RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK BREAKDOWN: Indiana Jones Details You Missed | Deep Dive

the Golden Light reflected on Indy's face is what Steven Spielberg calls God light and we can look at it as the same light that tells Indy which Holy Grail is the true one in Last Crusade and the same light from the ark that punishes evil and Indie knows to look away from that wise reference to the power of light is all right here in this opening scene I don't know if you ever caught this but this golden Idol's eyes move I'm not joking it's one of hundreds of awesome details worked into Raiders by Spielberg that I'm going to explore in this deep dive I'm Eric Boss and let's dive into Raiders of the Lost Ark ASB analyzed Indiana Jones movies this month the best way to support this endeavor of appreciating the buried layers of meaning in great films is to get an indie I love you shirt at nerdright.shop the film opens by cross dissolving from the Paramount logo to a peak in the jungles of Peru in 1936. all Indiana Jones movies opens by transitioning this way it's something Steven Spielberg used to do in the movies he made as a kid this is actually a Galilea Mountain on Kauai Steven Spielberg George Lucas and Phillip Kaufman conceived of the Indiana Jones character as a throwback to the adventure B movie serials that they grew up watching these films aren't really profound attempts at Oscar Glory they're great filmmakers using all of their best tricks to get the most out of a familiar genre Trope and they end up creating one of the best movie trilogies of all time and part of the greatness of Indiana Jones is the sense that we're just dropping in on an already established Adventurer on one of his many exploits Raiders takes place in 1936 but technically Temple of Doom is a prequel set in 1935 and a sign of this movie's timelessness I believe is how even the 10th or 12th build actors end up going on to do great things in this opening scene Alfred Molina future Doc Ock and the Spider-Man films several other great roles plays in these guides Tebow his other guide gets spooked guess the reaction's a bit over the top but it shows the power of Super's film thinking he's immune to such Supernatural forces he's a smug jerk he puts fortune and Glory over all else it's why we love him but this journey in Raiders is a lesson that we all must learn when to turn away when to let go and when to kneel before God and when given the chance to turn away here Indy keeps going past light streaming in through the trees making even this jungle look like a cave this is something Spielberg does a lot he just washes his frames with natural light from a purely technical standpoint so that we can see everything but in this movie a symbolic undercurrent priming the hero with too much light blinding him so that he knows exactly when to look away but in this scene Spielberg withholds showing us Andy's face George Lucas and Larry Kasdan knew from Darth Vader that a great cinematic character is always just recognizable from a silhouette alone and behold a master class and editing and storyboarding here yeah that was nine shots in five seconds the guide pulls the gun Indy Cox's head hearing it the gun Rises close up on the whip as any turns and he rears back the whip then just six frames of the whip crack as you'll notice the tip of flinches from this sound then a quick wide shot of the full action then the guy recoils grabbing his hand then a close-up of the gun falling in the water we heard a gunshot there but only because the gun goes off when it hits the rock the whip beats the gun it's fast and now only now is Indy's face revealed it's Classic Hollywood rule introduce the hero doing something cool before you show their face so when they go in the cave Indy gives the Tipo a torch but Indy doesn't carry one himself as he leads the way because he is adjusting his eyes to spot where the light booby trap is and he swipes tarantulas off his back sativo has one on his shoulder but he turns around to reveal a whole bunch of them this is a kind of visual trick Spielberg loves to use I call it a scale reveal like you begin with a shot of a solitary curiosity to set up wow a vast quantity of him Spielberg does this with the poison darts like just starting with one in the tree then a dozen in the back of the guide the shot of Indy running over the hill alone followed by dozens of obedos and then later one basket with Marion followed by a dozen baskets Indie warns stay out of the light yes the power of light the Ancients who built this tomb somehow were able to rig a motion sensor triggered by pressure or heat or whatever it is light weaponized in a way to make us appreciate Mystic forces avoid the light is a lesson Andy will have to teach himself in this movie the entrance to the idol chamber is marked by this golden sunburn first this was the MacGuffin from the 1954 Charlton Heston film The Secret of the Incas which inspired the Indie character in this Peruvian location they reached the idol chamber and indy steps into the light so we see his face now observers have called this the Spielberg face when a character reacts in awe an astonishment in the face of the unexplainable while it's not always necessary the action of a scene Spielberg proved as a filmmaker that giving your characters a beat to just mirror the awe of the audience watching helps us psychologically