F*** Everyone, Amen: Thoughts on the Depressing and the Weird in Synecdoche, New York

[Note: This essay contains minor spoilers.]​

This week I've been embroiled in a lively discussion at The Film Doctor regarding Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York, a film that has risen to a personal pinnacle among last year's cinematic offerings since I first experienced it in November. Perhaps unsurprisingly, mulling over Synecdoche's intricacies with other commentators—who are generally cooler to the film's bitter pleasures than I—has been helpful in evolving and solidifying my own views. There's enough to chew on in Synecdoche to occupy one well into the gumming years, but for now I just want to offer a few post-scripts to my initial review of the film.

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While Synecdoche, New York addresses depression with a bracing forthrightness, it's increasingly apparent to me with each viewing that it is not, in any sense, a depressing film experience. There seems to be a temptation to label any film that takes up timeless, "negative" themes such as mortality, failure, and loss as intrinsically dismal, but such shorthand does a disservice to the efforts of those artists who deign to work with such moribund clay. Shouldn't it matter what a film has to say about mortality, failure, and loss, and how it says it? This is where Synecdoche gets its goofy, ghastly fingers into me. Rather than a mere two-hour repetition of the fact that Things End, it emerges as a harsh indictment of those trapped within ridiculous loops woven from this self-evident sentiment. My personal struggles with such snares render Kaufman's accusatory finger—crooked and mischievous through it may be—as an especially stinging critic. However, Synecdoche offers a balm: It's not just about you. Through the peculiar telepathy of cinema, I know with some certainty that Kaufman struggles with such despair as well. It doesn't end there: Synecdoche presents a message of universal suffering—"This is everyone's experience. Every single one."—and therefore the possibility of universal love.

To elaborate: One of Synecdoche's primary effects is to jolt the viewer into a recognition of the overwhelming magnitude of the human dilemma of transience, to remind us that it is a human dilemma, not your dilemma. Caden only understands this imperfectly. He calls attention to his cast's mortality to satisfy his own ego and sorrow-addled sadism. (Especially that cutting amendment, "[E]ach of us secretly believing we won't [die].") He's not commiserating with his performers out of compassion, or even acknowledging their humanity. Given the potency of our own traumas and disappointments, as felt from within the oubliette of our skulls, it's easy to forget (or ignore) that every other person feels their own traumas and disappointments just as keenly. The isolation we feel within our suffering is illusory. And so a remarkably Buddhist sentiment surfaces within Kaufman's film: By clinging to our misery as if it were unique, we only deepen our misery. By instead reaching out to embrace the misery of others, to make it our own, and pursue its diminishment as fervently as we pursue the diminishment of our own, we might create a connection, an artery through which a spiritual palliative can flow, sweetening our brief time in the world.

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Over at FilmDoctor, I noted that Kaufman, like David Lynch, has a spooky flair for shaping his cinematic worlds according to dream-logic, a talent I describe as an "intuition for intuition". I never sense that Kaufman's surreal visuals or jumbled narratives represent a contemptuous weirdness for weirdness' sake. Not that the reason for every odd jot up on the screen is immediately apparent, but where films like Synecdoche and Mulholland Drive succeed is in striking a consistent aura of aptness, whatever bizarre tongue they choose to speak. Caden's complaint about Madeleine Gravis' self-help book ("I'm not really getting it") and Madeleine's response ("Oh, but it's getting you") could be an exchange between myself and Kaufman. Given the intense, intuitive character of both Synecdoche's stimuli and my own responses, it's impossible for me to adequately articulate why exactly the film works as art.

Is this just a cop-out? Is it a hand-waving means to avoid a fair-minded, clear-eyed examination of the film's flaws? Fair enough. Yet it seems significant that a dense exegesis of the film is possible not merely due to the presence of its staggering detail, but the arrangement of that detail and the manner in which the characters interact with it. It's easy to dismiss a work as vast and perplexing as Synecdoche as a disjointed hodge-podge simply because it doesn't effortlessly coalesce into a neat package at a certain angle, like some Magic Eye picture. Yet dreams don't conform to this expectation, so why should a film do so when it so plainly strives for an oneiric sensibility? Internet forums such as those at IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes are littered with viewers who ostensibly enjoyed Synecdoche, but are oddly obsessed with discerning some secret talisman that will unlock its mysteries, an answer that will snap all of its peculiarities into focus. Lynch himself gave voice to this compulsive need to quest for a skeleton key, when in an early episode of Twin Peaks, Agent Dale Cooper coins the slogan: "Crack the code, solve the crime." Of course, Lynch and his partners (and adversaries) on that seminal show went on to metaphorically bash Coop's teeth in for presuming that a solution could be had by a sufficiently meticulous reading. Art is not a cryptogram, and vice-versa.

