In anticipation of this episode, I wanted to get a jump and repost my review explaining why Raiders is my #6 film of All Time.
Raiders of the Lost ArkWe are simply passing through history. This... this is history. Raiders of the Lost Ark is the greatest Summer movie ever made. It's not the greatest action film, barely losing to Die Hard which is more dramatic and less escapist, but no film better evokes the communal joy of air conditioning and hot buttered popcorn than the initial adventure of Indiana Jones. I've rewatched a lot of Spielberg recently and this shows him at the peak of his powers, deftly mixing action and adventure with character, heart and first-rate production values. (It's a close call for sure, but this is
John Williams' best score.) Any one of the well-known action set pieces could be the climax of a great film, but just as much thought and imagination went into the other scenes.
Credit must be shared by the dream team who put the script together, screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan working from a story by Philip Kaufman and Executive Producer George Lucas (back when he was good at this stuff.) The story captures the excitement and awe of the old time Saturday Matinee serials it pays tribute to, and is so much better than any of them. Our great hero Indiana Jones uses not just a gun, but a whip (so cool). His travels around the world put him in constant danger, though he's only afraid of snakes, and he's the opposite of a confident bad ass.
Indiana Jones: I'm going after that truck.
Sallah: How?
Indiana Jones: I don't know, I'm making this up as I go!
I think William Goldman wrote about how Indiana Jones always has audience sympathy because if you track him through the film, he ultimately fails at everything he does. From the initial golden idol to the final scene, everything he goes after is taken from him and we love him for it. Along the way, he mixes up with a great cast of characters, many of whom were unable to have much of a career after Raiders. Take Ronald Lacey, channeling Peter Lorre as Nazi weasel Toht. He's amazing in this film, but google him and you'll find more about his face melting than about his acting career.
There are a couple of patches of disbelief. I still don't know how Marion didn't die in the truck. Indy says something about how they must have switched baskets, but we hear her as she's loaded in. Besides, how and why would they switch baskets? There's also the big credibility stretch of Indy hitchhiking on a submarine. In exchange for these trespasses we get the opening chamber of traps, the market fight, the Well of Souls, the airplane battle (featuring the muscular mechanic in what is probably the best action fistfight in cinema), the jaw-dropping truck chase and the special effects finale. (How interesting that the film decides not to end in another action sequence.)
You could argue that Raiders isn't very deep, but there's an interesting scene late in the film when Paul Freeman as Belloq makes an impassioned plea to Dr. Jones about preserving archaeological discoveries, that they are more important than the people who wish to possess them. Besides, Raiders is a movie deeply in love with movies made by a team of extremely talented fanboys purely for our entertainment pleasure. It's one of the Top 10 films of All Time.