TUESDAY, 18 FEBRUARY 2020, WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA
We were on the eve of a pandemic. My friends in public health were worried, San Francisco had been hit hard, and the general feeling in LA was one of apprehension.
I had been on a deep dive in the adventure genre for a few weeks. I wanted to write my version of an adventure story, complete with serial-style cliffhangers, but for the long-form TV format. I wanted an awesome woman to lead it, and I wanted to avoid some of the “pitfalls” (sorry, couldn’t resist) of the genre; no gratuitous grave robbing of cultural heritage, no essentialized depictions of generic “natives” going crazy, etc. In retrospect, I must have been craving a bit of escapism, but the seed of the idea came years earlier. Perhaps twenty years earlier. Or so I thought. I was off by a few decades.
I grew up LOVING Indiana Jones. Raiders of the Lost Ark—a little 1981 movie, with story by George Lucas and Philip Kaufman, written by Larry Kasdan, and directed by Steven Spielberg—absolutely captivated me. So much so that my most prized possession as a kid was my bullwhip. My dad brought it back from a business trip in Texas, and I spent HOURS cracking it (hitting myself at first—Indy doesn’t do that much, but damn does it hurt), whipping it around tree branches and swinging from them (yes that’s actually possible), and likely terrifying the neighbors.
As a kid, did you ever think of what you’d grab if your house burns down? That ONE THING? My answer—always—was my bullwhip. I figured it would help us survive the ensuing adventure scenario, which somehow involved jungles and traps and…hey, I was twelve. As a side note, I was convinced that everything would catch fire at some point. Every schoolkid in the 90s learned excessively about stop, drop, and roll—how to put yourself out when (not if) you catch fire. We’d even practice it. This was a vital lesson to learn, so of course it was going to happen, and a bullwhip is what you really need afterwards. Anyway, when it happened, I’d put myself out, grab my bullwhip, and swing out of the house into the adventure.
I wasn’t the only one fascinated with the bullwhip—George Lucas was too, and Steven Spielberg all but insisted on the Indiana Jones character in this new adventure movie using it to whip a woman towards him (yes, problematic, and as one who spent enough time accidentally whipping HIMSELF with a bullwhip as a child—OUCH). I knew this, because on this Tuesday in 2020, I was partway through a 90-page transcript of a five-day story conference in which Lucas, Spielberg, Kasdan, and later Kaufman discuss ideas and outline the details of their movie. (1) Yes, I’m such a nerd that I HAD to read the full transcript, (2) I’m convinced that all good screenwriters are serious nerds in at least some way, and (3) it’s incredible insight into the creative process of some of the most brilliant creators of all time, on one of the most successful films of all time. HOW COULD I NOT?
A commonly discussed bit of wisdom is that Philip Kaufman had the original idea for the Ark of the Covenant as the objective in the movie. The Nazi interest in the occult, and the mythical power of the device made for a great mcguffin (Hitchcock’s term for an objective that the protagonist and antagonist are after). This was confirmed by the story conference document, but when I learned where Kaufman got the idea, I stood up and YELLED, then, as any writer does, composed a carefully crafted message to my family. Our excitement comes out in words on the page, ok!?
To understand this, I have to take you back several decades, to around 1955.
1955, CHICAGO, IL
Dr. Raphael Isaacs, my great grandfather, was Director of Hematology at the Michael Reese hospital in Chicago. He was a nationally renowned blood specialist; earlier in his career, he pioneered a treatment for the deadly disease pernicious anemia, employing a desiccated hog’s stomach to successfully treat patients. While at Reese, he specialized in leukemia research and treatment, focusing on the role of radiation in causing the disease, and seeing patients with blood disorders. He was a brilliant man of science.
He was also a student of the Bible, and on long walks with his son (my grandfather, Roger Isaacs) he began to form theories—based on his research—as to how phenomenon described in the Hebrew Bible might be explained through physics and chemistry.
One such theory centers on the Ark of the Covenant. At this point, any Raiders fan can hear the expositional scene in which Indy explains to the Army intel guys:
Dr. Isaacs’ theory was that the Ark, a golden box with twin-cherubim perfectly positioned at each end like radio antennae, actually looked and operated a lot like a communications device; it was essentially a radio for communicating with God. The more that he studied it, the more convinced he became of his theory. Eventually, he published a monograph on this and a few other theories with his son.