This is why the frustrated questions that seem to stem from Synecdoche's surreal particulars—Why the burning house?—lack easy answers, or at least easy answers that are not simultaneously misleading on some level. There is no grand solution buried deep in Synecdoche's mordant heart, but rather a plethora of truths, some observational, some instructive, that are underlined and bolded every time one scratches at a given detail, often uncovering hidden, gilded layers.

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One final note: Manohla Dargis' intensely personal review and Roger Ebert's stream-of-consciousness "anti-review" have received a lot of attention, but if you haven't read Nick Davis' vast, superlative treatment of Synecdoche yet, do so now.

No Longer Your Film: The Shadow Hollywood of Mulholland Drive

[This post is a part of the Movies About Movies Blog-a-Thon, hosted by goatdogblog.]

[Note: This essay contains spoilers. It assumes a basic familiarity with interpretive approaches to Mulholland Drive, particularly the "Classical" reading. See the Lost on Mulholland Drive clearinghouse and the vital Salon piece, "Everything You Were Afraid to Ask About Mulholland Drive".]

Although Inland Empire comprises the most direct examination of movie-making (and -watching) in David Lynch's filmography, Mulholland Drive has always struck me as offering a slier, more cutting indictment of Hollywood and the mythology that clings to it. One of the most intriguing demonstrations of this impulse is MD's depiction--via an actress' guilty fever dreams--of the studio film-making apparatus as a rotten entity riddled with conspiratorial forces. Within Diane Selwyn's schizophrenic fantasy, strange men move to quash the ambitions of promising actors and rebellious directors, their motives hazy but always sinister. Wracked with despair over her own professional and personal failings, Diane gives a dread life to our collective paranoia about the film industry. The shadow Hollywood she summons is by all appearances occupied not with high art or even vulgar entertainment, but with control over messages, money, and especially lives.

There are numerous conspiratorial currents flowing through Diane's fantasy, some explicitly connected to her shadow Hollywood, some connected only through implication and suggestion. The paranoia that suffuses the fantasy rests on the premise that dangerous conspirators seek to harm or hinder Diane's avatar "Betty," her lover Camilla's avatar "Rita," and an incarnation of director Adam Kesher. Oddly, it is Adam that falls victim to the brunt of the conspiracy's wrath rather than Diane's own avatar. In reality, Adam is the man who initiated a relationship with Camilla, "stealing" her from Diane. And yet Diane casts him as a sympathetic victim in her fantasy, albeit one who finally crumbles and acquiesces to the conspiracy's wishes. In this way, Diane revels in the violence done to Adam's career, marriage, and body, while painting him as ultimately weak and beholden to powerful forces. Within her dream, she has her revenge, without placing Adam into the role of the villain. The real villains of her fantasy are the men of shadow Hollywood.

There are numerous acts of violence, enigmatic messages, and strange meetings in MD, but only a handful of these conspiratorial sequences alight directly on film-making. One such event is the meeting between Adam and Luigi and Vincenzo Castigliane, a meeting whose purpose Adam initially does not comprehend. It's an odd scene in a film filled with odd scenes, but its black humor evinces rich layers of meaning. The Brothers' names and Luigi's preference for the finest espresso implies that they are Italian, and the other participants at the meeting seem nervous around them, evoking the specter of organized crime and an attendant threat of violence. (Never mind that not all Italians are gangsters. This is Diane's fantasy, seen through the a haze of her Hollywood daydreams, and in such a world gangsters are always Italian.) More generally, it is not without significance that the Brothers are foreign or at least of foreign extraction. They are an alien influence reaching into Hollywood, that most American of institutions. In envisioning the men of shadow Hollywood, Diane swaps the more traditional slur of conniving Jewish money-men for that of Italian gentlemen-thugs, one of MD's numerous nods to hardboiled or noir traditions. Although, as we will see with the Cowboy, other conspirators are uncannily All-American.

