cinematic style - Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark

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To love Indiana Jones - and to my absolute horror, not everyone does (jesu christi you have not lived!) - I think you need to have all the groundwork laid down as a child. You need to have read those Cairo Jim books and maybe done a unit in school on Ancient Egypt. You need to have a fascination for history and for the process of archeology. You need to love adventure and that typical, 1930-s serialised derring-do novels, which Indiana Jones borrows heavily from, all sardonic gestures, empowered yet ultimately quite silly women and Harrison Ford's uniquely, well, Harrison Ford-ian way of doing everything from the corner of his mouth; speaking, smiling, shouting, crying. And, speaking of Harrison Ford, you gotta really love him. I got all of these things at a young age for a variety of different reasons, including but not limited to a mother who so loved Ford that she threatened to name my brother after him (last name and all) and younger brothers that, in the way younger brothers often do, dictated play time with their pith helmets and explorer kits of binoculars, microscopes and peanut butter sandwiches (which I'm sure Cairo Jim took on his expeditions, too). It's not wonder that I really love other movies, more dramatic and grown up, but no less mired in the drama of exploration, like The English Patient, or Out of Africa.

These kinds of films tend to share a colour palette, and Indiana Jones is no different. What I love about Indy's wardrobe is that delicious, washed out neutral colour mix. Like all good archaeologists - and history professors - Dr Jones limits himself to clothes that are practical and easy. Slightly oversized khaki chinos held up with a big leather belt. Linen shirts (all that Egyptian humidity will make you sweat!) with the sleeves rolled up and unbuttoned to reveal some 1980s chest hair. A dark, weather-beaten chocolate brown leather jacket that seems to have an endless supply of bottomless pockets. Aside from Junior's three piece tweed suits at college, fulfilling every female history's student's dream of a lecturer that looks like Harrison Ford, and another three piece woollen suit at the end of the film, his wardrobe pretty much consists in it entirety of those pieces, with the added accoutrements of a bullwhip and a fedora, which is often left inside the slowly closing door of a cave or Temple of Doom which Jones then has to quickly fetch because nothing would be as bad as losing his hat. Indiana Jones doesn't faff about! Indiana Jones doesn't worry about what he's wearing! Indiana Jones gets the job done!

It works in part because Ford is so charismatic. You have to have a special something to pull off a movie where you are pretty much wearing the exact same thing in every scene. Where you don't really get cleaned up, ever, you're covered in sweat and sand and, on occasion, blood (!!!) as you get thrown into all manner of melodramatic situations, like gun fights in the streets of cairo, or buried alive in a snake-infested tomb (why don't bad guys ever just shoot their enemies? it would solve a lot of problems). I've always held this wardrobe up as a great way to do colour and comfort in hot climes, all whist trying to unearth the ark of the covenant. I watched this movie tonight for the first time on the big screen, and it has aged so beautifully (much like Harrison Ford himself, no?). Still as hilarious, still as ruggedly stylish, and still as classic as ever. As long as there are dreams of being an explorer, Indian Jones will never get old.

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walk like an egyptian

"Our new range is called DUST and it was inspired by David Bowie's alleged interest in Egyptology and Occultism. We loved this image of Bowie dressed in a sphinx costume shot in 1969 and it pretty much went from there. We wanted the range to look like it belonged to Egyptian royalty, excavated from a tomb, earthy but also quite luxurious.... So we've used raw crystal stones and motifs like hieroglyphics, eyes and snakes in the beaten metal pieces."

Tamila Purvis and Melanie Kemsler of THEMANIAMANIA

Images: range from Edwardian and 1930s archaeologists including Howard Carter on digs to Modern day Cairo via Indiana Jones, Elizabeth Taylor, the Mummy and David Bowie. 


I have always, always, always been fascinated and enraptured by Egypt. I can even remember the exact day. Year 2, our first taste of history, studies of Ancient Egypt. We looked at things like mummies, Nefertiti, scarab beetles, enough turquoise to turn your eyes blue and my mum told me that Ancient Egyptians used to tread things like the common cold with panther poo infusions. I was completely in awe. This civilisation is magnificent. Splendour, would be an apt word. There was gold and pyramids - oh! pyramids at age 8 are something marvellous indeed - and huge sphinxes and weird cultural practices and tombs full of treasure ripe for the picking. The first nightmare I can remember happened after I read a book all about Howard Carter's famed discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb. The first 'grown up' film I can remember seeing was Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. I read, NO, I devoured the Cairo Jim books. Aged 9 all I wanted to be was an archeologist.

Today I've got a little bit more of a balanced mind. I know that there is much more to archaeology than cracking a whip and riding off into the sunset - but by that same token Indy had it right when he challenged the grave robbers "it belongs in a museum. I love watching films like The Mummy, Troy, Gladiator, Cleopatra... Not because they are inherently good films - although Cleopatra certainly knows how to put on a good show - but because they take you back somewhere, maybe not back into the past, but somewhere mythical and magical where history - a film-maker's history - comes alive and you can drink and walk and talk and see what the Ancient Egyptians saw for 2 hours or so. I am a history major, and have recently ended up in lots of medieval and early modern europe classes that I forgot just how much I love Ancient Egypt. I think next semester I'm going to enrol in a few classics classes (anyone remember that time last year when I had read The Secret History and wanted to take up Ancient Greek? well, i think this is a little more achievable than that). Who knows. I might learn something!

Tamila Purvis and Melanie Kemsler of The ManiaMania, who I have a great respect for, are basing their next collection on Ancient Egypt, filtered through David Bowie and Cleopatra (seen above). One can only expect that their natural, roughly-hewn aesthetic will easily adapt to things like turquoise, shining gold chokers and kohl-lined eyes. It is a logical progression to move from the 60s and 70s American Indian motifs of their current collection to something more historical, more earthy, more ancient. The idea that the jewellery could have been sourced from tombs themselves, as if Howard Carter (or indeed, Indiana Jones, or Rick O'Connell, natch) had reached in and pulled a cuff, dusty and sand-entombed, to see the light of day. It's certainly dramatic and powerful. In my mind's eye I'm seeing things like pyramid rings, rough and raw, cut out of hunks of sandstone and amulets in flawed jade with the eye of horus. I can't wait to see what they come up with. If it's anything as wonderful as the jewellery in Cleopatra - think blood red rubies and gold-feathered head pieces - It will be something truly magical indeed.

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