capa150
Member
Hello. I recently took an "intro to film" class. One of the assignments was to write a film review, applying what we learned in the class. I chose "Raiders":
A scholarly review of 'Raiders of the Lost Ark'
Aug. 16, 2018
Secularism, religion, mystery, feminism and polished camera work are hallmarks of the 1981 action-adventure film "Raiders of the Lost Ark."
Two of the most influential filmmakers at the time ? George Lucas of "Star Wars," and director Steven Spielberg of "Jaws" ? teamed up to create "Raiders." Their plan was to create a solid B-movie homage to the serial adventure shows that Lucas loved in his youth, such as Universal Pictures' "Don Winslow of the U.S. Navy" and "Zorro Rides Again."
Raiders, being of a "classical" genre cycle, builds upon those earlier, primitive cycle action serials.
The film is best described as being of the classic style and fictional type. Raiders avoids the extremes of realism and formalism. Classical continuity editing is used and all events take place in chronological order. There are no flashbacks nor use of the avant-garde.
Lucas began researching ideas for what would become Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1973. He based the character of Indiana Jones on earlier characters like Humphrey Bogart's Fred C. Dobbs from the 1948 film "Treasure of the Sierra Madre." Raiders also shares much in common with the 1954 film "Secret of the Incas."
Prior to Raiders, Spielberg went over budget and over-schedule with his film "1941." Raiders, for Spielberg, was an opportunity for him to prove he could finish a film on time and under budget.
Spielberg paid homage to "Citizen Kane" in Raiders, as the title font in Raiders is similar to the credits font used in Citizen Kane. (Spielberg paid $50,000 for the Rosebud sled prop at auction. He keeps it in his office.)
Principal photography began in 1980 and the film was released in June 1981. Raiders cost $22 million to create, and by October 1981 it had grossed more than $135 million.
A contrasty, smoothly shot film
Douglas Slocombe was director of photography for Raiders. Slocombe lit many of the scenes in Raiders with hard light and high contrast, similar in style to one of his earlier films, "Guns at Batasi."
Raiders, which was shot in 2.35 widescreen aspect ratio, appears to have been photographed primarily with wide angle and normal lenses, and, occasionally, telephotos.
One of the most obvious uses of a telephoto lens is when Indy and a group of men are silhouetted against the sun as they shovel sand from atop an ancient Egyptian structure.
Zoom lenses are rarely used in the film. However, the opening few seconds of the film makes subtle use of zoom, to match the size of Paramount Studios' mountain logo to an actual mountain at a Hawaii location.
The filmmakers make use of all manner of angles, including high-angle, eye-level, and bird's eye. A large portion of the film ? perhaps one-third ? is shot from a moderately low angle, causing the characters to appear larger-than-life.
At the start of Raiders, Indy's back is turned to the audience. He is kept a mystery. The audience instead will focus on the other two characters, the "third world local sleazos," to use Lucas' description of them, of Satipo and Barranca. The two are shown in full-frontal and quarter-turn position. They serve as surrogate characters and the audience connects with them, at first, more than they connect with Indy. We see what Satipo and Barranca see. We feel what they feel.
All of this is done intentionally to allow for greater impact when Indy's face is revealed after he whips a pistol out of Barranca's hand; it instills a sense of awe for the Indy character into the audience ? "This is a man to be reckoned with."
This scene also includes one of the best examples of deep-focus photography in the film: a wide angle lens and small aperture are used to keep both a battered map in the foreground along with Satipo, in the background, in sharp focus.
The prologue, by the way, mirrors what will happen when Indy tries to find the Ark. In Peru, Indy recovered the idol, only to have Rene Belloq (who represents Indy's shadow self) take it from him. Then when Indy finds the Ark, Belloq again takes the prize from Indy, creating drama.
The prologue scene is shot with left-to-right movement until Indy recovers the golden idol. At this point, movement reverses direction and Indy's luck takes a turn for the worse. In another scene at the dig site, (49:45 mark in the iTunes version) Belloq and his Nazi friends walk to the left. The shot is immediately followed by a nearly identical shot of Indy and Sallah at the site, but moving to the right.
One especially novel shot (40:47) makes use of rack focus. During the basket chase scene, Indy frantically searches for Marion. The camera, in a wide angle long shot, shows Indy running toward the camera. The focus is quickly racked forward as Indy rushes within mere inches of the lens. Indy stops briefly, his eyes filling the frame in extreme close-up, before the camera dollies rearward to a second long shot.
Later, Indy is trapped inside the Well of the Souls, with Nazis gloating from the entrance high above. The filmmakers used a birds-eye angle along with frame-within-a-frame to depict Indy's entrapment. The hero is made to appear small, weak and hemmed-in from all sides.
The reverse of this shot shows Indy's point of view. It is a low-angle shot, making the villains appear tall and powerful.