connect to the action now as Indie approaches the idol there is one shot that you can see this movie dozens of times and still miss this Idol's eyes move it watches in the Hop back and forth and it's not just the light shifting they actually built this with a mechanism that would move its eyes but they ended up not using it in too many of the close-ups now reportedly the effect is invisible but I did fine this one shot where it still is this Idol truly has divine power Indy emptied some sand from the bag explaining why he was scooping sand in a bag earlier because he's trying to guess the Idol's weight to do the shift so as he's looking at it he's wondering is it all gold or is it just plated in Gold it's sort of the same eyeball test that he'll later apply to the possible holy Grails the real one was wooden but plated with Gold Leaf in the inside Spielberg frames the idol behind the sand running through in these fingers showing how all of these Treasures inevitably slip through Indy's fingers including we will see the ark John Williams Amazing Music in this movie scores this scene with insane tension going from loud to quiet foreign [Music] to holding a breath so everything collapses it's a typo tricks in the fleeing with the idol I like how Spielberg edits right before sativo reaches the light booby trap in the background and he's able to slide through the door with whip crack then Boulder great blocking detail the little stumble Harrison Ford does with the boulder right behind him just enough to make our heart skip a beat he rolls out of the tempo and runs into Bella bellock raises the idol to the superstitious Obito's kneeling before god that Indie exploits to escape he shows here that he knows how powerful these relics can be to True Believers bellock doesn't fully appreciate it so his Andy Sprints over the hill I love that they covered Harrison Ford and dust just for this shot to show him shaking off the temple dust makes him look like a mummy himself like the joke bellock later says preceding him sealing Indie in a tomb who knows in a thousand years even you may be worth something John Williams mixes in the very first light motif of the Indiana Jones march on the Tarzan swing now a couple lucasfilm Easter eggs here ob-cpo is the number code of the plane for Obi-Wan Kenobi nc3po and the plain engine sound effect is a common Star Wars engine shutting down or starting up sound effect and capping all of this the only thing to really frighten Indy is the pilot snake Reggie I hate I hate stock I [Music] in the most badass introduction to a film hero in these heroics will never be fully appreciated by the world he returns to that is except the smitten girls in his college class the juices are actually flowing everywhere in this campus even Marcus Brody who turns his head to check out a co-ed telling us that part of his esteem for Dr Jones is the admiration he receives from the women in his class The Girl With Love You on her eyelids had to walk around all day like that now there's an important line in the lecture as Marcus walks in I'm confused that with Robin in which case we mean the removal of the contents of the barrel yeah it's easy to miss but it shows that Indy doesn't consider himself a grave robber he doesn't want to open the containers he finds and plunder the treasure he just loves the containers themselves and the history Associated and the pride of uncovering it telling us that Indy probably wouldn't have opened the Ark of the Covenant he just loves the ark itself and is one-upped by Renee bellock in this movie into beating his rival to that treasure Dr Jones lectures on the dangers of folklore and how it leads to the degradation of archaeological sights and Cutthroat treasure hunts an important lesson but also folklore will also be what saves Indy in the final act as he goes from skeptic to believer another detail often missed this final male student who lingers behind to leave a no-look Apple for Teacher yeah it's not just women all of Indie students love him now throughout this film you'll notice examples of the Spielberg Warner in which Spielberg does these long takes but not to call attention to himself like a lot of modern films do now he just does these subtle shots for theatrical reasons to let scenes play out in real time let the actors act in a habit of space and then create new visual compositions created by the blocking of the camera movement like Jones and Marcus in the classroom is a one minute take followed immediately by a 30 second take of them greeting the government men in the lecture hall and getting situated but the shot is not static the actors are in constant motion to create dynamism within the shot and I love this scene as an example of status Indy comes into this worried that he's in trouble with the government but by setting the scene in a lecture hall a Haven of Academia indeed telling the agents to have a seat it all goes down on Indy's Turf he stands they sit think about it typically in movies the government agents arrive to brief the hero but here they ask Indy to explain to them and the professor teaches them about the art so by doing this Spielberg allows us to see Indiana Jones as a true expert in the subject and you remember the previous shot in these Arts were full of these goofy rolled Maps now we see Marcus has taken the maps from him and indy just has one book a massive ancient