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 himself, Ford passed sober but smiling on the red carpet. So fast that he left behind the rest of his Indiana Jones teammates and the dial of destiny, the highlight of this Thursday in Cannes, scheduled as a Special Session in the middle of a gray afternoon in which he sparkled constantly. Ford and Flockhart retraced their steps, left a minute to the cast of the French film Rosalie, with Benoît Magimel and the emerging star Nadia Tereszkiewicz at the head, enjoy the red carpet, and returned with the entire Indiana team, the cast and the director of the fifth and final film of the adventurer: 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. Joel C Ryan (Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP)
Upstairs, more than half an hour late, something that has been paid in this edition Cannes, the general delegate, Thierry Frémaux, and the president of the contest, Iris Knobloch, were waiting for them. All together they waved from the bottom of the stairs, and were received inside the Lumière room with applause from the entire standing stalls. In the lobby, Flockhart lovingly removed a carmine footprint from her husband: neither knew that a handful of minutes later, the actor would receive an honorary Palme d'Or.
Harrison Ford, with Cannes Film Festival President Iris Knobloch and her honorary Palme d'Or. VALERY HACHE (AFP)
It was Indiana Jones Day. Probably not the most important for the general delegate of the festival, Thierry Frémaux, a fan of Scorsese, who had been fighting for years for his return to Cannes. But yes for the hundreds of curious people who looked out on the balconies of the houses of La Croisette adjacent to the red carpet. Among the audience that squeezed into the area of descent of stars of 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 jam of the carpet, which accumulated film equipment from other sections (for example, Steve McQueen, with his four-hour documentary about Amsterdam taken over by the Nazis), stars, influencers and models, appeared the French composer Jean Michel Jarre and the Chinese actress Gong Li, a marriage as long-lived as strange, to which the dj dedicated an extract of Oxygène, one of his most popular albums; Charlie Heaton, from Stranger Things; Bollywood star Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, wearing a cape topped with a giant 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 pomp of the anniversary is no longer repeated.
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And Harrison Ford got old
Cannes, devoured by the opening and by the premiere yesterday of Pedro Almodóvar's medium-length film, has not paid much attention in reality to Indiana Jones and the dial of destiny (which opens in the rest of the world on June 30), until this afternoon. Just a poster promoting the film on the door of the Carlton Hotel. The festival 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 at Cannes.LOIC VENANCE (AFP)
However, on the screen, at least at startup, little remains of the icon. In August 1969, Indiana Jones felt cut off from the world. He is hours away from retirement as an archaeology professor at Hunter College, where he routinely teaches classes, and ruminates on his loneliness in a modest apartment in New York. The human being has reached the Moon and Indy, the divorce papers. Only the arrival of his goddaughter Helena Shaw, who wants to get hold of the antikyther, 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 to obtain the machine will force the most famous archaeologist in the world to get up from the sofa.
It has been 15 years since the slip that was Indiana Jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull, theoretical end of a saga that had launched its great successes between 1981 and 1989, when Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the cursed temple and Indiana Jones and the last crusade were released. 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 the history of cinema: he is only overtaken by lawyer Atticus Finch, played by Gregory Peck, in To Kill a Mockingbird. In the past, Indiana may have handled itself in a slightly more dubious morality; However, in this installment he maintains his integrity with perseverance and, instead, points out to his goddaughter his dubious methods.
Harrison Ford and Phoebe Waller-Bridge pose in the morning for photographers in the promotion of 'Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny'. 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 such as Fleabag or Killing Eve and the script of the last bond, No time to die), shares the screen and travels with him, emanates the mischievous spirit of the young Indiana Jones. More changes of draft: he no longer directs Spielberg as in the previous four, but the witness is picked up by James Mangold, great director of adventure films with a classic aroma: he knows how to tell stories of old glories, as confirmed by Cop Land 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 asked for another adventure," Kennedy said a few months ago. Now, the final journey – he began it with 38 years – has caught the actor with 80 years (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 World War II). Three weeks ago, Spielberg said he watched the film with Mangold and other Disney executives, and when the lights came on he told them, "Damn! I thought I 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 30s and 40s – was born in 1973 as a pure diversion, old-fashioned adventure, cinematographic enjoyment that quickly found some villains at his height: the Nazis. Four years later, Lucas taught 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. LOIC VENANCE (AFP)
Icon since 1981
Henry Walton Jones Jr. swept the first film on June 12, 1981. He will not be a meticulous archaeologist, but he initiated several generations in the importance of guarding with care the ancient objects, and that all those relics hid inside an adventure. From its success came television series (The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones), films with similar characters (The Mummy, King Solomon's Mines, the National Treasure saga, The Goonies, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, the animated filmsTadeo Jones or The DaVinci Code) and even video games such as Tomb Raider.
And full of nooks and crannies. In the promotion in the United States, Mangold said: "Indiana Jones is a character that always surprises us. He can be selfish, empathetic, brave or even cowardly. And Harrison brought all 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 its charm. He has, however, a superpower: enormous luck."
In Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny that luck is handled as an ironic element in numerous sequences. Starting with the initial one, which takes place in the last days of the Second World War in Europe, which also serves to introduce the villain of the day, Jürgen Voller (played by Mads Mikkelsen) a Nazi archaeologist who, like Indiana, goes after post-it relics, such as the tip of the spear of Longinus, the Roman centurion who pierced Jesus Christ on the cross, or the antikythera, a machine created by Archimedes intended for something more than mere astronomical calculation, as 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. Voller reappears in 1969, as he works for the US government in its space program, and he is accompanied by a small army of neo-Nazis. 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. 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 veteran sailor and somewhat crazy Spanish diver who lives in the Greek islands, a friend who has accompanied Jones on previous trips, and has sworn eternal loyalty. They are hooks for a premiere that is expected to be another success for the Jones universe, which only in theaters has raised about 2,000 million euros.
There will be no Indiana Jones without Harrison Ford. Despite the rumors of 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 adventure. After filming in Morocco, Sicily —the film takes place mostly in the Mediterranean—, Scotland, England and in the mythical London studios Pinewood, Indiana was over.