Abstract:
Like many people my age (that is, Gen X rather than Gen Y…) I grew up wanting to
be Indiana Jones. I was a very young kid when Raiders of the Lost Ark was released
in 1981, and like many of my schoolmates, I went home after leaving the cinema and
said to my Dad “I’m going to be an Archaeologist.” Like many of my friends’ Dads,
mine replied “I don’t think so.” After further discussion, it was made clear to me that
most Archaeologists don’t carry six-shooters and bullwhips, ride horses in pursuit of
Nazi trucks, engage in supernatural rituals or save the world. This, to me, was an
astonishing disappointment, but it also pointed out one of the principal beauties of the
cinema: the fact that sitting there, safe and in the dark, we can engage in terrifically
entertaining fantasy and glorious escapism. This is what many of the films of Steven
Spielberg have been all about letting us do.
