Vanity Fair Interview

Posted by admin on January 7th, 2008 |

Indiana Jones stars Harrison Ford and Shia LaBeouf take the February 2008 cover of Vanity Fair as photographed by none other than Annie Leibovitz.

Set in 1957, the new film pits Indy against Russian Cold Warriors, including Cate Blanchett, whose character, Agent Spalko, looks like the toughest Soviet customer since Lotte Lenya’s Rosa Klebb took on Sean Connery in From Russia with Love.

Allen returns as Marion Ravenwood, Indy’s spunky girlfriend from the first film, while Shia joins in—or so rumor has it—as Indy and Marion’s love child. Pictured below: Shia LaBeouf and Karen Allen on set in Downey, California.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull hits theaters worldwide on May 22nd.

Here are snippets of the Indiana Jones interview with Stephen Spielberg:

What’s the emotional range of Indiana Jones? Can he feel despair?

Indiana Jones was never a machine. I think one of the things we brought to the genre—and we didn’t coin the genre; it’s been around a lot longer than we’ve been around—but one of the things that George [Lucas] and I and, originally, Larry Kasdan, the writer of Raiders of the Lost Ark, brought to the genre, was the willingness to allow our leading man to get hurt and to express his pain and to get his mad out and to take pratfalls and sometimes be the butt of his own jokes. I mean, Indiana Jones is not a perfect hero, and his imperfections, I think, make the audience feel that, with a little more exercise and a little more courage, they could be just like him. So he’s not the Terminator. He’s not so far away from the people who go to see the movies that he’s inaccessible to their own dreams and aspirations.

He’s not even Bond. Bond’s not a superhero, but he’s more impenetrable.

Bond’s more impenetrable, and I think to the credit of the Bond series, Daniel Craig allowed James Bond to suffer. And that was brilliant. It was brilliant of Martin Campbell and Daniel Craig and certainly Paul Haggis, who wrote the last draft, to allow Bond to go where Indiana Jones had been.

The women of Indiana Jones are different from Bond girls. There was a deeper connection between Indiana Jones and Karen Allen.

Well, a Bond girl—if James Bond gets fresh, a Bond girl will slap James across the face. But Marion Ravenwood will haul off and punch Indiana Jones’s lights out. She was always the feisty spitfire in a leading-lady action heroine that I had admired growing up watching movies, especially watching the old movies from the 30s, when women held their own against men, where women could win the day, like Irene Dunn, like Ann Sheridan, like Barbara Stanwyck. And writers knew how to write for women in the 30s and 40s.

People have read about Frank Darabont. Is it true you liked his script?

Very much. I very much liked Frank’s script.

Was it set in the 40s?

It was set in the 50s.

With latter-day Nazis coming at Indiana Jones?

Yes. And I quite liked Frank’s script, but George and I had a disagreement over it, and George and I have always agreed to agree. So when we take each other’s temperatures, if I really am passionate about something, George will give in to me, and if George is really passionate about something, I’ll pretty much go his way. And in this case George was passionate that this was not the story he wanted to tell at this point in the Indiana Jones saga. And I think it’s a wonderful script.

Is that leaving room open for another one?

Oh, I don’t know. I haven’t even thought about that. I’m still in the cutting room. I can’t even think beyond the next cut.

So what stage are you in now?

I’m in my second cut, which means I’ve put the movie together and I’ve seen it. I usually do about five cuts as a director. I haven’t ever directed a film where I haven’t made five passes through the movie, and that takes a long time.

And what’s the process? Do you send the fifth cut to George?

I send my fifth cut to [composer] John Williams and the sound-effects people. They will soon be getting the cut, and John Williams will start writing the music.
Source: 2Snaps