Steven Spielberg’s “Raiders of the Lost Ark” plays
like an anthology of the best parts from all the Saturday matinee serials ever
made. It takes place in Africa, Nepal, Egypt, at sea and in a secret submarine
base. It contains trucks, bulldozers, tanks, motorcycles, ships, subs, Pan Am
Clippers, and a Nazi flying wing. It has snakes, spiders, booby traps and
explosives. The hero is trapped in a snake pit, and the heroine finds herself
assaulted by mummies. The weapons range from revolvers and machineguns to
machetes and whips. And there is the supernatural, too, as the Ark of the
Covenant triggers an eerie heavenly fire that bolts through the bodies of the
Nazis.
The Saturday serial aspects of “Raiders of the Lost
Ark” have been much commented on, and relished. But I haven’t seen much
discussion of the movie’s other driving theme, Spielberg’s feelings about the
Nazis. “Impersonal,” critic Pauline Kael called the film, and indeed
it is primarily a technical exercise, with personalities so shallow they’re
like a dew that has settled on the characters. But Spielberg is not trying here
for human insights and emotional complexity; he finds those in other films, but
in “Raiders” he wants to do two things: make a great entertainment,
and stick it to the Nazis.
We
know how deeply he feels about the Holocaust. We have seen “Schindler’s
List” and we know about his Shoah Project. Those are works of a thoughtful
adult. “Raiders of the Lost Ark” is the work of Spielberg’s
recaptured adolescence, I think; it contains the kind of stuff teenage boys
like, and it also perhaps contains the daydreams of a young Jewish kid who
imagines blowing up Nazis real good. The screenplay is by Lawrence Kasdan,
based on a story by Philip Kaufman, George Lucas and an uncredited Spielberg,
whose movie is great fun on the surface — one of the classic entertainments —
and then has a buried level.
Consider.
The plot hinges on Hitler’s desire to recapture the long-lost ark.
“Hitler’s a nut on the subject,” Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) is
told by a government recruiter. “Crazy. He’s obsessed with the
occult.” But not just anything occult. The ark, if found, would be the
most precious Jewish artifact imaginable — the chest that held the Ten Commandments
that God gave Moses on the mountain top. “An army which carries the ark
before it is invincible,” Indy says; Hitler wants to steal the heritage of
the Jews and use it for his own victory.
Throughout
the film, there is a parade of anti-Nazi symbolism and sly religious satire, as
when a desperate Indy grabs the hood ornament of a Mercedes truck, and it snaps
off. And when a Nazi torturer grabs a sacred relic and it burns a stigmata into
his hand. When the ark is being transported in the hold of a Nazi ship, inside
a stout lumber crate, the swastika and other Nazi markings spontaneously catch
fire and are obliterated. A Nazi officer, uneasy about opening the ark, says:
“I am uncomfortable with the thought of this Jewish ritual.” And of course
when the spirit of the ark manifests itself, it’s as a writhing column of fire
that skewers the Nazis. (“Keep your eyes closed,” Indy desperately
tells his sidekick, although one assumes the holy fire would know friend from
foe.) There is even a quiet in-joke in the character of Belloq (Paul Freeman),
the Frenchman who tries to play both sides against the middle, just as Occupied
France did.
Nazis
were favorite villains of Saturday serials, prized more for their costumes and
accents than for their evil beliefs. Spielberg here makes manifest their
values, and then destroys them: “Raiders of the Lost Ark” has all the
qualities of an exuberant serial, plus a religious and political agenda. That
Spielberg places his message in the crevices of the action makes it all the
more effective. “Raiders” may have an impersonal superstructure, but
its foundations are personal, and passionate.
I
make these points to place it more firmly in the mainstream of Spielberg’s
work, since “Raiders” is widely enjoyed but just as widely dismissed
as something Spielberg tossed off between more important films. It comes
between “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “E.T.: The
Extra-Terrestrial,” films Kael compared to “a boy soprano singing
with joy.” That voice couldn’t be heard in “Raiders,” she felt.
I think I can hear it: not singing, but laughing, sometimes with glee,
sometimes in triumph.
The
movie is just plain fun. The Kasdan screenplay is a construction of one damn
thing on top of another. As the movie opens, Indy brushes aside a web taller
than a man, is assaulted by giant spiders, narrowly eludes a booby trap and
then another, leaps across a bottomless pit, is nearly crushed by a lowering
slab, is betrayed by his companion, leaps the pit again, is pursued by a
gigantic boulder that rolls behind him, is surrounded by natives with spears
and dart guns, leaps into a river, crawls into an airplane and finds a giant
snake in the cockpit. “I hate snakes,” he says.
The
movie hurtles from one crisis to another. After the struggle for control of the
flying wing, for example (after, that is, a fist fight, gunshots, gasoline
explosions and a villain who is made mincemeat by a propeller), Indy is
abruptly told, “The Ark! They’re taking it on a truck to Cairo!” Indy
replies, “Where is it?” And that’s all the exposition necessary to
get us from the flying wing scene to the famous truck chase.
Harrison
Ford is the embodiment of Indiana Jones — dry, fearless, and as indestructible
as a cartoon coyote. The correct casting was not as obvious in 1980, when the
film was being prepared, as it is now. He had starred in “Star Wars”
and “The Empire Strikes Back” as Han Solo, a laconic man of action,
but his other credits were a mixed bag. What he proved in the “Star
Wars” movies, and went on to prove again and again, is that he can supply
the strong, sturdy center for action nonsense. In a scene where everything is
happening at once, he knows that nothing unnecessary need be happening on his
face, in his voice, or to his character. He is the fulcrum, not the lever.
Karen
Allen plays Marian, his sidekick, a gutsy broad who has the duty of following
the hero from one side of the globe to the other, while in constant danger.
(She is nearly burned alive twice, shot at, faces down a King Cobra and is left
tied to a stake by Indy because “If I take you out of here they’ll start
combing the place for us.”) The female lead in an Indiana Jones movie is
sort of an honorary boy, no more sexual than the girls in boys’ adventure
magazines, although Marian can more than take care of herself and is not
helpless in the face of danger.
The
special effects, astonishing at the time, now look a little cheesy; accustomed
to digital perfection, we can see when model planes are being used, when dark
clouds are being put in the sky by an optical printer, when the deadly rays of
the ark are being superimposed on the action. Lucas of course went back and
tidied up the effects in “Star Wars,” but I hope Spielberg never
touches “Raiders” because the effects, just as they are, help set the
tone of the movie. A serial should look a little hasty. It’s a Boy’s Own
Adventure, a whiz-bang slamarama, a Bruised Forearm movie (you squeeze the arm
of your date every time something startles you). It’s done with a kind of
heedless joy. Spielberg was old enough (34) to have the clout to make the film,
and young enough to remember why he wanted to. All of the reasons why he wanted
to.
