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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