Classic Movie Review: Raiders of the Lost Ark

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Directed by Steven Spielberg

Written by Lawrence Kasden

Starring Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, John Rhys Davies, Denholm Elliott

Release Date July 12th 1981

Published July 2nd 1981

It's the spirit of Indiana Jones that gets me every time I watch Raiders of the Lost Ark. The sense of wonder and excitement that Steven Spielberg brings to his direction, the choices he makes in staging acting, and the way he and Harrison Ford clearly know the vibe they are going for, it's glorious to watch. I may not have grown up on the kind of serialized adventures that George Lucas and Steven Spielberg did, but watching Raiders of the Lost Ark, I feel like I was there with them, when they were little boys, delighting in adventures that they would watch over and over again at the movie theaters of their youth.

It's a spirit of adventure as much as it is an actual adventure that you enjoy when you watch Raiders of the Lost Ark. It's old school movie magic, a sense of wonder that permeates the screen. In trying to recreate their youth, Spielberg and Lucas invited us along, welcomed us like fellow kids into their exuberant childhood obsessions, they invited us to play with them. It's an invitation to be a little kid again and watch as a charismatic hero takes center stage to perform daring stunts because it needs to be done, it's the right and just thing.

The simple pleasures of Raiders of the Lost Ark are amplified but the wonderful intention of Raiders of the Lost Ark. It's intended to thrill you in a way that Spielberg and Lucas understand the thrill of their own childhoods. It's the purest expression of childlike wonder and nostalgia, rendered fresh and new via remarkable artistry, effects, and a movie star that feels perfectly at home amid the wonder and excitement. Harrison Ford is different from Spielberg and Lucas in a way that carries the spirit of Indiana Jones but also stands aside from it.

Where Spielberg and Lucas are in earnest admiration of this kind of adventure, Ford's performance doesn't hold the same kind of preciousness. He's living the adventure, he's living Indiana Jones as if the character existed wholly within a real world. This is an essential part of his appeal. Had he attempted to deliver the same kind of enthusiasm and wonder that Lucas and Spielberg were bringing to the creation of Raiders of the Lost Ark, the whole thing could tip into a childish parody. Ford is very much the adult in the room, grounding the action from the perspective of someone taking all of this very seriously.

That's because, for Indiana Jones, this is all very serious For him, it's an adventure but it is a genuinely life or death adventure. For him, there must be a sense of gravity, a sense of weight, he's providing the stakes of this story. He doesn't have time to indulge in the wonder or step back and think about being in the midst of an incredible adventure, this is life or death, and Ford brings that sense of gravity to Indiana Jones in a wonderfully tricky fashion. He must balance being the embodiment of a wondrous adventure and communicate the grave circumstances that he faces in this story all at once.

In the classic serials of the 40s, 50s, and 60s, there is was a heightened reality, a wink and a nod. The stars of those serial always gave away the game by winking at the kids in audience and reassuring them that nothing bad could possibly happen to their heroic adventurer. Ford dispenses with smiling, laughing, nodding and winking, in the opening scene when he meets multiple dangers with with and bravery but no sense that he's done this all before and everything will work out just fine. That choice, whether its merely casting Harrison Ford or merely giving him space to treat the character as realistic in the context of an unreal story, serves to modernize Raiders of the Last Ark as compared to the serials that inspired it.

That Ford manages this to perfection is a true testament of his talent. Ford doesn't get enough credit for making Indiana Jones come to life as well as he does. It's an incredible performance, one that feels modern while being baked into a very old school movie. It's modern in the sense that it stands apart from the period setting without defying the period setting. Against all of the other characters in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ford looms largest as an individual and not a type. The villains, Sallah, even Marion to a point, have carry elements of a type of character from the movies that Spielberg and Lucas are updating.

This is actually what allows Ford the ability to stand apart, to feel both modern and of the time. While the rest of the characters in Raiders of the Lost Ark are used to evoke the period in which the film is set, Indiana Jones, via Ford, appears timeless, iconic. Marion is allowed some of the same freedom and Karen Allen makes a great deal more of the character that is likely on the page, but she is still a character created with a pair of specific traits, being a love interest and being a motivating factor in pushing Indiana Jones past what might normally be his limitations.

By that I simply mean that he loves her so much that he doesn't question for a moment, risking his life to save her life. We all hope we are this noble, we all strive for it, we all, hopefully, would, under the circumstances, love someone so much that we risk our lives to save them. Indiana Jones just happens to find himself in a scenario where that is what he must do and when pressed into action by his love for Marion, he steps up. He risks everything for her.

There is an equally noble intention to save the world from the Nazis as well but if Indy had to choose between saving Marion and letting the Nazis get away, he'd choose her every time. That is incredibly noble and it places the character in a heroic and romantic light that shines well upon him. Had Indiana Jones been portrayed as only willing to risk his life to get the glory and accolades that come from getting the Ark of the Covenant, I don't know that we'd be talking about Indiana Jones today. It's a relatively simple observation, but it's also not one we talk about all that often.

The deft ways in which Marion is both a standout character and how she is used to reveal parts of Indiana Jones is another aspect of how great Spielberg and Lawrence Kasden craft this story. It's subtle, it's working in the margins, but in every scene with Marion and Indy, she's revealing something about him as a person, aspects of his personality organically come forward and while the dialogue is helping to provide the context of their relationship, it's the challenging tone of Marion that first begins to open up Indiana Jones to us.

Raiders of the Lost Ark brings this forward several times in action and dialogue until we reach our happy, romantic ending, that kiss we've all been waiting for. That kiss that is the reward we've all been waiting for since these two began to reveal each other back in Marion's bar. For all of the simple, ingenious notes of Raiders of the Lost Ark, the romance of Marion and Indiana Jones is the most subtle but also the most necessary. It's the big beating heart of all of the adventures that Spielberg and Lucas grew up on, the adventure that leads to winning the heart of a beautiful damsel.

That aspect could be perfunctory, overly predictable, and by rote determination. Spielberg, Lucas and Kasden never allow the perfunctory or predictable to take over. They do this by making Marion essential to telling us who Indiana Jones is, not merely through dialogue but through his actions toward her, the tension, sexual attraction, and passion that deepens into a love he is slowly learning how to fully express and allow himself to feel. All of that is in Harrison Ford's performance as Karen Allen reveals it, and that's what great storytelling is about.

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