book an insanely awesome movie prop like look at it it has a Buckle this gives Indy more authority obtainer of rare Antiquities slam hell yeah he's an obtainer now this scene is filled with Exposition but Larry kazden smartly scripts it so naturalistically so that characters interrupt each other you see over the last two years the Nazis have had teams of archaeologists running around the world well the city of tennis is one of the possible resting places of the Lost Ark everyone is contributing to the conversation and Spielberg shoots us on a variety of angles so we don't really get bored and also the acting's just great major Eaton is William hootkins who also plays poorkins in Star Wars and Lieutenant Eckhart and Tim Burton's Batman what a career and he's so good in the scene can you guys ever go to Sunday school well oh look Hebrews took the broken pieces and put him in the ark when they settled in Canaan yeah he goes from outrage to being judged to annoyance with this fellow grumply submitting to to eat in this case being the top man Marcus goes on the secret chamber called The Well of Souls secret chamber however about a year after on the word secret chamber notice how Eaton's eyes shift over to Indy trying to pick up on whether these academics might have been approached by the Nazis Indy chalks the diagram of the staff of raw in the headpiece demonstrating the power of light but also in this lecture hall Spielberg lights Harrison Ford to cast this hard shadow on the Blackboard Indy is turning away from the light to Signal his uncertainty about facing the light of the supernatural but then Indy cracks open his big old book to show a depiction of the Ark now what's that supposed to be coming out of there lightning fire power of God or something yes indeed respects the power of light he just doesn't yet recognize its Divinity from the headpiece beam to this diagram this opening scene foreshadows the two key mystical moments in Act 2 and then in act 3 as a way of saying pay attention during school kids this is real another great but missable Spielberg Warner nearly the entire scene with Marcus and Indy's house is done in one take one minute 45 seconds this time we go from the minute the door to toasting to Indie packing to then Indie remembering Marion she'll still be with him [Music] yes we hear Light motif of Marion's theme from John Williams and then from here Spielberg pushes in on Marcus nearly 3 000 years man has been searching for The Last Arc no one knows it's Secrets yes Marcus the teller of ghost stories in these opening minutes Indy breaks us out of this Moment by crossing the frame but this is the first of three definitions we're given about the ark before we actually see it in this movie the next one comes from Salah death has always surrounded it it is not of this Earth and then from Bella it transmitter it's a radio for speaking to God Spielberg shows us and he's globetrotting with iconic superimpositions of the plane over the world map San Francisco to the Philippines to Nepal the Nazi that spies on him behind the November 30th 1936 issue of Life magazine actually isn't tote actor Ronald Lacy it's legendary bfx artist Dennis Marin we get another 90 second long take another all-time best character introduction Marion Ravenwood she's in a drinking game here Spielberg demonstrates what I call the three-point shot he shifts the camera back and forth across three points of focus first Marion's competitor then shift down to the shot glasses between them then back up to Marion one two three we see this camera moving again during the fight whiskey but during the drinking game Marion Banks nearly passing out to throw off her rival she spends this entire scene at least 12 shots in this also establishes her high alcohol tolerance and her ability to fake blackout drunk which she uses on belock later in these looming Shadow greets her and while Marion starts in this shot smaller than Indy's shadow on the wall behind her she steps closer to camera and looms larger than the shadow signaling she's not the little girl he left behind but she's still pissed I learned to hit you in the last 10 years I'm never meant to hurt you I was a child I was in love with Andy hooked up with her I mean hey I guess it's a different time still messed up as Marion says the movie's aware of it but really the whole point of this moment is to characterize India as a driven sociopath trust me you know the piece I mean oof this guy Indy's shifting attitude toward Marion is the most important part of his character growth in this movie without Marion Raiders of the Lost Ark would never be the classic it is it would still be a really well made film but I don't know if we would re-watch it as much when Marion ogles the headpiece a gust of wind disturbs the candle flame a warning from above not to take this path but Indy has infected Marion with his aspirations of Fortune and Glory the Nazi major totes arrives his voice shivering because he didn't know he'd need to dress for Nepalese temperatures the steam from the snow on his jacket turns into the smoke of the fire poker framed perfectly under Marion's face Toad's face also drifts with sweat foreshadowing his own face melting fate but with Indy whips the poker out of his hand you do see indie's shadow on the back wall last to win the poker away it's also the shadow of the Tommy Gun Nazi that Indy sees