The bifurcation of the Sicilian bogeyman into two separate characters points to two visions of the foreign meddler in Hollywood: Vincenzo, the all-business, agitated little bully; and Luigi, the aloof, contemptuous aesthete who can never be satisfied. Both of these aspects evoke familiar criticisms of the dream factory and the men who run it. Vincenzo is the ruthless shit who cares nothing for art (unlike Luigi, he wants "nuthin'" to drink) or the tastes of the public. Standing in opposition to him, Adam is a proxy not only for the compromised creator, but also for moviegoers. It doesn't matter what the artist or the audience wants; shadow Hollywood has its own schemes. Notice that Vincenzo takes no passion or glee or in imposing his casting demands on Adam; he seems to be a genuinely dour, miserable man. He and Adam are not engaged in an argument over art. Vincenzo is giving an order, an edict that fits into some broader (unseen) plot of the Castiglianes. Why must Camilla Rhodes be cast? Does it really matter? To repay a debt, to place a pawn, to satisfy the whim of some relation or billionaire admirer. Screw art; we're making movies here.

Luigi, meanwhile, is the sensitive neurotic, barely whispering his pained request for a napkin and repeating a blunt mantra (or Hail Mary): "This is the girl." As a European, he naturally regards American-made espresso as disgusting, just as all haughty, refined (read: effete) Europeans regard everything that issues from America as disgusting. Luigi's sin is that of every snob with a high opinion of his own taste, in that he presumes to know better than the masses. It is therefore all the more humiliating that he and his allies have significant power within Hollywood, or at least sufficient power to dictate the casting of Adam's film and to upend his life when he fails to comply. Those shifty Europeans revile us, and yet they secretly control our most beloved of institutions.

Vincenzo's final words to Adam--"It's no longer your film"--are addressed to the audience. In the context of its own paranoid mythology, MD was not made for us. Like all Hollywood films, it was made to satisfy elitist, foreign artistic tastes (Luigi) and to fulfill obscure, Byzantine plots that hinge on fortunes and favors (Vincenzo). Vincenzo could also be speaking to Diane, who is both the writer, director, and audience for the fantasy. The strange paroxysm that seems to overwhelm Vincenzo moments before this line foreshadows the eventual disintegration of Diane's dream. It also echoes Dan's collapse behind the Winky's, and "Betty's" seizure in Club Silencio. As a dream-creature, Vincenzo, like all the characters in MD's early sequences, is arguably a fragment of Diane. Given that Vincenzo is the unfeeling, tyrannical aspect of the Foreign Conspirator, his presence signals that Diane recognizes that she herself is an amoral manipulator, even while immersed in her delusions. Indeed, we eventually learn that she conspired to murder her former lover with the aid of a tow-headed Californian thug far removed from the Italian gangsters of her fantasy. Vincenzo is signaling to Diane in her role as fantasy architect--and to "Betty" waiting off-screen for her next scene--that she is losing control of the dream, that the bloody facts of reality are intruding. It is no coincidence that Diane herself is an interloping foreigner (Canadian) in Hollywood, one who has lost all interest in her art and initiated a sinister conspiracy.

After Adam refuses to bend to the Castiglianes' will, he suffers a dire retribution put into motion by the enigmatic Mr. Roque. The apparent control that the Castiglianes exert over the meeting with Adam masks the presence of another, possibly more powerful conspirator. Roque has the ability to "shut down" Adam's film in the middle of the shoot, indicating that his power extends beyond nudging casting decisions. Indeed, he is an almost ludicrously omnipotent figure within shadow Hollywood, able to turn a film production on and off like flicking a switch, although whether this is done by simple edict or through the control of the production's purse strings is not established.

Roque is a grotesque, confined to an archaic wheelchair, influential yet physically impotent. His tiny head in comparison to his body suggests the antithesis of a fetus: as intelligent and malign as a unborn child is stupid and innocent. He dwells behind a glass wall with a speaker box, which permits him to communicate when and how he chooses, highlighting his nature as a Hollywood power-monger and therefore a controller of messages. He is also, of course, one aspect of Dan's man behind the see-through wall, the "one that's doing it." Roque's room is dim ("half-night" as Dan says) and curtained, a visual echo of Lynch's other works in which similarly outfitted chambers often house non-rational forces, usually of a malevolent nature. (Has Diane seen other Lynch films? Do they exist within the MD universe? The mind boggles.) Within Diane's fantasy, Roque is an entity more alien than even the Castiglianes, and perhaps their master. Although a similar vessel for Heartland anxieties about Hollywood, he is no mere ethnic stereotype, but a monstrous monarch at the center of a vast hive, who only has to glare and mutter to enact his will.