This theory is fascinating, imaginative, and particularly considering the source, unique.
So you can imagine my delight when I read the following from Philip Kaufman on page 84 of the Story Conference transcript, discussing the genesis (sorry again) of his idea:
“a thing that I, you know, have been thinking about for maybe twenty years since a doctor — my mononucleosis doctor — when I was in college, a famous blood specialist – and he had written – with another doctor — an article on the Ark of the Covenant and how he felt it provided a means of communication with some other extra-terrestrial or God-like or whatever…[p. 84].”
He goes on to discuss how his doctor described the Ark as essentially a radio, with the cherubim as a key component.
Hmmm…the Ark, as a means of communication akin to a radio, with cherubim as a key component in the early theory, imparted by a famous blood specialist in Chicago? Too much coincidence is no coincidence at all. There is only one reasonable conclusion: Dr. Raphael Isaacs provided key story inspiration to Philip Kaufman for the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Here’s the description, delivered by Belloc, in the movie:
RIDICULOUSLY COOL, RIGHT!?
But that’s not all. Here is, for me, the most important part.
My grandfather, Roger Isaacs, would pick up his father’s research, and over the course of the next 40+ years, develop it considerably. The result was a book called Talking with God. His comparative study of ancient languages and etymology is currently challenging traditional interpretations of biblical terms, and his use of science—including physics, chemistry, and medicine--offer a new and compelling angle on ancient texts.
As anyone who has worked on an expansive piece of research and writing can attest, once you complete it, you want it to mean something. To have an impact. My grandfather’s book is certainly accomplishing that, but I got to tell him that these ideas that have meant so much to him helped to inspire a group of filmmakers to make one of the most impactful movies of all time. Raiders is fun, yes, but it also captured enough imagination to prompt a dramatic uptick in the number of people choosing to become archaeologists—fantastical traps or not—not to mention spawning an entire genre of reimagined serial-style films.
My grandfather is humble man. Erudite, but not prone to boasting. More humble perhaps than he could be—he is a skilled scholar, he survived injury in the Battle of the Bulge in WWII, built one of the first PR companies in Chicago, and went on to help, for example, Jack Kennedy with his Presidential campaign. He’s a great jazz drummer. And at 95, he’s sharper than I am. But he’s not prone to hyperbole at all. I can only remember one instance of it. His response when I gave him the news:
“Well, I’d say you made my week, but I think you just about made my life.”
And that made mine as well, Grandpa.
We reached out to Philip Kaufman, and he wrote to my grandfather with a warm, generous recount of his memory:
“I met your father sometime in 1955 when I was a student downstate at the University of Illinois. He had previously diagnosed my mother as having the then little-known and usually mis-diagnosed blood condition called mononucleosis. He discovered I, also, had mono and generously took the time to show me my blood slides on his microscope, pointing out the battles between white and red cells, etc. I remember him as a rare, kind human being, ‘old-school’ in the best sense of that phrase, who took time and care to explain ‘how things worked’ to a then 19 year-old patient.
For some reason he began telling me about his theories about the Ark. I was somewhat familiar with the Ark through conversations with my father’s uncle Morrie, a revered Hasid. Uncle Morrie had told me accounts of the Ark and shown me a book of his on the Pentateuch with surprisingly extensive commentaries in English about the Ark’s structure, composition and extraordinary powers when carried into battle. Your father’s theories about the Ark’s telecommunications potential (even suggesting that You-Know-Who with Almighty Powers might be listening on the other end of the line) were even more spellbinding, exciting...and fun to a 19 year old enthralled by his mono-doctor’s theories on mono-theism […]
Your father was, as you know, a remarkable and generous man. The young man he told his theories to remembers him well. And when the Ark is finally found—or maybe carefully reconstructed by some genius or robot from the extensive instructions laid out in the Pentateuch—tell your family to take off their shoes, step inside, brush aside the silken curtains, etc., give loving noogies to the golden heads of the cherubim, and say a few profound words of thanks: your father probably will be listening on the other end!”
This meant the world to Grandpa Roger and to our family.
As for me, it’s hard to do much better than that for motivation. I built my version of an adventure story world, and had a blast writing the pilot. Early readers have loved it, and if we can find a home for it, I’m hoping to see it on screen in the not-too-distant future.
The lesson this drives home? Share your ideas. Even if they seem fantastical. You never know whom you might inspire.