I have a lot of favorite movies, so when Movie Month came along I had to think long and hard about what to spend my time writing about. I was torn enough that I couldn’t narrow it down to just one post, but there was no doubt in my mind that I would have to tackle Indiana Jones, which has been a big influence on me ever since my initial forays into writing. My first published novel has an obvious connection to Jones-it tells the story of a globe-spanning archaeological chase that has the potential to turn the tide of history. The same very broad premise could apply to any of the four Jones films. Well, at least superficially, which is the whole point of this post.

There’s just something so energetic about these movies. They’re action-packed, yes, but they also have their full share of insight and philosophy. There’s a delicate balancing act going on here, and from the first time I was exposed to these films I knew I wanted to create something that tapped into the same zeitgeist.

As the series goes on, the gaps between films gets longer and longer (eventually very long), and according to George Lucas, a large reason is that he struggled to come up with MacGuffins worthy of the Indiana Jones legacy. A MacGuffin is a writerly term referring to the object of a character’s quest. It doesn’t actually matter what a MacGuffin is, because its primary purpose is to kickstart the story and motivate the characters. In other words, it’s plot fuel. In the first Indiana Jones movie, it the Ark of the Covenant. In the second movie, it’s the Sankara Stones. In the third, it’s the Holy Grail-a hard object to one-up, which is perhaps why we had to wait twenty years for the next film. Finally, the fourth (and probably final) outing sent the characters searching for eponymous Crystal Skull. The argument could be made that the best MacGuffin was the first, that Lucas was never quite able to recapture the magic.

All month, we’ve been looking at lessons to be learned from cinema. Today’s lesson, however, looks at what the first Indiana Jones movie excelled-and the others didn’t. Ironically, if the MacGuffin doesn’t really matter, it’s odd that Lucas spent so much time obsessing over them. And even after almost fifteen years of obsessing, the fourth film delivered what is almost universally regarded as the weakest one of all. So what went wrong?

The magic of Indiana Jones isn’t in the quest. Yes, there has to be a great story, but the magic is in the character-or rather, characters. The second movie relied too heavily on the plot, the third relied too heavily on the humour, and the fourth relied too heavily on… well, perhaps mysticism (or perhaps nostalgia). Certainly all four films contain these elements, but I would argue that the first movie is the only one to showcase them in proper balance, a tricky feat.

For a movie that managed to so thoroughly entangle itself in the world of its main character, it’s interesting to note that the first movie-Raiders of the Lost Ark-doesn’t even have the main character’s name in the title, as each of the sequels would (though this has been retconned on modern home-video releases). The movie was about a flawed adventurer. He was brave and cunning, but also insecure and self-deprecating. He wasn’t good with people. He was scruffy, got into a lot of fights, and had crippling fears and copious hangups. He was not idealized. These qualities are backed up not through the character’s biographical details or infodumpy expository dialogue, but through nuanced writing and an inspired performance. I may be giving the first movie too much credit, but Harrison Ford had a sparkle in his eyes back in 1981 that wasn’t present later on; I still love the other movies, but his facial expressions tended more towards exhaustion (but at least they fashion the character’s exhaustion into a plot point).

Now, I readily recognize that there are as many different kinds of authors as there are authors themselves, but I’m one of those guys who turns the spotlight on the characters more than the plot, as often as possible. You need both, but if I’m writing a scene and have to choose one over the other, seven times out of ten I’m going to look for ways to say something interesting about the character at the heart of the story. The character isn’t the guy to whom the story is happening, but rather the guy who is driving the story. The character is not an interchangeable MacGuffin. No character = no story.

If you can take away the character without seriously damaging the story, I think that’s a bad sign. In particular, if you take the Indiana Jones character out of the second and fourth films, I think those movies can still survive. The third film fares better, though still gets the balance wrong.

The Take Home: The character and the story should be so enmeshed that they cannot be separated. Test this on your own story; try outlining your work-in-progress with a different cast of characters. It’s the rare kind of test which one hopes to fail!

I first saw Meet Joe Black in my senior year of high school, and I hadn’t expected to enjoy it. A big group of friends had gathered at someone’s house on a day off to watch a movie and just hang out. I remember feeling a bit disappointed by the film selection because it had been chosen by the girls and it had the definite air of a chick flick. Just look at that cover! Plus, it was long-a VHS release split into two tapes! Who needs that?

But as the movie began to play, I found myself transfixed. (Without a doubt, a key ingredient was the amazing Thomas Newman score, which I happen to be listening to as I write this piece). Not only did I unexpectedly enjoy the movie, but I was deeply influenced by it. It taught me some big lessons which have served me well to this day.

Meet Joe Black is one of those love-it-or-hate-it kind of films. The critical consensus, according to Rotten Tomatoes is that it is “glacially slow, uneventful.” Though personally I think anyone who says the movie is uneventful simply couldn’t have seen the same movie I did. Maybe it has something to do with expectations. If you’re expecting a fun romantic romp, you might be enraged. If you’re expecting a deep and contemplative look at philosophy and mortality-or at least open to such an experience-then you’re in for a treat.

Here’s what Meet Joe Black does so exquisitely well: it explores characters in a way that I see usually reserved for novels. The characters are given long, extended sequences in which they get to really chew the cud. Uneventful? Not in my book. The film gives the characters time to mine the depths of who they are, what they want, their strengths, their flaws, their secret desires… and all of this in a deeply spiritual context.

This movie has a fascinating metaphysical premise. Death goes about his business, day in and day out, ferrying souls from the world of the living to whatever is on the other side (the movie graciously doesn’t concern itself with this detail), before deciding to take a holiday by entering the mortal plane to learn more about life and what it means-and why souls are so reluctant to leave it. To this end, Death takes the form of a recently deceased young man (played to perfection by Brad Pitt in one of his best roles) and assumes his life. But Death’s stay on the earth is temporary, for he has a job to do-collect the soul of a wealthy New York business magnate, Bill Parrish (Anthony Hopkins, also at the top of his game), who is about to celebrate his sixty-fifth birthday-before returning with his new charge to the River Styx.

That’s a loaded premise, and Meet Joe Black doesn’t take any shortcuts. It’s gonna take some time to explore this idea to the fullest, and the film, with a running time of over three hours, goes about its juicy task with proficiency, if not efficiency. So many stories are rushing around to get from A to B, to simplify big and complicated ideas into bite-sized morsels. Meet Joe Black demonstrates that you can take the time to smell the roses by investigating every aspect of your story, from premise to setting to character, without sacrificing anything.

One of the symptoms of this-which is either praised or maligned, depending on your opinion of the film-is that although the characters have long dialogue scenes with each other, they are not always talking. This movie doesn’t have much in the way of “chatter.” The conversations breathe. They have a unique cadence which I haven’t seen duplicated anywhere else. Sometimes the characters are silent for long stretches of time-but the communication that happens in those silence is enough to fill pages and pages. There’s so much subtext. For a film, it’s tremendously literate. There are scenes with dialogue that might be able to fill a single page of script, but the movie explores those beats for entire minutes. Yes, this should be uneventful on film, but instead it’s strangely masterful. It’s beautiful. It’s moving.

In the midst of my stories, I take this cue from Meet Joe Black very seriously. Sometimes you just can’t-or at least, shouldn’t-rush things. Let the moments play out, let the characters dance around a little bit, let the subtext take center stage. Doing so can take storylines that seem merely perfunctory on the surface and transform them into intensely meaningful examinations of human character.

The Take Home: From time to time, in this fast-paced writing market, don’t be afraid to take it slow.