It is also implied that Roque is involved in the attempted murder of "Rita". "The girl is still missing," states Roque. Which girl? Well, the amnesiac "Rita," we assume. Yet the daisy-chain of telephone calls initiated by Roque reaches eventually into Diane's (real life) apartment, where the phone rings and ring and rings, another unheeded signal to the dreamer that she cannot maintain this fantasy forever. From beyond his glass cage, Roque's influence reaches out to touch "Betty" in more than one way. If the plot to murder "Rita" is his, then he is the impetus behind the noir-tinged mystery that snakes through the fantasy. Without the car crash on the eponymous road, "Betty" never would have crossed paths with femme fatale "Rita": a knockout brunette with no name, no memory, a purse full of money, and a Key That Opens No Lock. Roque is also the agent that mandates Camilla Rhodes' casting, and punishes Adam when he does not comply. Roque not only has "everyone" associated with the production fired, but he also demolishes Adam's personal finances. A monstrous Hollywood gnome with sweeping control over money? Perhaps anti-Semitic caricatures run through Diane's fantasy after all.

The Cowboy, meanwhile, is a wholly different sort of caricature. His flawless, almost kitschy Roy Rogers regalia represents both the Western myth and Hollywood's conception of that myth. This strange creature--who calls to mind countless other sinister Lynchian entities--dwells in Beachwood Canyon, near the Hollywood Sign. He is a hermit meditating in the wilderness of SoCal suburbia under the shadow of its premier religious monument. Although Adam is at first reluctant to meet with the Cowboy, he relents because "it is that kind of day." His production in shambles, his marriage over, his finances wiped out, he seeks wisdom from an symbol of an older Hollywood, one untainted by cynicism or irony.

However, the Cowboy is no a sage within Diane's fantasy, despite his tendency for holding forth on philosophy and ethics in a folksy manner. His ghostly blond eyebrows (the absence of clear emotional signifiers) and obliquely threatening manner suggest that he is a force as cold and malign as the Castiglianes and Roque. Indeed, he too is a part of shadow Hollywood, perhaps even the herald or mouthpiece for Roque. Certainly, the men seem to be complements. Possessing a weirdly deformed and crippled physical form, Roque is confined to a glass room, hidden from the victims of his schemes. The Cowboy has a familiar appearance, although the incongruity of his presence in modern Los Angeles is unsettling. He resides in an open corral in a dark, suburban neighborhood, where he can easily be approached by invited outsiders. As one of America's most recognizable cultural archetypes, he is the religious icon that shadow Hollywood uses to convey its ultimatums, the whispering idol that warns of doom if the sinner does not repent his wayward behavior. Like Oz speaking through a spectacle of light and sound, Roque is the man behind the (transparent) curtain, employing a cinematic stock character (and thus a creature of light and sound) to impressively convey his demands.

The offer that the Cowboy poses to Adam suggests the deal that the Devil offered to Jesus in the wilderness. Just bow before me and the world is yours. Or: Just cast this actress, and the film is yours to make as you see fit. He offers nearly limitless artistic freedom in exchange for small concessions, his manner rendering the deal eminently reasonable. The Cowboy poses Adam's troubles as being rooted in "attitude," implying that the director's resistance to shadow Hollywood's edicts are not born of artistic credibility or ego, but an inability to go with the flow. Legitimate concerns about the independence of art are re-cast as trifling personal failings on the part of the objector, failings easily overcome by minor corrections in attitude. Critics who object to the influence of the outsider (the Castiglianes / Roque) on the artistic process are in need of personal adjustment. The question of the complaint's legitimacy is neatly diverted. This dynamic implies a critique of Hollywood's New Age public relations ethics, which reduces all conflicts to empty platitudes and matters of "negative energy." This in turn calls to mind the buzzwords of Scientology, and its success in constructing a genuine Hollywood conspiracy, or at least a sophisticated system for channeling influence and money.

When Adam and "Betty" (almost) cross paths on the set of The Sylvia North Story, there is a moment when Diane's fantasy brushes past a alternate, less tragic resolution. "Betty" has been escorted from her outstanding audition to the set of a more worthy film, perhaps to be introduced to the director. From across the set, Adam sees something in "Betty" that attracts him, at least artistically, and she senses his intrigue. The moment is an echo of the anecdote that Diane relates at Adam and Camilla's engagement party, wherein she was considered for a role in the real The Sylvia North Story. However, this is also the precise moment in the fantasy when Adam must make a decision about whether to assent to the Castiglianes' / Roque's / the Cowboy's wishes and cast Camilla Rhodes in his film. He bows to the demands of shadow Hollywood, and repeats Luigi's incantation: "This is the girl." The choice distracts him from "Betty," and shortly thereafter she must quickly leave the set to meet "Rita." The pair are meeting, of course, to investigate the apartment of Diane Selwyn, wherein a terrible secret lurks.