The lighting in Raiders tends toward low-key and high-contrast. Deep blacks are common. Indoor or studio scenes often make use of hard light with three-point lighting. One example of this type of lighting is when men with army intelligence speak at Indy's university (16:15).
Outdoor shots use the sun as a key light, and lighting appears to be largely ambient. However, behind the scenes footage shows grips holding large mirrors to reflect sunlight as fill light.
One shot that is certainly only lit by ambient light is when Indy, Marion and Sallah speak in a tent at the dig site (1:21:21). In the shot, the trio are silhouetted strongly against the bright background and no attempt was made to add fill.
Golden sun-like tones of yellows and oranges dominate the film, and a recurring motif in the film is sun iconography. A golden sun artifact appears in the Peru temple. Marion's gold medallion is in the shape of the sun. Indy's head lines up with the sun as the Ark's location is revealed in the map room. Inside this room is a painting of a falcon with a sun disc, representing the Egyptian sun god Ra. Indy is shown silhouetted against the sun when digging into the Well of the Souls (58:30). When Indy and Marion escape the Well of the Souls, they see the sun shining from a gap in the stones.
The color blue, in contrast to the warm tones, is also used frequently. Blue is the color of a shaft of light for a trap at the Peru temple. An ominous, boiling blue sky dominates the upper portion of the frame as the entrance to the Well of the Souls is uncovered (58:50). Blue light is used as "lightning." The color blue also dominates the night time scene where Indy and Marion board the docked ship, Bantu Wind.
Slocombe's camera work is smooth and stable and he clearly made use of the tripod, dolly and crane. The mise én scene and blocking is carefully arranged in the shots. However, camera shake was deliberately used during the beginning of the movie when Indy carefully walks across a booby-trapped floor in the Peruvian temple (7:03, and again at 7:11). The camera wobbles slightly to make the audience feel as if they could lose their balance and trigger the release of a poisonous dart.
The truck chase scene later in the film also has a lot of camera shake, although this shake is probably natural and unavoidable due to the bumpy road. The shakiness is beneficial: it adds energy and excitement to the scene.
Fast motion is used during a shot when Indy holds onto his bullwhip while being dragged behind a truck. Presumably the truck was driven too slowly when this shot was made, and so it was sped-up in post, or shot at a slower frame rate. The effect is slightly comic as the motion appears unrealistic. Alternately, slow motion is used to dramatize the flying wing when it explodes.
(continued ...)
A scholarly review of 'Raiders of the Lost Ark'
Aug. 16, 2018
Secularism, religion, mystery, feminism and polished camera work are hallmarks of the 1981 action-adventure film "Raiders of the Lost Ark."
Two of the most influential filmmakers at the time ? George Lucas of "Star Wars," and director Steven Spielberg of "Jaws" ? teamed up to create "Raiders." Their plan was to create a solid B-movie homage to the serial adventure shows that Lucas loved in his youth, such as Universal Pictures' "Don Winslow of the U.S. Navy" and "Zorro Rides Again."
Raiders, being of a "classical" genre cycle, builds upon those earlier, primitive cycle action serials.
The film is best described as being of the classic style and fictional type. Raiders avoids the extremes of realism and formalism. Classical continuity editing is used and all events take place in chronological order. There are no flashbacks nor use of the avant-garde.
Lucas began researching ideas for what would become Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1973. He based the character of Indiana Jones on earlier characters like Humphrey Bogart's Fred C. Dobbs from the 1948 film "Treasure of the Sierra Madre." Raiders also shares much in common with the 1954 film "Secret of the Incas."
Prior to Raiders, Spielberg went over budget and over-schedule with his film "1941." Raiders, for Spielberg, was an opportunity for him to prove he could finish a film on time and under budget.
Spielberg paid homage to "Citizen Kane" in Raiders, as the title font in Raiders is similar to the credits font used in Citizen Kane. (Spielberg paid $50,000 for the Rosebud sled prop at auction. He keeps it in his office.)
Principal photography began in 1980 and the film was released in June 1981. Raiders cost $22 million to create, and by October 1981 it had grossed more than $135 million.
A contrasty, smoothly shot film
Douglas Slocombe was director of photography for Raiders. Slocombe lit many of the scenes in Raiders with hard light and high contrast, similar in style to one of his earlier films, "Guns at Batasi."
Raiders, which was shot in 2.35 widescreen aspect ratio, appears to have been photographed primarily with wide angle and normal lenses, and, occasionally, telephotos.
One of the most obvious uses of a telephoto lens is when Indy and a group of men are silhouetted against the sun as they shovel sand from atop an ancient Egyptian structure.
Zoom lenses are rarely used in the film. However, the opening few seconds of the film makes subtle use of zoom, to match the size of Paramount Studios' mountain logo to an actual mountain at a Hawaii location.
