As much as any Spielberg film before or since, Raiders of the Lost Ark is a pure exercise in style, an assemblage of can-you-top-this action set pieces held together by the thin tissue of old-fashioned romance and historical hokum. There are good guys and bad guys, locked in a mighty struggle to save or destroy the world. There’s the score by John Williams, with its unforgettable main theme held back until the moment Indy swings on his first vine. And most of all, there’s Spielberg, maybe the greatest pure film-maker of his generation, at the peak of his powers, having to think about nothing more than orchestrating sequences with as much excitement and wit as he can muster. Film history seems to be speaking through him in Raiders of the Lost Ark, which harnesses all he’s learned about westerns, swashbucklers, sword-and-sandal epics and war adventures.

Source: The Guardian June 12, 2021 06:00 UTC