Directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Lawrence Kasdan, George Lucas, and Philip Kaufman the original Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) featuring Indiana (Indy) Jones (Harrison Ford) is over forty years old and has stood the test of time. I teach its structure to my students as an example of the best in the action-adventure genre.

Teachable

I assign this movie to my intro classes to discuss structure, but this film works for me on several levels. Since it’s a period piece, the cultural references don’t get dated. It takes place at the start of Nazi aggression and that was the late 30s. Whatever happens in the film doesn’t shift as our culture moves on from whatever Gen we’re currently in. Of course, some of the tropes in the 1980s can be looked at askance. It wasn’t a woke world then.

This film is creative, fun, and interesting with its illumination of mythologies we hadn’t really seen to this point. It’s unique still as far as scenes go with great focus on details from the era in which it lives. It has layers upon layers of incredible story points wrapped up in a cracking adventure.

Raiders is also a structurally beautiful movie that proves the 3-act (or in my world, 4-act) structure. 

Set Up

Adventure films have at their core a quest. In this case, it’s to find the Lost Ark of the Covenant – a gilded box which held the Ten Commandments handed over to Moses by God, as detailed in the Old Testament. On one level, it’s considered a powerful weapon and the Nazis want it since Hitler was (truly) obsessed by spiritual artifacts, and having this box imparted supernatural powers to any army. It made them invincible. A win-win for Herr Hitler.

So the stakes (a super weapon) and a quest, to find the Lost Ask before the Nazis do (ticking clock) makes for a super strong narrative. Add in an archaeologist (Indy) who is wholly invested in finding “the greatest archaeological artifact in the history of the world” and you’ve got a cracking adventure that twists and turns as it roars into film history.

Key Characters

A great villain or villains is essential to any story and in this case we have two: the Third Reich and an ambitious archaeologist named Emille Belloq (Paul Freeman).

In the same way the U.S. Army is using Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) to find the Ark, the Germans are using Belloq. We meet both Jones and Belloq in the opening gambit, a longish beat, mainly disconnected from the main story, but insightful into their relationship:

EXT. OUTSIDE CAVE – DAY
Indy lies on the ground, gasping for air.
A shadow falls across him and he looks up:

EMILE BELLOQ.

BELLOQ
Dr. Jones. Again we see there is nothing
you can possess which I cannot take away.

The main bad-guy German is an SS Ahnenerbe officer Arnold Toht (Ronald Lacey) who we’ll meet in Nepal. Historically accurate, the Ahnenerbe were Hitler’s searchers (thieves) of religious artifacts. Hitler was obsessed by them and the unit scoured the world to steal and return those artifacts back to the Third Reich.

Rene Belloq (Paul Freeman) Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Indiana Jones, in large part, is a great character who contributes mightily to the story. His single-minded pursuit of the Ark makes him impossible to resist. And he was unlike most archaeologists in that he was as physical as he was cerebral. He ‘raided’ tombs and taught adoring students in college. What a dude!

But, he did have a dark side which will be covered later.

Marion, played by Karen Allen, Marion (the daughter of Indy’s mentor, Abner Ravenwood) is a great foil to Indy’s cavalier attitude. She takes no crap, demands what she wants, and in many ways is indispensable to Indy’s quest. Plus, she has a rather complicated backstory with Monsieur Jones that a lot of people miss, but layers the story with loss, betrayal, and redemption.

The Quest

There’s nothing new about a quest for treasure/ artifacts. They were mainstays of literature and many 30s and 40s TV serials – the concept that Raiders was built on. Tarzan, Flash Gordon, and Alan Quartermain – all great examples.

The Ark of the Covenant, however, was uniquely special.

It was mysterious. Powerful. A proper artifact for the world’s greatest archaeologist to go after and valuable enough to entice the so-called master race to hunt for it.

The ‘mythology’ surrounding the Ark made the adventure special. The filmmakers spent a lot of time gathering information about the Ark and making it so unique that nothing before or since Raiders has come close.

Marion Ravenscroft (Karen Allen) Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures

The box was stylized and built to exacting specs to hold the tablets of the Ten Commandments that Moses received from God. It possessed powers beyond this world. And everyone had different definitions for it which made it even richer as an artifact.

The Germans said it was a super weapon. Sallah, the digger (John Rhys-Davies ) and Brody (Denholm Elliot) said it possessed mystical power. Belloq said it was used to communicate with God. Everyone except Indy had a spiritual or mystical slant to it, but for him it was only an artifact of incalculable historical value. These masterful radiating characteristics made the Ark insanely desirable to all.

It wasn’t diamonds, money, or art – nothing so mundane. Very few movies before or since have had such a rich mythology surrounding a single McGuffin. 

The Clues

All good quest movies have steps that need to be taken. One of the most clever concepts in Raiders is the medallion headpiece from the Staff of Ra, necessary to find the Ark. When Indy goes to Marion to retrieve it, it’s involved in a fire. The SS creep Toht grabs it and it sears his hand. Indy gets it (using a cloth) and he and Marion are off to Egypt to find the Well of Souls.

The Nazis have already found the Lost City of Tanis. Now Indy has to get the medallion translated in order to recreate the Staff of Ra that will reveal the location of the Ark once they find the ‘map room’ and the Well of Souls. 

Indy and Sallah, the digger, are told that the Germans have a medallion also. But from where? It turns out the Ahnenerbe creep had the medallion burned into his hand when he grabbed it in Nepal.

But – (and here’s the really clever part), there’s a backside to the medallion that gives further instructions about the length of the staff; so it’s determined that the Germans are digging in the wrong place because they don’t have complete information for the staff.

Genius. A copy of the medallion burned into the flesh of a hand, but it’s not complete. To this day, and after many, many viewings, I still don’t think I’ve ever seen anything more incredible conceptually than that.

Furious

I remember a friend calling me about this movie. He said it’s like someone shouted “Go!” and it never stopped.

From the opening cave gambit with action scenes that were totally unique, to the end, where Indy is riding a submarine to save Marion and the Ark, the movie’s action is only paused judiciously at times when story points had to be delivered. Harrison Ford’s Indy ran, jumped, fought, dived, and whipped butt with abandon.

Arnold Toht (Ronald Lacey) Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures

I’ve had this asked before: “Do I have to write the action in the script?” YES! Filmmakers will use stunt coordinators to enhance and make it real, but they need a writer’s guidance. As creative as everyone in Hollywood is, they count on the writer to give the script its vision. The cave scene in the opening is a series of clever and breathtaking moments. Someone had to create all that.

And the creativity continued in dozens of bravura action set pieces like the market scene, the fight in front of an airplane with spinning propellers, and the incredible race in the desert while Indy tries to recover the Ark. Minute for minute, and especially at the time this film was made, there is no crazier grouping of action scenes.

Fun

In all ways this movie is as fun as it furious. In a classroom in which Indy is teaching, a student has written ‘I love you’ on her eyelids. When Marion first encounters Indy she clocks him. A dead monkey is the only thing that prevents Indy from eating poisoned dates. In a marketplace, being attacked by sword-wielding assassins, instead of fighting one of them with a sword, Indy shoots the man while Marion is gleefully bonking bad guys on the head with wok-like metal cookware.

On and on, a multitude of fun and clever moments that infuse the action-packed script with breathing spaces. No comedy should be without some serious moments, and no action film should be without some comedy. The mandate is always to entertain – Raiders certainly delivers that in many facets.