The filmmakers make use of all manner of angles, including high-angle, eye-level, and bird's eye. A large portion of the film ? perhaps one-third ? is shot from a moderately low angle, causing the characters to appear larger-than-life.
At the start of Raiders, Indy's back is turned to the audience. He is kept a mystery. The audience instead will focus on the other two characters, the "third world local sleazos," to use Lucas' description of them, of Satipo and Barranca. The two are shown in full-frontal and quarter-turn position. They serve as surrogate characters and the audience connects with them, at first, more than they connect with Indy. We see what Satipo and Barranca see. We feel what they feel.
All of this is done intentionally to allow for greater impact when Indy's face is revealed after he whips a pistol out of Barranca's hand; it instills a sense of awe for the Indy character into the audience ? "This is a man to be reckoned with."
This scene also includes one of the best examples of deep-focus photography in the film: a wide angle lens and small aperture are used to keep both a battered map in the foreground along with Satipo, in the background, in sharp focus.
The prologue, by the way, mirrors what will happen when Indy tries to find the Ark. In Peru, Indy recovered the idol, only to have Rene Belloq (who represents Indy's shadow self) take it from him. Then when Indy finds the Ark, Belloq again takes the prize from Indy, creating drama.
The prologue scene is shot with left-to-right movement until Indy recovers the golden idol. At this point, movement reverses direction and Indy's luck takes a turn for the worse. In another scene at the dig site, (49:45 mark in the iTunes version) Belloq and his Nazi friends walk to the left. The shot is immediately followed by a nearly identical shot of Indy and Sallah at the site, but moving to the right.
One especially novel shot (40:47) makes use of rack focus. During the basket chase scene, Indy frantically searches for Marion. The camera, in a wide angle long shot, shows Indy running toward the camera. The focus is quickly racked forward as Indy rushes within mere inches of the lens. Indy stops briefly, his eyes filling the frame in extreme close-up, before the camera dollies rearward to a second long shot.
Later, Indy is trapped inside the Well of the Souls, with Nazis gloating from the entrance high above. The filmmakers used a birds-eye angle along with frame-within-a-frame to depict Indy's entrapment. The hero is made to appear small, weak and hemmed-in from all sides.
The reverse of this shot shows Indy's point of view. It is a low-angle shot, making the villains appear tall and powerful.
The lighting in Raiders tends toward low-key and high-contrast. Deep blacks are common. Indoor or studio scenes often make use of hard light with three-point lighting. One example of this type of lighting is when men with army intelligence speak at Indy's university (16:15).
Outdoor shots use the sun as a key light, and lighting appears to be largely ambient. However, behind the scenes footage shows grips holding large mirrors to reflect sunlight as fill light.
One shot that is certainly only lit by ambient light is when Indy, Marion and Sallah speak in a tent at the dig site (1:21:21). In the shot, the trio are silhouetted strongly against the bright background and no attempt was made to add fill.
Golden sun-like tones of yellows and oranges dominate the film, and a recurring motif in the film is sun iconography. A golden sun artifact appears in the Peru temple. Marion's gold medallion is in the shape of the sun. Indy's head lines up with the sun as the Ark's location is revealed in the map room. Inside this room is a painting of a falcon with a sun disc, representing the Egyptian sun god Ra. Indy is shown silhouetted against the sun when digging into the Well of the Souls (58:30). When Indy and Marion escape the Well of the Souls, they see the sun shining from a gap in the stones.
The color blue, in contrast to the warm tones, is also used frequently. Blue is the color of a shaft of light for a trap at the Peru temple. An ominous, boiling blue sky dominates the upper portion of the frame as the entrance to the Well of the Souls is uncovered (58:50). Blue light is used as "lightning." The color blue also dominates the night time scene where Indy and Marion board the docked ship, Bantu Wind.
Slocombe's camera work is smooth and stable and he clearly made use of the tripod, dolly and crane. The mise én scene and blocking is carefully arranged in the shots. However, camera shake was deliberately used during the beginning of the movie when Indy carefully walks across a booby-trapped floor in the Peruvian temple (7:03, and again at 7:11). The camera wobbles slightly to make the audience feel as if they could lose their balance and trigger the release of a poisonous dart.
The truck chase scene later in the film also has a lot of camera shake, although this shake is probably natural and unavoidable due to the bumpy road. The shakiness is beneficial: it adds energy and excitement to the scene.
Fast motion is used during a shot when Indy holds onto his bullwhip while being dragged behind a truck. Presumably the truck was driven too slowly when this shot was made, and so it was sped-up in post, or shot at a slower frame rate. The effect is slightly comic as the motion appears unrealistic. Alternately, slow motion is used to dramatize the flying wing when it explodes.
(continued ...)