Raiders

For many, many years—decades, even—I've maintained that Raiders of the Lost Ark (and yes I refuse to accept the renaming of that movie, just like I refuse to call Star Wars "A New Hope") is one of my favorite movies. In fact, after after a number of things damaged my esteem for the Star Wars franchise overall, The Empire Strikes Back fell in my esteem from the number one slot, and Raiders was literally my favorite movie.

That said, I haven't watched it in a long time, and none of the sequels are really anywhere near as good as the original (especially Crystal Skull, and by report, Dial of Destiny is a far cry worse yet.) Although all of the original trilogy were... OK. But like I said, I'm not sure that even this could be true anymore, for a variety of reasons, and the evidence in that is that there are a bunch of movies that I've repeat-watched several times since watching Raiders. A lot of things have happened to alter my perception of a lot of things since I last watched it. What did I think and notice this time that I never have before?

1) First off, how unabashedly Jewish the movie is. Not that it does even a mediocre job of reflecting actual Jewish attitudes about the actual ark, to the extent that there are any, but it is incredibly Jewish in a modern cultural Jewish way. The casual implicit superiority complex about the ark and all that. The obsession with the Nazis. The shady morality of the "heroes." The unlikableness and entitlement of the love interest. I had thought the story was by George Lucas in broad strokes, honed by infamous brainstorming sessions with Spielberg and Kasdan (who are both Jewish, although Lucas is not), but the story is actually co-credited to Philip Kaufman. Who is, of course, also Jewish.

I don't know if this really changes anything at all about the movie, but I never noticed it before. The fact that the series continues to use Nazis as villains, even when set in 1969, is both a powerful testament to the grip Jews have culturally on Hollywood, but also on the grip Holocaustianity has on America and Western Civilization overall. Setting the movie in the 20s would have worked quite well too (c.f. The Mummy) although of course, you'd have to have Bolsheviks or someone else be the villains. Imperial Brits would actually do nicely. But I'm positive that having cartoon Nazis was an extremely deliberate feature, not just an accident of timing.

2) I thought this even as a kid, but it's more marked now. Karen Allen is fine as an actress, I suppose, although she's not really all that attractive, which is something you'd think your leading lady love interest would be. But the real problem is that her character is so irredeemably unlikeable. She's just the worst. Curiously, she is more attractive in Animal House just a couple of years earlier. Those must have been three hard years between 1978 and 1981 for her. Which I've never seen and never had any desire to see. It seems like it's only fails to be the ultimate bitter beta unearned and undeserved revenge fantasy story because Revenge of the Nerds is worse.

3) Sala made an interesting comment when he's first introduced and they're all standing around on his rooftop patio. "Cairo! City of the living! Paradise on earth!" And then, of course, it's shown as a Third World craphole, inhabited by dirty, stupid people, who the movie treats with both contempt and condescension. Paradise on earth? I doubt it. But it kind of worked in the early 80s. People didn't know much about Moslems in the West back then, and the exotic Orientalism made them seem as they are portrayed; simple, primitive, not very bright, not very advanced, bad teeth, yet probably mostly friendly, when they're not threatening you because they're allied with the wrong Westerners. Our perception of Moslems after several wars in the Middle East that we didn't really want to be involved with, but were suckered into thinking were important, and then the unfettered immigration of them into our country has made this naïve and simple perspective feel extremely dated. I miss being able to think of Islam with even that mixed positivity, because I hadn't yet been exposed to too many Moslems to believe it anymore. 

4) Now that Harrison Ford has become very old, and it shows, it made me think how old he actually is in this movie. He looks young enough, but that's only because I'd not really seen him in anything much earlier than this except Star Wars and its immediate sequel. (He looks even younger, of course, in American Graffiti, but I've never seen that for some reason. For years it's been on my list, but I haven't gotten around to it.) He actually isn't really that young. He was born in the middle of '42. When this movie came out, he was 38. His first Hollywood role, which was uncredited, was in 1966, for crying out loud. He does look young in that one, but he was only about 25, so that makes sense.

5) I watched a video not long ago that posited that George Lucas had, in the case of the soundtrack for Star Wars, very deliberately imitated older Golden Age of Hollywood scores, in part as a cue to the audience of what kind of movie they were watching. That's obviously true here too, although I don't know of any particular things it was temp tracked with the way Star Wars was. Lucas was actually initially not going to have a unique score for Star Wars at all, and just re-use and license older soundtracks and classical music pieces; he was convinced to have a unique score, but he instructed John Williams to stick pretty close to the temp tracks. Once you know what they are, you can actually really notice this. I don't know any of this detail for Raiders, but of course the entire genre, some of the specific stunts and gags and beats are very much Republic Serials. The under-truck scene in particular was famously taken from a stunt Yakima Canutt made famous in the Westerns, having done it at least two separate times, most famously in Stagecoach (1939). Everything about the movie was a callback to older serials and classic westerns, and in 1981 the majority of the audience would still have recognized that. I doubt that that's true now, of course. This was always one of the best features of the movie, honestly. And George Lucas' entire oeuvre for a while.

The soundtrack is still amazing, by the way. It remains one of my favorites of all time to this day. Which is part of the reason why hearing its classic themes bowdlerized in the trailers for crappy movies like Dial of Destiny mingled with the ultimate Boomer band, the Beatles of all bands, is grating.

(I don't really dislike the Beatles. I've seen Paul McCartney in concert within the last few years. He's a nice guy, appreciative of his fans. However, I've come to dislike the reverence that the Boomers have for them a great deal, and the smug certainty with which they proclaim that the Beatles are the greatest band of all time and why wouldn't everyone of every generation recognize that? It's a major turn-off. So much so that I think I won't really miss not hearing the Beatles very much if ever anymore when the last Boomer finally dies.)

6) It's hard not to think of the dialogue in the infamous brainstorming sessions when Indy and Marion are first talking. It really lends a creepy undertone to that scene.

7) My hair is probably a little grayer than Marcus Brody's, but the actor playing him was a good ten years older than me when he filmed this. Sigh. Getting old sucks. And I'm a good 13 years older than Harrison Ford was when he filmed it. Of course, I was only 9 when it came out.

8) Katanga and his crew are kind of creepy. Especially Katanga, though. I had cognitive dissonance about this for many years, because he's obviously presented as a good guy. But he's creepy. I wouldn't have gotten on his ship.

9) There's more deus ex machina than I remember. I guess if you move fast enough and keep the pace up, you really don't much notice it. I still remember my dad complaining about one that he couldn't get over; that if Indy and Marion simply closed their eyes, they'd be spared the murderous intent of the ark, as if they were any better than the people that it killed. But again; see 1).

——( † )——

I absolutely refuse to see the new Indiana Jones movie. Not that my esteem for this series is that great; like I said, every movie since the first one has been inferior to it, and only Last Crusade is really even all that entertaining (although also frustrating.) Heck, my esteem even for the first one has dropped significantly. I think I actually think that The Mummy is a better Indiana Jones movie than any actual Indiana Jones movie. But still; I'm pissed off that Kathleen Kennedy's bitterness and spite knows no bounds and that she's so determined to ruin these franchises. I'm also pissed off that Harrison Ford, who I used to think was the epitome of cool, has been so willing to callously screw over his legacy like this. Does the paycheck really mean that much to him? The guy's 80s, and has been a movie star for decades. Please don't tell me that he's broke. If so, my respect for him, already considerably lower after learning altogether too much about the man personally, will be almost completely evaporated.