Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Directors are often bound by the technology of the medium, but directors like Steven Spielberg and George Lucas will push the medium to expand the frontier of not only the type of film they make, but the scope of it. In Raiders of the Lost Ark Spielberg married postmodernism with the wide screen to create a hybrid form of storytelling in the style of serial adventure vignettes and an ancient method of storytelling from Greek Mythology, namely a curse.

Set in the 1930s, the adventures of Indiana Jones use models of the old 1930s serial movies around which to form the tales. Serial films were composed of several parts, each part ending in a dangerous cliffhanger that could kill the hero.

Spielberg employs the use of wide screen not only in the horizontal vistas which demonstrate the digs at Tanis, the map room in the underground chamber, but also the tomb in Peru. The long dolly shot filmed of Ford's character dashing madcap through the treacherous tomb, darts flying from the wall, floors collapsing all the while being pursued by a 29 foot wide rolling boulder could not be encompassed in a small television shot.

The style behind Raiders allows the television viewer to achieve several climactic moments in keeping with the serial style, but maintaining an overall continuity as Indiana Jones journeys from Peru to the United States to Nepal to Egypt to a hidden Nazi base and finally back to the United States.

Using the wide screen to maximum effect, Spielberg plays up the relationships between the characters. One scene that stands out in relief both for its postmodern homage to Casablanca and its sheer cinema graphic beauty is the scene where Marian stands with the deep shadow Indiana casts on the wall. For viewers who have seen the movie, the sharp relief cast by the trademark fedora and jacket cannot be mistaken.

Previous to Jones' arrival, we see Marion in the center of dozens of people during a drinking contest. The camera is able to keep both characters in close up in the wide screen. Some directors, knowing the work will be cropped for the television, try to center most of their camera angles so that when the cropping happens, action is not lost. As in the scenes from the dig at Tanis, the bar scene is unique because the characters are at opposite sides of the shot, although the camera does adjust to pan back and forth, matching on the action.

Raiders benefits from the wide screen in other areas, as Spielberg layers his shots sometimes three people deep. For example, when Jones and Sailah go to see the old man about the headpiece, Ford stands in the foreground with Rhys-Davies moving behind him and beyond that the old man. The old man is a stationary figure, while Sailah and Jones shift back and forth to opposite sides of the screen. The interior of the man's house is filled with numerous items, all of which contribute to the action of closing in on the goal, in this case the location of the Ark.

Later sequences, such as Jones' descent into the map room at Tanis are filled with rapt grandeur and as the camera focuses tightly on his eyes and then draws back to allow the entirety of the map room to be shown as the sunlight moves across the floor to shine through the headpiece, the viewer is transported with Jones into a mystical moment. The bow to The Ten Commandments is clear. Ford and Heston both gaze with the same rapturous expression, as the enormity of power is revealed to them. Ford located the Well of Souls and Heston parted the Red Sea, but the angles of the camera, the vista laid wide-open echo each other across two decades of filmmaking.

Ultimately, Raiders of the Lost Ark is a story of triumph and homage to the serials of the 30s. It creates a refreshing anti-hero who travels with a beaten leather jacket and fedora to his escapades about the world, but appears in a tweed jacket and glasses while teaching in the classroom. Spielberg's film is appealing not only for the story that it tells but the manner in which it tells it. The postmodernism married to the wide screen is the perfect format and to see the film cropped down to fit the viewing screen removes some of the luster and grandeur otherwise experienced.

Having viewed Raiders in the theater during its initial release, it defined a new method of storytelling where bigger didn't mean better, but sharper images, cleaner shots and the maximum use of the available space allowed for a broader stroke of the story's brush. Spielberg doesn't just rely on the effects or the camera; he marries them to the story and good acting. It is exactly the epitome of everything a movie should be.