vid: Field Work (Imperial March), Indiana Jones

[eruthros]

Title: Field Work (Imperial March)
Fandom: Indiana Jones films
Song: The Imperial March (Darth Vader's Theme) by John Williams and the London Symphony Orchestra
Length: 3:06
Contains: Mild gore, hanging, desecration of the dead, systemic racism, institutional violence, white actors playing characters of color.
Summary: It belongs in a museum.

Download 1080p: Field Work (Imperial March) mp4, 217 MB, 1920x800
Download 720p: Field Work (Imperial March) mp4, 104 MB, 1152x480
Subtitles: Field Work subtitles (these are only for the dialogue, since the song is an instrumental)

Notes: I made this vid for thingswithwings's playlist "Colonization and its Discontents" for the wiscon_vidparty this year. This is a vid I'd been talking about making for a while, and I have a lot of feelings about it, which I might put in another post when I haven't been in a car for 13 hours.

Streaming version:

Watch on YouTube

Comments

[isweedan]

HOT DAMN.

[eruthros]

Thank you!

[dangercupcake]

this is beyond fantastic. this is so great.

[eruthros]

Thank you, I'm glad that you liked it!

[cypher]

wow, that was fierce.

[eruthros]

Thank you!

[some_stars]

I love this! I love the progression of images that culminates with him in the university setting--especially love the shot of him underlining "fact," how brilliant.

[eruthros]

Thank you, I'm glad you liked it! I actually vidded it backwards, more or less, because the university setting and the "fact" shot was the most important punctuation of the vid.

[laceblade]

Just, wow.

[eruthros]

Thank you!

[isagel]

I'm so glad you finally made this vid! It's everything I knew you would make it be, so chilling and smart. Well done!

[eruthros]

Thank you, I'm so glad that you like it!

[schneefink]

Wow. This is fantastic, I got chills watching it.

[eruthros]

Thank you!

[fightingarrival]

I already told you this but this is great. It is simultaneously so funny and so pointed and so infuriating. It's such a great teardown of this image of white American heroic individualism that people pine after. I love how the music builds back up on the guns vs swords clip, a gif that has unironically been used in a million "modern weapons are just better ok :)" internet debates. I love the map. I love the clip of Indy adjusting his hat while everyone else does the hard work of digging. I like everyone love FACT.

Indy you tenured fucking asshole.

[eruthros]

He IS a tenured fucking asshole.

And thank you - I'm so glad that you like it and that it's doing what I wanted it to! That guns vs swords clip is SO INFURIATING to me so I definitely wanted to hit it hard.

[lannamichaels]

This is *awesome*

[eruthros]

Thank you!

[streussal]

Fuuuuuuck. Okay:

The way you've cut him repeatedly using the dead as tools is so upsetting. And then pocketing shit that does not belong to him ugh.

Him smugly writing FACT on the chalkboard is just the ultimate in western empiricism.

The military presence with the American flag and nuclear bomb oh my god. The shots of the dead and him receiving accolades holy shit!!

Also using the Star Wars villain music is such a brilliant move.

[brainwane]

Seconding all of this. Plus the white kids' faces adoringly looking at him. And the lovely little quote at the end.

[eruthros]

Thank you!

[brainwane]

AND, I just watched it again, AND, the *map* as one of his weapons.

[eruthros]

Thank you, I'm so glad that it worked for you!

I was almost kind of embarrassed to use those military presence shots since they are so on the nose - but then I thought, well, Steven Spielberg filmed them, so.

[runawaynun]

This is brutal. And ridiculously accurate. And I propose putting the Imperial March to all of Western history. But I do love how you flipped the narrative from the "bold American" to the point of view of those who just wanted to keep their own sacred objects.

[eruthros]

Thank you!

[sophygurl]

fantastic reframing of a classic using the music from another classic - and just hearing Vader's song while watching Han do evil things yk??

[eruthros]

Thank you! And yes, I feel that way about the song combination too - especially since George Lucas wrote both of them, and he can see the evil empire in Darth Vader but not in Indy.

[magnetgirl]

Hi! Is it ok if I post this to tumblr as a vid rec? It's amazing and I want to share :)

[eruthros]

Yes, that's fine! And thanks, I'm glad you like it.

[seekingferret]

This is so great.

[lilly_the_kid]

This is brilliant! Such a great concept and I love how you vidded it. It gets better every time I watch it, so many amazing parallels between the movies and such a haunting repetition of the same disturbing themes. Awesome vid!!

[china_shop]

Here via lilly_the_kid's rec. This is so good! Wow!

[giandujakiss]

Somehow I missed this earlier - it's marvelous!

[ivyfic]

Marvelous. Spot on.

[cathexys]

That is amazing!!! Thank you for sharing.What a perfect vid for the playlist (and what a great playlist title :)

[pkoceres]

Oh wow, this is fantastic! These movies had been favorites of my childhood, but revisiting them as an adult was a sobering and somewhat fraught experience. This deftly strips the pretense of heroism away, and shows the layered systems of oppression in brutal honesty. Thanks for sharing.

[odessie]

Oh wow, this is AMAZING. You just, argh, nailed it. From the description/warnings I was kind of thinking 'cool, I kind of know what's coming', but was SO not prepared for the sheer visceral impact of Indy casually flinging other people's dead bodies around and it all just built and built from there. Serious chills on the FACT moment, and the whole thing's beautifully structured.

[propinquitine]

Wow! This was really well done -- very powerful. And what perfect dialogue at the end!

[rhythmia]

I just watched an Indiana Jones movie for the first time at a friend's movie night recently (literally all I knew about it or had seen was the Muppet Babies pastiche/parody episode as a kid), and another friend who was there directed me here, and WOW. This is a beautiful, on point vid. I....am not at all inclined to watch the rest of the Indiana Jones movies now, haha. I don't know if favorite is quite the right word, considering how it's all fabulously sharp commentary on imperialism and racism in those movies, but I really liked the contrast between all the stuff you see IJ doing, and the whitewashed, sanitized university scenes and the little bit of dialogue at the end. No IJ, you're a grave robber.

Amazing job, thank you for sharing!!!!

[spatz]

Oooh, scathing. I was particularly disturbed by all the destruction of skeletons and careless walking-over-badies this time around -- out of context, it's really clear how distressingly careless he is.

[cinco]

This is SO INCREDIBLE. My mind is absolutely blown. I played this for my wife and the two of us had to scream excitedly at each other for fifteen minutes after. This is possibly the clearest takedown of colonialist white man bullshit I've ever seen, and it went directly onto my mental list of most powerful vids ever. Absolutely amazingly well done.

[alpheratz]

Hello!

We're excited to let you know that we are planning on showing your vid at the Con.Txt 2018 vid show. Con.Txt is a fan convention held in Washington, D.C. the weekend of July 27th through 29th. We're very excited to be able to include it in the show!

Thanks,
Alpheratz and the vid show team

[corbae]

Hi! I am also on the Con.Txt vid show team; I'm getting a permission denied message from Mediafire when I try to DL the HQ file, do you have a different DL link? If it's easier to send it to me directly, my email address is r.st.vier [at] gmail [dot] com. Thank you!

[eruthros]

Here's a link on dropbox - let me know if that doesn't work for you.

[corbae]

That worked perfectly, thanks so much!

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Working through the spreadsheet, kudos again.