Interview with Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny Cinematographer

In early February of 2020, Variety confirmed some rather shocking news: Steven Spielberg would not be directing the fifth Indiana Jones movie — officially subtitled Dial of Destiny (now playing in theaters everywhere).

The final entry in the beloved action-adventure franchise fronted by Harrison Ford’s whip-wielding archaeologist would instead be helmed by James Mangold, the filmmaker behind such acclaimed projects as Logan and Ford v Ferrari.

It goes without saying that Spielberg’s replacement had some enormous shoes to fill and while a number of Indy veterans — like Ford and composer John Williams — were wholeheartedly on board for the globe-trotting romp, a production crew still needed to be assembled. To that end, Mangold wisely surrounded himself with trusted collaborators like cinematographer Phedon Papamichael.

“This is our sixth film together, so we really have a language,” the director of photography tells me over Zoom (their professional relationship began two decades ago on the set of 2003’s Identity). “We think of ourselves as classic Hollywood filmmakers. It’s something we embrace. We like similar things. We like Spielberg’s way of blocking and camera moves. Single camera, wider lenses, [being] physically up-close to actors, creating intimacy with the characters.”

WARNING! The following contains major spoilers for the film!

Even so, the pair were venturing into territory rarely explored by other cinematic storytellers. Mangold, of course, was about to become the first director to make an Indiana Jones film outside of Spielberg himself, while Papamichael would gain membership in an exclusive club occupied by only two other cinematographers: the late Douglas Slocombe (the original trilogy) and Janusz Kaminski (2008’s Kingdom of the Crystal Skull). The pressure must have been enormous, right?

“It didn’t feel like pressure because it’s such a fun franchise,” insists Papamichael, who reached out to Kaminski (Spielberg’s loyal DP since Schindler’s List) for advice.

“We’ve know each other 30 years and I go, ‘How is it doing an Indy movie?’ And he goes, ‘It’s the hardest movie I’ve ever done!’”

Spielberg remained on board as an executive producer (alongside George Lucas) and, despite being deep into production on The Fabelmans, took the time to watch the Dial of Destiny dailies and provide feedback and encouragement.

“Steven’s always been very supportive and a cheerleader and I know he talked to Mangold throughout the process. It’s just great to feel, ‘Yeah, we’re on the same page,’” Papamichael says, also praising longtime Indiana Jones producers: Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy (the latter also serves as president of Lucasfilm).

“There’s no greater expert than the people who have been doing it from the beginning really being supportive and excited and enthusiastic … They would be the first ones to tell us, ‘You guys are not living up to our standards.’”

Subscribing to the ethos espoused by Kaminski on Crystal Skull, Papamichael strived to emulate the dynamic lighting choices of Slocombe, whose shadow-filled work on the first three films perfectly captured the aesthetic of the swashbuckling serials Spielberg and Lucas grew up loving.

“Normally, I’d try to be a little bit more natural. But here, it was fun playing with the hard light, the colors, the saturation, the atmospheric smoke, the beams, the flares, the shadows,” Papamichael notes. “It was just great trying to do some of the tricks that have been so successful and try to apply them. We were always looking for opportunities where we could pay tribute to those things. Besides it being a lot of work — it was a very big movie — it was a lot of fun and done with a lot of love.”

You can feel that love for the material right from the word “Go” as the Lucasfilm emblem (taking the place of the Paramount
PARA
Gulf + Western logo) match fades into the opening set piece: a rip-roaring and throwback-style chase through a Nazi-infested train full of stolen antiquities in the waning days of World War II.

“We always talked about it looking like lost footage from Raiders that Steven shot,” Papamichael adds. “It was really paying tribute to the classic Indiana Jones/Raiders spirit in terms of light and humor and, of course, the characters.”

Perhaps the most notable aspect of the 20-minute prologue — which also serves the dual purpose of introducing the central MacGuffin — is that it features some of the most extensive use of digital de-aging technology ever seen in a modern Hollywood blockbuster.

“It was a learning process for all of us,” Papamichael recalls of the undertaking to return Ford to his mid-40s. “The good part is that there was so much existing, high-quality footage of Harrison Ford generated on film with anamorphic lenses, which is all stuff they tapped into and used to create the effect.”