Within Diane's fantasy, nearly every misfortune that has befallen her traces back to the agents of the shadow Hollywood. Their machinations to ensure that Adam casts the "right" actress prevents the fated meeting that might have landed "Betty" the part. Shadow Hollywood is responsible for Diane's stymied career and therefore for every subsequent hard-luck pitfall. (It certainly can't be her lack of acting talent, for as we see in the audition, "Betty" is spectacular!) That the undeserving "Camilla Rhodes"--a blond ingenue representing the commodified aspect of real Camilla--landed the part is further humiliation. In reality, Camilla's talent drew her closer to Adam and a life of glamor, leading to resentment in Diane that soured into rage. According to Diane's twisted logic, framed by a life of glittering cinematic clichés and the disillusion of recent failures, all calamities originate from the shadow Hollywood conspirators. Diane's obsession with the outsized influence of Hollywood on her life evokes Middle America's buck-passing preoccupation with the industry's allegedly corrupting effect on the public. They, not Adam, split the lovers up. They scuttled Diane's career. They made Diane kill Camilla. It's never us, always Them: those conniving, soulless others that secretly run the dream-factory.

Not Archeology: The Moral Super-Plot of Indiana Jones

[This post is a part of the Indiana Jones Blog-a-Thon, hosted by Ali Arikan's Cerebral Mastication.]

One aspect of the Indiana Jones series that has always intrigued me is the way that the filmmakers link the episodes together without utilizing the cause and effect of conventional plotting.  When making three (or four) films about the same character, the filmmakers could presumably connect the events of the films together directly, such that an audience will be compelled to return to the series to find out What Happens". Significantly, the Indiana Jones series doesn't do this.

Rather, Spielberg presents each film with a self-contained plot that has little effect on subsequent episodes. There is almost no explicit acknowledgment that the events of the previous films have occurred, save for the occasional wry joke. Despite this absence of a typical through-line for the series, three elements link the films together: 1) their protagonist; 2) their pulp adventure tone; and 3) their use of a supernatural artifact as a MacGuffin. This discrete, episodic style, inspired by the serialized adventure shorts of the 1930s, is a hallmark of the films and a key component of their appeal. It's a style rarely mimicked by other adventure film franchises, although a certain British secret agent originated and still follows it. I can see what's appealing about this sort of structure to the filmmakers as well. Each film sets up and then quickly resolves a conflict about an artifact, freeing Indy—and the filmmakers—to move on to the next chase.

That said, Spielberg does provide us with an unbroken plot arc that ties together the films of the series. However, it is a plot arc that runs not through the film's more tangible elements, but through the inner world of its protagonist. For example, the quest for the Sankara Stones in Temple of Doom has no connection to the quest for the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders. Yet what happens to Indy in Temple does has an effect on the events in Raiders, in the sense that the moral changes wrought by the events in Temple affect his actions in the later films. I think that this isn't immediately apparent to some viewers. The series has suffered some criticism for "resetting" Indy's stance at the beginning of each film, in the sense that he is always somewhat skeptical and world-weary when we meet him. Despite this, I think it's arguable that, for example, the Indy of Raiders is a different man than the Indy of Temple, and this almost certainly affects Raiders' story (albeit in hindsight).

If we rearrange the events of the three extant films into chronological order, plucking out the prelude in Last Crusade and placing it first, then a plot of "character events" emerges, one that spans the series and operates on a higher level than the plot of "substantive events" within each episode. Let's take a quick glance at some events in each episode with an eye toward those with broader moral significance for Indy's character.

The Last Crusade Prelude (1912)

Indy attempts to steal the Cross of Coronado from a group of mercenary relic hunters, professing that he is motivated by academic idealism ("This should be in a museum!").

Significant Moral Lessons: Even individuals motivated by idealism can suffer defeat if they are inexperienced, and particularly if less scrupulous rivals have the backing of corrupt authority figures.