steering his next shot so much of the scene is really shot with characters in The foreground in the shadows of their enemies on the wall behind them and since 12 shots was enough and there's no sense of wasting booze Marianne takes a beat to drink the leaking alcohol I think my favorite character beat in this movie now this big shirt who gets shot in the head is Pat roach the English pro wrestler and actor who plays the airplane mechanic that Indie fights later in the movie as well as the chief Dougie guard and Temple of Doom and a Gestapo agent in Last Crusade onto Cairo where they meet with Salah Jonathan Rhys Davies future Gimli from Lord of the Rings there are no weak links in this cast the capuchin monkey was already there at the house when they arrived suggested the kids were given this monkey by the eyepatch man before Andy got there eye patch by the way played by Vic Taliban who also played the other Peruvian guy who got plugged with the poison darts now notice when they go out on Town the monkey reaches for Indy's snacks which Indie later reveals are it's a day monkeys date craving is what later saves any from being poisoned now the eye patch guy brings the monkey to the Nazis and he salutes followed by this insane gag think about it someone taught a monkey to sieg heil apparently they did this by holding a grape above his head just out of frame to get him to reach up but my favorite part about it is the Nazi Returns the salute to the monkey just a little jab that all these guys were trained animals monkey see monkey do now during this fight Spielberg just works in some great comedy one sword's been stabs the other in front of the Fruit Stand and we cut to the other side we see that the guy's now part of a fruit Kebab the iconic moment of Indy Facing The Swordsman played by the stuntman Terry Richards who trained for weeks for an extended fight scene but Andy just shoots him now The Story Goes that Harrison Ford was suffering from dysentery and that's why they cut the fight and although it was reported that many in the cast and crew got dysentery while shooting this misdirection was actually planned Spielberg realized on the day that Indy wouldn't waste time with a sword fight if he was in a hurry to find Marion so it wasn't because Harrison Ford was himself it's because Spielberg decided to prioritize the character in the characters once and that's what makes this so iconic it is just a guy figuring this out as he goes now as you can tell we have been spending this summer talking about summer movies my favorite kind of Summer movie is one that takes you far away to interesting global locations it's just something about summer that makes it the perfect time to travel and if you want to get the most out of your trip you're going to want to use Babel to learn a language before you go anywhere Babel is one of the top language learning apps in the world it's scientifically proven to help you start speaking a new language in just three weeks Babel's lessons are designed by real language teachers your subscription even comes with two free live classes babble's method is simple it teaches you real world conversation so you're prepared to have practical conversations about travel business relationships and more even if you just want to let people know estoya printiendo espanol por favor yo oh a babble subscription might be what you need you don't want to be caught leaving a tomb with a golden idol and then your archaeologist's rival just gets a leg up by knowing the language of the locals hey and if you're really in love with the language get a lifetime subscription if you're just flirting with a foreign tongue there are monthly options available as well no matter what you need Babel has you covered click the link in the description below please to get 60 off your battle subscription today what a deal after this amusing shell game with Marion in the basket she gets loaded into a truck with an insane amount of ammo and explosives I always wondered when the switch happens with Marion was it back in the bazaar I don't think so there's this little moment with India's pinned behind a wall and the Beggars distract him and behind him in the background you can see a few people running out from behind the truck I think it was here when switch happened and they tried to trick Indy into thinking Marion was in this truck to misdirect him but and he shoots a truck it rolls over and explodes and think about it the first time you saw this movie you straight up thinking the love interest is dead here it's a critical step in Indy's character growth he briefly Mourns Marion but all it takes is really a chat with bellock and he's over it he's back on the Hunts so this character still needs to learn when to turn away Indie tells bellock you want to talk to God let's go see him together by the end of this movie they will salah's friend translates a headpiece including an additional measurement Direction on the back and take back one kadam to honor the Hebrew God who's asked this is so the Nazis only use the staff height from the front side of The Medallion the side they got burned into Toad's hand they did not subtract a unit to honor the Hebrew God whose Arc this is big mistake not honoring that guy the map room has a board with all these holes exactly 365 of them if you count to Mark the days of the year in which to place the stack depending on what