Great Movies Revisited - Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

While we’re on the subject of brilliant movies, let’s talk about one of the greatest of them all – Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), and see if we can get to the end without asking why no one can make films like this anymore.

This was a formative movie for so many, and captivated people right from the outstanding opening sequence starring Harrison Ford, Alfred Molina and, of course, Paul Freeman and his truly great villain-archaeologist René Belloq. Who could forget the pacing and atmosphere as Indy takes the golden Inca idol but then must flee the Peruvian temple with the now legendary rolling boulder chasing after him? Or the moment the fantastic WACO biplane lifts off out of the water just in time to save the hero from the tribe’s poison darts? This was real adventure fiction – almost a kind of pulp fiction - presented in homage to the classic serial films of the pre-war era and it’s done with real style, much like the excellent original theatrical release poster by Richard Amsel (above).

 

This movie was made when screenwriters still had a sense of humour and knew how to use it. They felt that putting some real laughs into the film didn’t detract from the serious parts of it, and they were right. Slowing a film down and putting some gags in it makes the faster bits faster and the darker bits darker. This is something we see far too little of now, especially in thrillers.

I find it hard to criticise this film, and it’s weird how this movie was made with a nostalgic eye on the movie-making and entertainment of the 1930s, and yet now it’s possible to watch it with a nostalgic eye on the movie-making and entertainment of the 1980s. Raiders perfectly blends adventure, romance, humour, villainy, amazing locations, and even throws in a supernatural lightning storm that kills Nazis. I mean, come on.

And on that last bit, something else this film does really well is incorporate that supernatural storyline into what is other than that a standard adventure thriller, and this is not an easy thing to do. Where to draw the line is a hard thing to know, and this came up a bit when the ‘alien thing’ happened in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. In the 2008 revisit to Indy’s world, the film wraps up with the now notorious ‘alien thing’ which many people felt wasn’t coherent with the universe of Indiana Jones which had spent three previous (excellent) films and 27 years drawing the line at religious mysticism and the supernatural.

But Raiders was a deserved hit and box office smash, winning Spielberg the Saturn Award for Best Director, and scooping several Academy Awards as well. Not only that but it was followed up by two more great films – Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) and the outstanding Indana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). I’ll go into these in more detail, and Crystal Skull, later.

I’m not rating this film – I’ll leave that for my reviews of the Bond films – but let’s just say it’s a masterpiece of adventure thriller pacing and makes great use of some amazing locations as well. The only question I have is why no one can make films like this anymore...

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