Vintage

Raiders of the Lost Ark, also known as Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, is a 1981 adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg, produced by George Lucas and starring the iconic actor Harrison Ford. It is the first film in the Indiana Jones franchise and pits Indiana Jones against the Nazis, who search for the Ark of the Covenant, to make their army invincible. Indiana and the Nazis are in the hunt for a medallion, currently around the neck of Indy's old flame Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen).  This medallion will pinpoint the Well of Souls in Egypt, the Ark's supposed resting place.  Raiders also starred Paul Freeman as Indiana's nemesis, French archaeologist Rene Belloq, John Rhys-Davies as Indiana's sidekick Sallah, and Denholm Elliott as Indiana's colleague, Marcus Brody.

How many times have I seen Raiders?   I almost feel more weathered then the leather on his Indy’s iconic bomber jacket.  Nonetheless, I did such a thing again recently this time 27 years after its initial release.  I can’t believe that because I am now 37 and Indy is 65, well Ford is in real life but if you ask me Ford and Indiana Jones are one and the same.  I was ten when the first movie came out and this was the film that made me a fan of movies for life.  I loved Star Wars, but for some reason, Raiders was a wholly different experience.  I guess I was older and my imagination was more attuned to the adult crap that Raiders seemed to capture, like the Wrath of God and stuff.  After all, this was what they were teaching in Sunday school or it is what made Sunday school interesting (I can’t remember which).   

And here I was on a Saturday night watching Raiders with my daughter, who is 4, my dog who is a puppy, in our house, in her room, on my third glass of Yellowtail Shiraz.  I was hoping my daughter was too young for the movie and I was hoping I was not too old.

Raiders is more than a cool adventure movie.  It is a cinematic masterpiece of the genre.  There is no greater movie of importance for its genre than Raiders.  This movie influenced about every action movie since.  In fact, I am almost certain in my mind that I subconsciously compare every heroic deed movie to Raiders.  How would I fare this time around? 

The movie is as ageless as Harrison Ford.

The stunt scenes still hold up to this day and seem all more impressive when you realize this was before CGI came along and made everything look neat as hell, yet fake as hell too.  Here we have real guys doing real stunts.  Somebody had to jump down in the snake pit. 

Compare all the beetles in a movie like The Mummy.  It is neat.  But, something doesn’t look right. 
                                                                                                                        
The opening sequence where Indy is chased by the natives is a classic.  The silhouette as he enters Marion Ravenwood’s bar in Nepal is like a freeze frame out of a comic book.  So too are many of the stills from the movie: The chases in Cairo, the airplane fight with the muscled dude, the time he shoots the guy instead of using his whip, his comic local sidekick who said “Asps Indy, very dangerous… you go first….”  The bumbling Brody, who if five years younger would have went in Indy’s place to get the Ark (Yeah, right). 

My daughter wasn’t much interested in watching this coming of age film for me, but she is after all four.  She did however watch the part when the ghosts escaped from the Ark of the Covenant and melted everybody’s head, save those for Indy and Marion.  Her opinion: “If you look…  You get your head melted.”

Well, I looked when I was ten and my head was melted for sure.  And here was now, a father at 36, with our whole family stuffed into her room watching it on the smallest TV in the house (I know how could we mistreat our child like that).  Our dog ran roughshod over my daughters bed, my wife was laid back pretending to be interested because she knew I loved this film.  My daughter, I noticed, having found some other toy to preoccupy her, did keep one eye on the movie at all times.    

I turned into a 10 year old.  I was there watching it with my father who was at the time about my age now.  How awesome is that.  There was no HD TV. There were no video I-pods.  There were no GPS enabled phones.  Could you have an Indy today given all the technology?    Well, that answer is clear enough because Crystal Skull stands to be the blockbuster event of the summer.  Hell, even the Cannes snobs liked it. 

For the most part, I understand Crystal Skull will not disappoint and contains all the elements of the original.  Yes, I am eager to see it for those reasons.  However, more than that, It will be nice to be a 10-year old again just one more time.

Matthew J. DeReno is a writer living in Pittsburgh.