Cannes applauds Indiana Jones’ last gallop and awards Harrison Ford an honorary Palme d’Or | Culture

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And Harrison Ford stepped on the red carpet. Hand in hand with his wife, Calista Flockhart, accompanied by the music of John Williams as attached to his character as he was himself, Ford passed sober but smiling on the red carpet. So fast that he left the rest of his classmates behind. indiana jones and the dial of fate the highlight of this Thursday in Cannes, scheduled as a Special Session in the middle of a gray afternoon in which it sparkled constantly. Ford and Flockhart retraced their steps, leaving a minute for the cast of the French film Rosalie, led by Benoît Magimel and rising star Nadia Tereszkiewicz, enjoying the red carpet, and returning with the entire Indiana team, cast and director of the adventurer’s fifth and final film: in addition to Ford, actors Mads Mikkelsen, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Boyd Holbrook, Shaunette Renée Wilson and child Ethann Isidore, along with director James Mangold and producers, and Hollywood heavyweights Frank Marshall and Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy.

Mads Mikkelsen, Harrison Ford, director James Mangold and Phoebe Waller-Bridge pose for photographers.
Mads Mikkelsen, Harrison Ford, director James Mangold and Phoebe Waller-Bridge pose for photographers.Joel C Ryan (Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP)

Upstairs, more than half an hour late, something to which Cannes has subscribed in this edition, the general delegate, Thierry Frémaux, and the president of the event, Iris Knobloch, were waiting for them. They all waved together from the bottom of the stairs, and were received inside the Lumière room with applause from the entire stalls standing. In the lobby, Flockhart carefully removed a lipstick print from her husband: no one knew that a handful of minutes later, the actor was going to receive an honorary Palme d’Or.

Harrison Ford, with the president of the Cannes Film Festival, Iris Knobloch, and his honorary Palme d'Or.
Harrison Ford, with the president of the Cannes Film Festival, Iris Knobloch, and his honorary Palme d’Or.VALERY HACHE (AFP)

It was Indiana Jones day. Probably not the most important for Thierry Frémaux, a Scorsese fan, who had been fighting for his return to Cannes for years. But it was for the hundreds of onlookers who looked out on the balconies of the houses on La Croisette adjacent to the red carpet. Among the public that crowded in the area where the stars dropped off the limousines, some were dressed as Indiana Jones, others showed DVDs of the saga and several carried photos of Harrison Ford with phrases like “I Love You”. In the carpet jam, which accumulated film crews from other sections (for example, Steve McQueen, with his four-hour documentary on the Nazi-taken Amsterdam), stars, influencers and models, the French composer Jean Michel Jarre and the Chinese actress Gong Li appeared, a marriage as long-lived as it was strange, to which the DJ dedicated an excerpt from Oxygene, one of his most popular albums; Charlie Heaton of Stranger Things; Bollywood star Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, in a cape topped with a gigantic hood. Of course, there were no planes like last year for Tom Cruise and his Top Gun: This is the 76th edition of the contest, and the festivities of the anniversary are no longer repeated.

Cannes, devoured by the opening and by the premiere yesterday of Pedro Almodóvar’s medium-length film, has not really paid much attention to Indiana Jones and the dial of fate (which opens in the rest of the world on June 30), until this afternoon. Just a poster promoting the film at the door of the Carlton Hotel. The contest devours dozens of films every day and hosts several festivals in one, although at sunset it has paid homage to the cinematographic icon.

French singer Bilal Hassani in Cannes.
French singer Bilal Hassani in Cannes.LOIC VENANCE (AFP)

However, on the screen, at least at startup, little remains of the icon. In August 1969 Indiana Jones feels cut off from the world. He is hours away from retirement as a professor of archeology at Hunter College, where he routinely teaches his classes, and ruminates his solitude in a modest New York apartment. The human being has reached the Moon and Indy, the divorce papers. Only the arrival of his goddaughter Helena Shaw, who wants to take over the antikythera, a computer supposedly created by Archimedes and recovered by Indiana and the father of the new adventurer at the end of World War II, and a group of Nazis who also want getting the machine will force the world’s most famous archaeologist off the couch.

15 years have passed since the skid that indiana jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull final theoretical of a saga that had launched its greatest successes between 1981 and 1989, when they were released Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Indiana Jones and the last crusade. There has not been a character at his height, at least in the adventure. According to the American Film Institute, Indiana Jones is the second greatest hero in movie history: he is only ahead of lawyer Atticus Finch, played by Gregory Peck, in To kill a mockingbird In the past, Indiana may have run on slightly more dubious morals; However, in this installment he perseveringly maintains his integrity and instead points out his dubious methods to his goddaughter.