Rather than be over-reliant on VFX, however, the team leaned heavily on Ford’s natural onscreen charisma as the foundation.

“It’s not like we’re creating a CG Harrison,” the cinematographer explains. “It’s him acting out everything and it’s gestures, little subtleties, how he lifts his eyebrow. All of that is very hard to completely generate from scratch. It makes a great difference if you have a great actor doing it himself and us just applying the de-aging.”

The film then jumps from 1944 to 1969 in a way that is meant to be both “shocking and abrupt” for viewers, the DP admits.

Now a grizzled alcoholic on the verge of academic retirement (and an acrimonious divorce from Marion Ravenwood), the once-fabled professor of archaeology spends his days getting sloshed and yelling at hippies.

“It was great seeing it at the premiere,” Papamichael remembers. “The audience applauded when they saw him because there’s a concern, ‘Are they gonna accept him now, especially since we’re creating footage of young Indy?’ It was just very effective and it was intentional.”

Doctor Jones is suddenly drawn back into the world of adventure when his goddaughter, Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), turns up looking for the Antikythera, a mythical dial with the power to locate fissures in time.

The artifact is also sought by Jürgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen), a “former” Nazi physicist recruited to work on the US space program via Project Paperclip, who plans to travel back to 1939 in order to install himself as Führer and lead Germany to victory.

When Voller’s neo-Nazi henchmen frame Indy for the murder of two university colleagues, the fedora-loving explorer is forced to go on the run, embarking on a journey that takes him from New York to Morocco to Greece to Sicily.

“It’s not a green-screen film, you can go and stand at every location where a scene takes place in the movie,” stresses Papamichael.

Where the first three Indiana Jones films paid homage to the classic film serials of the ‘30s and ‘40s, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull took advantage of its late-1950s backdrop by doffing its cap to the science fiction B movies of the period.

Given the fact that its action unfolds against the backdrop of 1969, Dial of Destiny feels molded in the vein of that decade’s biggest cinematic hero: James Bond.

In particular, the tuk-tuk chase in Tangier and the perilous dive to the Roman shipwreck in the Mediterranean recall set pieces from Octopussy and Thunderball, respectively. Even the big reveal of the villain’s master plan carries a faint whiff of Goldfinger. “It had to go somewhere even more extreme,” Papamichael says. “We never really talked about a James Bond-y vibe, but I guess it plays in that area.”

Things definitely reach “extreme” levels in what is arguably the craziest final act of the entire franchise when heroes and villains alike travel through a tear in the fabric of space-time and unwittingly end up at the Siege of Syracuse, circa 213 BC.

“We have Roman soldiers fighting, we have a WWII bomber flying over, you have Nazis shooting Romans,” the director of photography says. “It sort of goes crazy and is heightened on another level.”

The swing-for-the-fences climax required Papamichael to work closely alongside VFX Supervisor Andrew Whitehurst. The pair went “back and forth” quite a bit on lighting and how it would affect the sequence’s computer-generated elements (mainly additional buildings and the Roman Triremes).

“You’re creating a look upfront with actors and then a lot of the elements are not there yet,” the DP continues. “Maintaining that balance throughout postproduction and in the color correction is the trickiest part, so it all looks integrated. The beach and the water are there, the actors are there, but there are so many additional elements. There’s also the vortex in the sky; the storm is still brewing. It’s hard to exactly determine how you want to play the balance of light.”

Voller and his militia of Nazi insurrectionists are all killed (good riddance!), while Helena and a grievously-wounded Indy come face-to-face with the dial’s creator: Archimedes. Feeling like he doesn’t belong in the present, Jones hopes to stay in the past and become a permanent fixture of the ancient history he’s devoted his entire life to. Helena knocks Indy unconscious and brings him back to 1969, where he reunites with Marion (once again played by the great Karen Allen) in a genuinely touching reversal of the “Where doesn’t it hurt?” interaction from Raiders.

“That was crazy. I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house,” Papamichael concludes. “Our script supervisor was just bawling … That was probably the emotional highlight of the shoot. Although [Karen] only worked a few days, it was so nice to have her join us and it was almost like a surprise to everyone. To the audience also. I think it’s a very strong, emotional ending.”

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is now playing in theaters everywhere.

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