day of the year it is also worth noting the Egyptians also used a 365-day calendar and he locates the whole bellocus and then goes two down since the Nazis would have been there two days earlier and the sunlight has changed since then and by properly measuring to pay respect to the Hebrew God and he harnesses the power of light to locate the correct position of The Well of Souls in a little detail I love when bellock leads the Nazi officers through the site Salah passes right between them and they don't notice because their insistence on employing every worker in Cairo to keep up with a pure's timeline has created a crowd big enough for Salah and indy to slip through they open The Well of Souls and since the Ark of the Covenant is presented in this movie as a kind of Pandora's box of horror I like to think that Indy finding this well filled with snakes is just the Divine filling that's hole with whatever will scare the grave robber the most snakes why did it have to be snakes actually many of these tanks are really legless lizards which have visible ear holes that snakes don't have when Indy Falls in front of the Cobra in the original cut in the VHS release you could see the Cobra's reflection on a pane of glass that they used to separate forward from the snakes they removed this reflection digitally in the DVD and Blu-ray release but you can see the snake's reflection on the glass later when Marion is thrown in now while Marion tries to fool bellock toad arrives and he pulls out what looks like a torture device but it's just a coat hanger this apparently is a gag that Spielberg originally shot for his film 1941 and he kept putting it in movies until it got a laugh gotta be honest here it's just kind of a weird move but I do like it Indie and Sala Unearthed The Arc you probably know by now the lucasfilm team hit a little C-3PO and R2D2 easter egg on the column beside Indy but when they raised the ark it glows with an impossible light source from beneath giving it its own divine power the design of the art was based on depictions by 19th century French painter James Tissot a lid with two kneeling cherubs with their wings folded over and it was meant to be carried by poles so that no one would actually touch the art assistant art director John Benner design drawings for the ark include notes that the sides would depict biblical scenes from the Old Testament the Nazis take the ark and toss in Marion the sound mixing on her shout getting litted is so haunting now the snake that drops on Marion was reportedly dropped by Spielberg himself to get a rise out of Karen Allen similarly when she's mobbed by skeletons some are clearly just shoved up in the actress and getting her in her hair it's just kind of one of the bummer realities and the way horror was made in the 70s and 80s whether it was Stanley Kubrick verbally abusing Shelley Duvall and The Shining her Spielberg and Toby Hooper on poltergeist using real human cadavers in the pool and telling JoBeth Williams that they were plastic it just used to be acceptable to screw with actors and use the take arguably it still kind of is but when Marion and indy escape the tomb by pushing that block out as they run away you'll notice the guard is sitting there I always thought it was because he was sleeping on the job and it was to justify how they were able to get out without anyone stopping them but actually this is from a deleted scene where a guard saw what he thought were two zombies rising from a tomb and he falls from shock now the pilot at the German plane is a cameo by Frank Marshall the producer on this film and all indie films and a husband of Kathleen Kennedy Spielberg establishes the danger of the propeller early in the fight by having the mechanics wrench clatter into it so that way throughout this fight we feel how brutal of a death it would be to run into that the fist fight with the big guy it's just awesome to watch Andy's super outmatched meanwhile everything around it escalates into a game of mouse trap Marion uses the blocks to knock out the pilot so that frees up the plane's Wheels to roll when it rolls the wing bumps into the fuel truck to steal the fuel Marion shoots at the Nazis causing a fire that the fuel flows into the tension Rises and Rises and Rises leading to this payoff where the Nazi gets chopped up actually as they flee the blame there seems to be some remains to the right of the plane is that his chunks and another example of great shot composition in the way that you might not think about the shot of Salah running into frame the Nazi plane burning in the background the camera draws back into a tent with Indy and Marion seen only in Silhouettes and Shadow in the foreground there's just so much going on in the shot and it looks great also notice how Andy wipes his face he probably had a bit of Nazi blood on it from that spray the Nazis load The Arc in the truck I'm going after that truck oh I don't know I'm looking this up as I go I love this line because it reminds us that Indy isn't James Bond he's just Relentless and so when Indy sets out on Horseback John Williams Raiders March trumpet blaring we saddle up in this movie we are less than 30 minutes away from the end of the movie here and I bet that most of us have seen this stretch of the film three times more than we've seen the full film because when it's Saturday afternoon and this movie shows up on cable