Raiders of the Lost Ark

Rating: Null/10 (12 November 2012)

In 1981, the stars aligned over Hollywood, and the greatest adventure movie of all time was born, from one of the greatest movie collaborations of all time. Leave it to Hollywood to turn a prosaic, meticulous scientific endeavor like archaeology into a spectator sport; the opening action sequence finds the film's hero, after capturing the object of his mission, cradling it like a football and sprinting like a halfback out of the buried site of ruins, dodging booby-trapped poison darts all the way. The premise of Raiders of the Lost Ark is credited to the creative genius of George Lucas, who somehow hit upon the idea of replacing an academic profession marked by a slow, gradual pursuit of truths about human prehistory with a romantic, mercenary endeavor, in which the practitioners are pirates in a high-speed, cutthroat, competitive race for buried treasures that have been buried for thousands of years. One of those pirates is now one of the most recognizable movie heroes of all time. Like Superman, Indiana Jones maintains a mild manner in his day job and dons iconic garb to pursue his true passion. Instead of reporting, Jones teaches at university; instead of fighting crime, he risks life and limb to unearth important historical artifacts, which he sells to museums. Like the various eras of remote history imprinted into the living rocks, layer upon layer, Raiders was developed through an escalating application of movie talents. Lucas's idea developed into a perfectly understated screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan, became fully realized under the stylish, high-energy direction of Steven Spielberg, and achieved legendary status through a star-making performance by Harrison Ford and a film-score masterwork by composer John Williams. Jones, as played by Ford and directed by Spielberg, is slightly more than a hero, but well short of a superhero. His face is unshaven. He sweats. He looks like he hasn't showered in days, and he probably has bad breath. When he first steps into the light in South America, he is still in the shadows. When he swings from a vine, and we first hear his heroic theme, he falls and plops into the water, well short of the amphibious airplane that rescues him from pursuing natives. And when he gets into the getaway plane, he is met with the pilot's pet snake, which we learn Jones hates. This is a real man, with real vulnerabilities. John Williams' musical soundtrack aside, Raiders sounds astoundingly good, as exemplified by the scene in Nepal, where Jones meets Toht, the most sinister of his Nazi enemies, and Marion, the most important of his allies. From start to finish, Raiders is virtually non-stop action and intrigue, infused with humor, and polished with a touch of romance. It is a treasure hunt over three thousand years in the making, the object of which—the Ark of the Covenant—adds a spiritual, mystical dimension to a film that otherwise follows a standard action/adventure story arc. And although the end can be criticized for its "deus ex machina" resolution, it is the end that gives the film its soul. God in Raiders is interventionist and vengeful, and He punishes the Nazis and their accomplices for disturbing the vessel that held the tablets on which were written the Ten Commandments—the Covenant—which they have broken through their evil ways. Indy and Marion are spared, not just because they are good, but because Indy knows not to look. It's all part of a strange archaeological and religious folklore that somehow makes sense within the context of the movie, and somehow fits in with the film's Saturday matinée, Summer blockbuster appeal.