There's nothing subtle about Indiana Jones fighting Nazis – but the team behind "Indiana
Jones and the Dial of Destiny" left one line in the movie that has a history you wouldn't expect.
After "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and "The Last Crusade," director Steven Spielberg chose not
to use history's most despicable fascists as the antagonists for the fourth Indy movie,
"Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." However, franchise newcomer James Mangold opted to
bring them back once more for "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny." This time around,
the villains feel significantly more threatening,
which is almost certainly a reflection of the disturbing rise in neo-Nazism across the globe.
Gone are the cartoonish, face-melting villains of "Raiders of the Lost Ark," who would feel
just as at home in an episode of "Hogan's Heroes." In their stead, Mangold presents us with a foe
more tangible in Mads Mikkelsen's Jürgen Voller, a brilliant scientist as fluent in mythology as he
is in propaganda and manipulation. The film even goes so far as to make Voller an American asset,
calling clear attention to Operation Paperclip, the U.S. Intelligence initiative that saw Nazi
scientists brought to America to work on advanced technology during the Cold War.
"My memory's a little fuzzy. Are you still a Nazi?"
There is nothing light or satirical about the Nazis in "Dial of Destiny," a fact
emphasized firmly yet subtly with a line of dialogue from Mikkelsen's Voller toward
the end of the film. With his historically revisionist goals in his grasp, he taunts:
"Yesterday belongs to us." This line seems to be a carefully chosen reference that solidifies
Voller's vile motivations by alluding to an enduring and complicated 1960s song.
The phrase "Yesterday belongs to us" is eerily close to the title of the
fictitious Nazi anthem "Tomorrow Belongs to Me," written by Jewish
composers John Kander and Fred Ebb for their groundbreaking theatrical work "Cabaret."
Originally premiering in 1966, three years before the events of "Dial of Destiny," "Cabaret" is a
popular and staunchly anti-fascist musical that chronicles the insidious rise of the Nazi party in
Germany from several different perspectives. The story primarily follows a politically ambivalent
American writer who finds himself intimately entangled with his pushy English students,
Jewish neighbors, and the staff of a queer nightclub in 1930s Berlin. "Cabaret" has
often been described as intentionally deceptive, especially in its tone,
first appearing as a raucously seductive dramedy only to reveal itself as a devastating tragedy.
This deceptiveness is best encapsulated by the song "Tomorrow Belongs to Me," which is
heard twice in the show's first act. In most productions, it is initially sung by either a
young boy or a waiter, its pastoral lyrics and dreamlike melody painting an innocent,
optimistic image for the unassuming audience. It isn't till later that it becomes clear,
usually through a creeping build of instruments, the sudden appearance
of nationalist emblems on set, or a growing ensemble of singers eerily large in number,
that the song is a fascist anthem meant to inspire a violent, nationalistic uprising.
Voller's apparent allusion to the song in "Dial of
Destiny" also eerily mimics the way it has been misappropriated over the years.
Sadly, "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" was so effective as a fictional fascist
anthem that it was adopted by real-life fascists across the world. One of the first
organizations to use the song for malevolent purposes was the National Socialist League,
an American neo-Nazi group composed entirely of gay men. However, the song's apparent reference
in "Dial of Destiny" goes beyond merely evolving the Nazis of "Raiders of the
Lost Ark" from hapless soldiers into a more insidious contingent of white supremacists.
There's a clear consciousness within the narrative of "Dial of Destiny" that Nazis are no longer
a historical foe long since defeated, but an emerging and ever-growing threat. In the same
vein, "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" is as relevant today as it was in the 1960s, with notable
contemporary proponents of Nazi ideology publicly appropriating the song within the last few years.
From its use of Nazis to its bizarre time-travel plot, "Dial of Destiny" is consistently concerned
with how history impacts the future, a concern that lends itself quite well to an Indiana Jones
adventure. Its likely allusion to "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" is just one of the many ways
the film colors its historical antagonists with a chilling relevance in the modern day.