The Temple of Doom (1935)

During the film's opening scenes, Indy attempts to trade the remains of Nurhaci to the gangster Lao Che in exchange for a large diamond. This represents a reversal of Indy's previously professed academic idealism, in that he is gives up an item of cultural value (the ashes) in exchange for an item of monetary value (the diamond). Also note that Indy threatens Willie Scott (an innocent), first to fend off a threat of violence from Lao's son, and then in an attempt to obtain the antidote to a recently ingested poison. This is a fairly callous act that seems out of character with the Indy we were introduced to in Raiders.

After fleeing China, Indy agrees to help an Indian village recover its lingam, stolen by Thuggee cultists that have infiltrated the court of the local maharaja. The village's children have also been kidnapped by the cultists. A clue indicates that the village lingam may be one of the legendary Sankara Stones. Here Indy seems to be motivated by a mixture of compassion for the village and lust for "fortune and glory".

After infiltrating the maharaja's palace, Indy witnesses the Thuggee committing gruesome human sacrifices in a secret temple. He also discovers that the Thuggee have three of the Sankara Stones, including the village lingam. Indy steals the Stones, but is distracted by his discovery that the village children have been enslaved to work the cult's mines. Shortly thereafter, Indy is captured and drugged so that Mola Ram can control his will. He is liberated from this state by Short Round, and eventually Indy rescues the village children and returns the lingam to the village. In doing so, he curses Mola Ram, casting the other two Stones into a river. Happily, returning the village's stone restores its prosperity.

Significant Moral Lessons: Pursuing artifacts as a means to "fortunate and glory" risks a disregard for human suffering. Obsession with fortune and glory is a hallmark of individuals who engage in brutality and depravity, and indulging in such obsessions risks identification with such individuals.

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1936)

Faced with evidence that the Third Reich is close to uncovering the Ark of the Covenant, Indy agrees to help the United States government find and secure the Ark before the Nazis do so. Although he has an assurance that his university museum will eventually receive the Ark for its collection, Indy is also thrilled at the prospect of hunting for such a prize.

Following a long struggle and chase for possession of the Ark, the Nazis and Indy's archrival René Belloq arrive at an island with both the Ark and Marion Ravenwood—Indy's friend and lover—in their captivity. Indy threatens to destroy the Ark of the Covenant with a rocket if the Nazis do not release Marion. However, Belloq intuits that Indy is bluffing: he is unwilling to destroy such an important artifact. Indy is quickly captured, and it is the power of the Ark itself that eventually destroys the Nazis.

Significant Moral Lessons: Excessive attachment to the cultural worth of artifacts can inhibit one's judgment and preclude the resolve necessary to ensure the safety of loved ones.

The Last Crusade (1938)

Indy agrees to search for the Holy Grail for private collector Walter Donovan, but only after it is revealed that Indy's father has vanished while searching for the Grail himself. Indy initially conceals his father's Grail Diary from his contact, Elsa Schneider, out of wariness for her motives. Eventually, Elsa—secretly a Nazi—tricks Indy into her confidence. During a chase through the canals of Venice, Indy threatens Grail guardian Kazim with death to obtain knowledge of his father's whereabouts. However, when Kazim refuses to relent and risks both their deaths, Indy backs down.

Indy eventually finds his way to the temple where the Holy Grail is kept. Although he recovers the Grail, Elsa's greed triggers a divine earthquake that claims her life. Similarly, Indy foolishly risks his own death while trying to save the Holy Grail. However, his father persuades him that a mere object, no matter how valuable, is not worth his life.

Significant Moral Lessons: Excessive attachment to the cultural worth (or supernatural power) of artifacts can provoke irrational risks to one's own life.

Despite allegations of the series's episodic "resetting," I think it's apparent that a clear moral plot emerges when the series is approached as a larger work. Indy's struggle against the hobgoblin of "treasure hunter's fever"—an exhilarating lust for and strong attachment to cultural artifacts—is probably the series' most prevailing moral conflict. Although Indy learns to suppress his personal ambitions and to prioritize humanitarianism (Temple), the safety of loved ones (Raiders) and his own life (Crusade) over such treasures, the thrill of artifact discovery and recovery is still seductive to him.

I think this is one reason why criticisms of a neo-colonialist current in the series, while legitimate, don't trouble me to the point of distraction. The cartoonish villainy of the Nazis and cultists serves to draw attention to the true core moral conflict of the series: Indy's battle with his looting and pillaging impulses. The super-plot is not about Stones or Arks or Grails, but about how Indy tries to arrive at a "moral archeology" by negotiating (but never vanquishing) the distractions of avarice, fame, obsession, elitism, and ego.