at this moment we are not gonna be doing anything else for the next half hour this Chase is just a perfectly storyboarded and perfectly edited sequence like look at this shot combination here Indy Stomps on the brake pedal he and the driver lurched forward in the cab the truck slows down the Ark in the back of the truck slides forward and all those Nazis roll around the drivers in the car behind them react they rear in the truck then in the cab the driver regains control and Stomps on the gas causing a loose Nazi in the back flying in the windshield of the car behind and yes that's a Wilhelm scream so throughout all this we saw Action Reaction decision and consequence leading to this payoff Indy wrestles for control of the truck and when he's thrown over the hood he straddles the front wheel Harrison Ford actually sat in a concealed bicycle seat rigged into the front of the truck you can see it briefly from the front car when the colonel waves the driver to speed up Indy climbs beneath the carriage and uses his whip to drag himself behind so stuntman Glenn Randall himself suggested this stunt it's just so impressive that you don't mind that the truck is actually not moving that fast the fact that this guy is gonna drag dirt and sand and rocks makes this action one of the coolest stunts in any movie because they actually really did it these stunts were inspired from one of Spielberg's favorite movies Stagecoach directed by his hero John Ward and starring John Wayne a scene in which a stunt performer Yakima knut leaps from a horse onto another horse and then gets dragged Beneath The Carriage so Indy regains the wheel and he drives the truck into this perfectly set up hiding spot now some haters over the years have snarked well wait how is this all just arranged waiting for him um my friends this movie already told us meet me at Omar's be ready for me and on the side of that garage it reads Omar's garage so this is Salah an home artist pulling a few favors in the shot of bellock and the colonel looking around the colonel throws a melon at a barking dog and they mixed in a Yelp thank you this gag helps disguise the fact that if you look over in the front seat that's not Ronald lacia's totes it's just his hat slumped on his jacket because he was not on set on the day to shoot this particular take so they take a boat and the Ark hums inside the crate a shipwreck convulses they actually used a partially deaf rat who already moves his head this unnatural way but the Nazis commandeer the best soul from one of their U-boats taking the ark and taking Marion you can hear the Germans over the PA eins eins dry Ox which translates to 1138 and Nod to George Lucas's film thx1138 and he swims over and hangs out on the Periscope there was a deleted scene where the sub was going to dive beneath the water and indy was going to use his whip to lasso onto the Periscope to drag behind on the water's surface but Spielberg cut it because yeah that would have been crazy but as the boat approaches the island they accomplished this shot with a scale model and you can see a tiny Indie figurine clinging to the Periscope and that's why Indy's so incredibly wet for the next scene but any disguises as a Nazi and he follows the March Inland as he peels off you see a fly Buzz past camera there were flies everywhere when they shot on this day so it wasn't that unusual when this happens yeah persistent surprises even me you're gonna give mercenary is a bad name yes yes flying crawls into his mouth actor Paul Freeman claim that he didn't swallow it and then after the take he spit it out and flew away but this is happening to all the actors when they shot this if you look closely you can see flies crawling over all of their arms and their hands I like to think of it as an Old Testament plague afflicting these Arc thieves Bella calls and he's Bluff to blow up the ark with an RPG so why does Indy even pull this foolish move well and he's making this up as he goes layoff but really was an act of desperation to save Marion but even after their smooch his love for history still wins out in this moment Indy needs to fail here in order for his victory in the following scene to matter leading us to the big scene bellock recites a Hebrew prayer this is spoken on Sabbath and Festival mornings when the Torah Arc is opened his excerpt translates to I do not rely on man and I do not depend on any Angel but on the god of Truth whose Torah is true I rely on him and to his holy and precious name Praises but Bella omits the ending of this prayer the blessing to the Jewish people maybe he should have kept it in the sand falls through the Colonel's fingers and then down into bellox fingers recalling the sand running through in these fingers back in Peru some Treasures are just not meant for Amanda yes they slip through their fingers but then ding dong God's here the lights explode and the generator breaks the first things that happen is man-made light goes away to pave the way for the power of light from God ghostly Spirits flow through all of them and the ghost who appearance before bellock was a lucasfone receptionist dressed in a white robe it's suspended in front of a blue screen and they composited her face with a skeleton to create this transformation Fire Rises to bellox head and from his eyes lightning blasts the Nazis we specifically get a shot of a cameraman both him and his