Harrison Ford and Phoebe Waller-Bridge pose for photographers in the morning promoting 'Indiana Jones and the Dial of Fate'.
Harrison Ford and Phoebe Waller-Bridge pose for photographers in the morning promoting ‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Fate’.Associated Press/LaPresse (APN)

Because unlike the previous films, in this installment Indiana is not the only protagonist. His goddaughter Helena, played by actress and screenwriter Phoebe Waller-Bridge (creator of series like fleabag either killing eve and the script of the last bond, no time to die) share the screen and travel with him, he exudes the mischievous spirit of the young Indiana Jones. More changes of depth: he no longer directs Spielberg as in the previous four, but the baton is picked up by James Mangold, a great director of adventure films with a classic aroma: he knows how to narrate stories of old glories, as confirmed Copland and Logan. According to Kathleen Kennedy, producer and president of Lucasfilm, it was Harrison Ford who asked for one last tango. “He didn’t want it to end and he asked for another adventure,” Kennedy said a few months ago. Now, the final journey -he started it at the age of 38- has caught the actor at 80 years old (on screen it is assumed that he is 65 and in the initial sequence, thanks to a good digital rejuvenation, he returns to his glory days in II World War). Three weeks ago, Spielberg recounted that he watched the movie with Mangold and other Disney executives, and when the lights came on he told them “Damn! He thought he was the only one who knew how to make one of these!”

That Professor —created by George Lucas in memory of the film serials of the 1930s and 1940s— was born in 1973 as pure entertainment, an old-fashioned adventure, cinematic enjoyment that quickly found villains to match: the Nazis. Four years later, Lucas brought those ideas to his friend Steven Spielberg and together they sold the concept to Paramount Pictures after the success of Star Wars: and there they already handled the idea of ​​a saga.

Bianca Stigter and Steve McQueen on the red carpet.
Bianca Stigter and Steve McQueen on the red carpet.LOIC VENANCE (AFP)

Icon since 1981

Henry Walton Jones Jr. was a hit since the premiere of the first film on June 12, 1981. He may not be a meticulous archaeologist, but he introduced several generations to the importance of carefully guarding ancient objects, and that all those relics hid inside a adventure. From his success came television series (The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones), movies with similar characters (The mummy, King Solomon’s mines, the saga National Treasure, The Goonies, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, animation filmsTadeo Jones either The Da Vinci Code) and even videogames like Tomb Raider.

And full of nooks and crannies. In the promotion in the United States, Mangold assured: “Indiana Jones is a character that always surprises us. He can be selfish, empathetic, brave, or even a coward. And Harrison brought all of those elements together. He is not a hero in the Greek way, but a human being. All those eccentricities, phobias and neuroses are part of his charm. He has, yes, a superpower: enormous luck ”.

In Indiana Jones and the dial of fate that luck is handled as an ironic element in numerous sequences. Beginning with the opening, which takes place in the last days of World War II in Europe, which also serves to introduce the villain on duty, Jürgen Voller (played by Mads Mikkelsen), a Nazi archaeologist who, like Indiana, goes after relics of posh, like the tip of the spear of Longinos, the Roman centurion who pierced Jesus Christ on the cross, or the antikythera, a machine created by Archimedes destined for something more than mere astronomical calculation, since it could serve as a time machine, and that the Greek mathematician hid after the fall of Syracuse, conquered by the Romans in 212 BC. C. Voller reappears in 1969, as he works for the US government in its space program, and a small army of neo-Nazis accompanies him. Mangold and his writers have recovered the classic enemies of Indiana, leaving aside the Soviets, the villains of the fourth installment.

Supermodel Karlie Kloss poses on the red carpet.
Supermodel Karlie Kloss poses on the red carpet.SEBASTIEN NOGIER (EFE)

Do some characters from the initial trilogy return? Yes, Sallah, the Arab friend played by Jonathan Rhys-Davies, is now a taxi driver in New York, and the shadow of his wife Marion (Karen Allen) looms throughout the story. Antonio Banderas joins the party as Renaldo, a somewhat wacky Spanish diver and marine veteran living in the Greek islands, a friend who has accompanied Jones on previous voyages, and has sworn undying loyalty to him. They are hooks for a premiere that is expected to be another success for the Jones universe, which alone has raised nearly 2,000 million euros in theaters.

There will be no Indiana Jones without Harrison Ford. Despite the rumors from years ago of his replacement by Bradley Cooper or Chris Pratt, despite the fact that on the big or small screen he has had the face of other actors, such as Corey Carrier, River Phoenix, Sean Patrick Flanery and George Hall, the producers and Ford have already confirmed that this will be his last venture. After filming in Morocco, Sicily —the film takes place mostly in the Mediterranean—, Scotland, England and in the mythical London Pinewood studios, Indiana is over.

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