by Billy Russell, Staff Writer

There are some movies that we watch because they make us laugh. There are some movies we watch to make us cry. There are some we watch to feel that animal instinct of fear and it gets our adrenaline pumping. There are some movies we watch because they give us a unique insight into the human condition and they help us understand just a little more. 

And, of course, there are some movies, like Raiders of the Lost Ark that we watch to feel the entire spectrum of human emotion. We laugh at silly little gags like the main character, Indiana Jones, shooting dead a swordsman who could surely kill our hero in a fair right. We may well up and tear as the amazing soundtrack by John Williams swells into perfection when we believe that maybe Jones’s love, Marion, is dead. We shriek in fear through the film’s nonstop thrills involving South American boobytraps, snakes, and Old Testament God who is never short on vengeance for those who do not take Him seriously. And at the end of it, we do come out with a deeper understanding of this thing we all the human condition. 

Raiders of the Lost Ark is a movie that has grown with me as I have grown. At forty years old now, the movie has been with me my entire life. As a child, a white kid from the United States, I saw the opening scenes of Indiana Jones plundering a temple and stealing a golden idol from indigenous people from his perspective. Dr. Jones, archeologist and college professor, believes this golden idol belongs in a museum, to be gawked at. He steals it from them. As an adult, I now understand that Indiana Jones is less a hero, and more of a classic anti-hero, and I know Steven Spielberg loves himself a nuanced, complicated antihero. Indiana Jones, at the end of the film, has saved the world from the Nazis, but this was merely a consequence of his search for glory, money, riches, fame. He wants to keep the Nazis and Hitler from finding the fabled Ark of the Covenant, which holds magical powers beyond comprehension, because he wants it first. Indiana Jones might be strong and brave, but he is also a shitty person. 

Indiana Jones reminds me of another conflicted Spielberg character: Oskar Schindler. Raiders of the Lost Ark and Schindler’s List, to me, represent two opposing ends of Spielberg’s filmography. Raiders is the epitome of “fun Spielberg” and holy shit is it ever fun. To explain it as a “non-stop thrill-ride” is to underestimate it. Once it hits the ground running, it never lets up. Schindler’s List is “serious Spielberg” at the top of his game. Both “fun” and “serious” have had hits and misses of various degrees, but Raiders and Schindler are both the top entry for each end of the spectrum. And, yet, they have a lot more in common than you would think. 

If Indiana Jones saves the world from the Nazis as a mere consequence of his quest for glory and riches, Oskar Schindler only saves “his” Jews from the machines of genocide because he considers them to be “his.” Oskar Schindler is a war-profiting member of the Nazi party. He does a wonderful, amazing thing, risking his own life and fortune to save thousands of lives, but he doesn’t do it because of altruism. He doesn’t do it for the Greater Good. He does it because they’re “his” Jews. Does this make his accomplishment any less fantastic? No. But it makes him, the person, real. His accomplishment was fueled selfishly, and it takes sometimes human motivations like selfishness and greed to change the world, even for the better. 

Raiders of the Lost Ark is one of the rare movies I consider to be perfect. I never believe a movie should strive for perfection, because it’s a bizarre concept. What I consider to be perfect will vary from person to person. If I name my top movies of all time, none of them are perfect. I don’t believe a movie needs to be perfect to be great, or even the greatest of all time. A great film swings for the fences and sometimes misses, but what matters is, at the end of the day, there are a hell of a lot more hits, big ones, than misses. In Raiders, I can’t think of a single miss. The entire thing to me is perfection. It has one of the best openings of all time and closes with one of the best endings of all time. In between, there are no bad scenes, and many great ones. 

One of my favorite insights into the making of Raiders is an unearthed transcript of the meetings between Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan as it was being developed. At one point, they’re all talking about the monkey who winds up being owned by someone helping the Nazis. Spielberg suggests, hey, what if the monkey does a little Nazi sieg heil? George Lucas, uncomfortable with the idea, says if Spielberg is able to find a monkey trainer willing to teach it how to do that, more power to him. 

“I’ll find someone,” Spielberg says. 

And apparently he did. 

One of my happiest filmgoing experiences was being able to see Raiders of the Lost Ark, at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, mere feet away from Paramount Studios, which produced the film. It felt surreal and wonderful just being there.