Recommendations of the Editorial team
An archive text text from 2018.
From “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981) we chose the ten best Indy moments, from “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” (1984) to “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” (1989) to “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” (2008). Ordered chronologically.
1. The Golden Idol (Raiders of the Lost Ark, 1981)
Indiana Jones has to overcome a number of traps before he reaches the destination of his treasure hunt in this Peruvian temple: to the golden idol. Awesome, as director Steven Spielberg is more and more slowing down. If Jones had to deal with trenches, giant spiders and wooden plock traps in advance, he is faced with a quiet task that requires physical knowledge as well as feeling. As a spectator, in advance out of breath, you don’t understand what it is here, in the face of the gold skull.
At the same time, we get to know the archaeologist, whose first cinema adventure we see here, just from his tragicomic side. Indy takes the idol, thinks that he would have done it, lifts his hat, turns around – and chaos breaks out. Symptomatic for the man, who will only get to his destination in one of four cinema adventures (Bundeslade nothing, holy grail nothing, crystal skull-only the sacred sankara stones, which will get Indy without outside help).
2. The boulder (Raiders of the Lost Ark, 1981)
After Indy and idol escaped the poison arrows – exactly, we are still in the first longer sequence of the film – the outcome is so close. Then he hears a noisy roar, looks up – and sees as if it couldn’t get worse, rolling a boulder on him. Perhaps the most impressive sequence of “Raiders”, definitely the one who tore people from sitting. The boulder was of course not made of real stone; Harrison Ford, as a physical actor, a 1a line-up, puts one of his most convincing gear. Its stumbling is inimitable.
3. The swordsman (Raiders of the Lost Ark, 1981)
An improvised scene full of ingenuity. In the original draft, Indiana Jones should deliver a fight with the Egyptian, whip against sword (there are also pictures of which), but Harrison Ford was sickly on the day of shooting, rampant in the film team. No large action possible. So the Egyptian pulls its show off, and Indy simply pulls its pistol. Spielberg plays here with the expectations of combat sequences – and shows that his hero also dominates the dirty games. You want to see this moment again without knowing what’s coming. He stays funny anyway, even the hundredth time.
4. The chase with horse and trucks (Raiders of the Lost Ark, 1981)
The largest action scene in the cinema. An amazing work on stunt coordination and fights. Indiana Jones hunts, first by horse, then as a passenger, then as a driver, the Nazi gang that grabbed the federal charging. These almost nine minutes demonstrate how little today’s digital effects have to counter this use of 1981. The moment remains unsurpassed when Indy goes from the radiator hood under the moving truck, hooks up with the whip, lets yourself push back to the exhaust – and then blows again. Composer John Williams really knocks everything out here.
“Truck? What truck?”:
5. “Anything goes” (“Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom”, 1984)
Steven Spielberg loves musicals, but to incorporate a Steptanz performance in an Indy film, that’s … brave. For the second cinema adventure, fans had certainly hoped for John Williams fanfares for the opening, but the director relies entirely on the effect of the “Anything Goes” Cole-Porter song from the musical of the same name, which was premiered one year before the events of “Doom”, 1934.
Absolute cinema. The song is also programmatic for the course of this second and best Indy film, in which Spielberg, idea provider Lucas and actor Harrison Ford-he was never more muscular than here-show what can be put on the screen. The glitter in the picture is not of this world, the dancers are suddenly on a much larger, dreamy stage when the night club in Shanghai offers them.