camera dried the symbolism of the scene is extremely important it's staged with floodlights with Nazis recording it with film cameras because the Nazis historically filmed everything they aim to document the history of their Third Reich and the fact that in this scene they are filming bellox appropriation of a Jewish ritual in the desecration of a Hebrew Relic makes this scene a metaphor for the Nazi war crimes of the Jewish people the violence that follows holds up as a powerful rejection of Nazism God and the forces of nature wiping clean the Nazi moral corruption from the face of the Earth that's why this scene feels like such a powerful catharsis every time we watch it God's mighty the Nazis via the ark is adapting passages from the book of Samuel in the Old Testament which document the arks captured by the Philistines followed by the Philistines suffering a series of plagues and then the face melting the Colonel's shriveling face was created with a mold of the actor's face lined with bladders filled with air with the air removed so that it caves in her Toad's melty face special effects artist Chris Wallace sculpted a face with several colored layers of gelatin that were melted with propane torches and filmed at slow speed bellock's head model was a plaster skull filled with blood bags and other goo that was blown up they ended up having to conceal it with flames to avoid an R rating meanwhile Indy had told Marion don't look at it shut your eyes Marion don't look at it no matter what happens how does Indy know to close their eyes well yes his academic background he's got that big book with a buckle but I like to think after the golden Idol's eyes looked at him and cast its own cursed light in Peru indeed throughout this movie has learned that the only way to survive the wrath of God is to have the reverence not to witness it to step back from history and humble yourself before the unknown he has to give up his selfish want to see inside the treasure that was only put in him from Macho competition with bellock and remember his own academic lecture lessons that he started this movie with as Andy will learn again in the Last Crusade only the penitent man shall pass now I'm not trying to convert anyone here but in Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark the Hebrew God is real and any worthy hero must know that at some point in our lives we must recognize what we don't know and place our faith in some higher Cosmic Force this isn't a character surrendering his agency if anything it's the hardest choice for a hero in control of his own destiny to make so back in the U.S Indian markets are told that the ark is being looked at by top man and the crate is wheeled into a desert it'll never be found in government storage the most effective man-made security measure of all time is The Fortress of American bureaucracy the greatest treasures in America are just hidden in someone's basement somewhere it's meant to evoke the ending of Citizen Kane the idea that one of the most priceless Treasures could just end up a piece of junk in a warehouse somewhere now to address the Big Bang Theory argument that Indy might actually be inconsequential to this movie's plot and if he weren't in the movie the Nazis would have still found the ark taken it to the island opened it up and all died just like they did this drives me nuts because it's basically what I read in comments from folks who come up with a plot hole that isn't really a plot hole it's also what annoys me about Sheldon and the Big Bang Theory is these characters are supposedly nerds who overthink everything but they're written by screenwriters who aren't actually these nerds and don't know how nerds actually talk and watch movies but anyway this episode of The Big Bang Theory does go back and forth debating this but in addition to Indy successfully getting their Arc re-buried in government storage the real issue is Marion in the headpiece think about it Marion was an exile bar keep in a remote Nepalese Mountain Village the only reason the Nazis could find her is because they followed Indy from San Francisco Indy could only find her because she was his old flame and he kept tabs on her whereabouts without Indy the Nazis never would have found Marion and they never would have gotten the headpiece this is why Andy's relationship with Marion is the most important part of this movie it's the driving force and it's so satisfying to see him offer his arm to Marion at the end of the movie to let this boo sound drink him under the table when Indy puts treasure before Marion he fails but when he chooses her and lets go with the treasure he lives and by living he gets to avoid becoming history support us with an indie I love you shirt at nerd riot.shop subscribe turn notifications on share this Channel and it's videos with everyone you know follow me at EA boss thanks for watching and I'll see you next time my divers of the deep [Music] thank you [Music]

Channel: The Deep Dive

Views: 474,861

Keywords: indiana jones, indiana jones breakdown, raiders of the lost ark, raiders of the lost ark breakdown, raiders of the lost ark analysis, film analysis, steven spielberg, raiders of the lost ark scene, raiders of the lost ark ending, ark of the covenant, harrison ford, erik voss, deep dive

Id: tOPjCc0Ep0w

Length: 31min 4sec (1864 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 09 2023