27 Jan Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Masculinity Fades

Oddly, in my several thousand comments, a contemporary comment is missing for this popular movie. I’ve seen this now again after more than 40 years. It has not aged well.

In its time, it was a phenomenon, created by the two biggest filmmakers in the world — wunderkinds. It seemed fresh. Spielberg went on as we know, Lucas as well. Meanwhile, Soderbergh was so impressed by the blocking in this, he edited a version with filler sound and greyscale simply for study.

The way Spielberg works is he storyboards a movie; he makes a graphic novel before he makes the movie. Then he matches his shots to the images already designed. Some of us overlook the staging when we watch a film like these prefabricated framings. I paired this viewing with Wright’s ‘Darkest Hour’, which is far, far more advanced than what Spielberg does, but absolutely in the same tradition.

So rewatching this, I can set aside the less well thought out characters. Indy was initially a predator of underage girls but that got cut. I can work around Kasden’s relatively stilted dialog. Can work around the hokey sets…

What I cannot get around is the obsolete framing. Yes it is excellent at what it does: filming a comic book. The very specific comic book style I see here is from ’Milton Caniff’s ‘Steve Canyon’. From the very first segue of the Paramount mountain to the warehouse, this is not Spielberg’s eye, not his imagination. It is merely his craft in conveying the blocking from a genius.

All the action: the initial relic adventure, the saloon shootout, the bazaar chase and truck, and even the ark horror. This is all borrowed.

Today, we are much farther from this Indy Jones movie than it was from comics and serials it mimics, making it a tough watch.

Posted in 2025

Ted’s Evaluation — 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

IMDB