idea of ​​being invited not only to play in an all-star game with this kind of team, but also to take the mound and be the pitcher, is beyond that. So you’re moving forward to this moment where I’m kind of in the director’s chair, and it’s a chance for me to both try to advance what I feel like I’ve learned all my life thanks to Steven’s work. And at the same time, carrying my own voice, but really wanting to work in the same kind of Golden Age vernacular that he operates in. It’s a pressure because you can’t play at a higher level with a crowd of more intoxicating luminaries around you. You either have to rise to the occasion or not.

PA: Were you surprised the position was even open? During the film’s long development, it was long assumed that Spielberg would direct.

Mangold: I don’t think directing an Indiana Jones movie is a job. It’s a lifetime commitment. There are too many luminaries and too much involvement. When they came to me, they were very focused on me. The idea for me was that I wanted to write a script that I could support. I really wanted to revamp the existing script quite aggressively, almost entirely. But when did they first come to see me? It was a complete shock. I was numb. But I’m not new to this either. There is a child in me that is tickled and flattered – the romantic in me. And then there’s the rational person who’s survived those movies up to this point and knows how to make a picture like this.

PA: And a big part of what defines “Indiana Jones” is the ingenuity of cinema: the clever reveals, the ingenious blocking.

Mangold: They are love letters to golden age cinema. You’re creating a narrative and you’re making a movie about characters that need to feel real, but you’re also making a movie which, in and of itself, is about enjoying the magnificent spectacle of filmmaking. The way the shots move together, the way the sequences are constructed, the way you kind of roll out the onion of a reveal in the film. These are all things where you take inspiration from the classics.

PA: You described wanting to do “Dial of Destiny” about “a sunset hero”. What is the relationship between age and your intentions for the film?

Mangold: When they approached me, I immediately found myself faced with doing an Indiana Jones with a late 70-year-old hero. There’s no getting around the fact that audiences are going to be confronted with Harrison’s age. They’re going to see a man they grew up with in the late 70s. For me, it’s not what I do that matters, it’s what I don’t do. I’m not going to deny that this is going to be a huge factor in the minds of the public.

PA: So even if you start with an aged Indiana, you wanted to understand who Ford, 80, is today.

Mangold: The film becomes the very thing that is undeniable. What’s it like to be a hero, to be kind of a swashbuckler, mischievous, demanding, fearless, but also fearful? What I thought, even in terms of some of the struggles they had with ‘Crystal Skull’, is that it’s very difficult to move forward some kind of character from the golden age beyond the dividing line after the arrival of modernism. The optimism and clarity of purpose with which the characters operated in the 1930s or 1940s is not the same environment in which they operated in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. The arrival of modernism brought realpolitik and a kind lack of clarity about who the enemies are and who our heroes are. It brought a kind of cynicism to the world about easy heroes. Science has replaced mysticism, and we’re landing on the moon where nuclear weapons are all around us.

PA: Was it emotional shooting Ford’s last scene as Indiana?

Mangold: We fired his last shot and everyone cheered and we all drank champagne. And it’s very moving. But you spent almost a year making this film together. To do a good job of making a movie like this, you can never completely sink into that way of thinking. Because if you did, you’d be kind of lost in the symbolism of every moment. Indiana Jones is part of Harrison, so in a way I don’t think he ever says goodbye to the character because he carries that character. It’s very close to who he is.