WHAT DOES THE PROTAGONIST WANT? The problem with “Kick the Can,” unsurprisingly, begins here. Who is the protagonist of this short? The plot is: Kindly old Mr. Bloom comes to an old folks home and Teaches Folks A Lesson. The protagonists of a story like this would most effectively be the ensemble of elderly folks who are confronted with Mr. Bloom. What to make of the mysterious outsider who sees things differently from the status quo, who uses magic and wry irony to show us the error of our ways?

But none of the ensemble of “Kick the Can” is developed in any kind of interesting way. Each character is a stereotype for quick reading — the kvetching Jew, the faded romantic, the bitter loner, et cetera. They are thoroughly uninteresting, and Spielberg shoots them with unflattering lenses and lighting, turning them into cartoon characters. The only character Spielberg seems to be interested in is Mr. Bloom, who arrives with a twinkle in his eye and mischief up his sleeve. We are on the outside of the ensemble, on the side of the magician, looking down at the status quo, giggling with giddy joy at the mischievous lesson we’re about to teach the poor benighted folks who don’t know any better.

And so Bloom becomes the protagonist of “Kick the Can.” This is like making Peter Pan the protagonist of Peter Pan (which Spielberg would, of course, eventually figure out a way to do). More to the point, it’s like making E.T. the protagonist of E.T.

Why is this a bad thing? Dramatically, it instantly evaporates a great deal of dramatic tension. We know Mr. Bloom is magic and we can see that the ensemble is a bunch of easily-manipulated sheep, so as an audience all we can do is sit and wait for the magic to happen. Mr. Bloom comes to the old folks home, creates a desire in the minds of the ensemble, then caters to that desire, then points out with leaden earnestness the futility of the desire. Essentially, he comes to the old folks home, says “You know what you people need? You need to be tricked.” And the ensemble says “Say, you know? We do need to be tricked. Trick us.” And so Mr. Bloom tricks them and says “Now look at how foolish you look, falling for my trick. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” The intent is to instill a warm glow of magic, but the result is curdled and smug, demonstrating not the power of magic but the power of manipulation.

And so it occurs to me that, just as E.T. symbolizes Spielberg’s artistic talent, Bloom is a stand-in for Spielberg himself. Looked at this way, “Kick the Can” makes perfect sense — Spielberg sees himself as a magic wanderer, a trickster who arrives on a scene where everyone’s sitting around staring at each other and masterfully manipulates the crowd into a state of wonder and awe, makes them realize some profound truth or other, then moves on to the next unsuspecting bunch of rubes. It’s a movie very pleased with itself, which I suppose makes it a good adaptation of Rod Serling, who similarly had a dim view of society (and his audience) as children in need of a lesson.

ACT II (24:00-57:00) This act could be called “The Education of E.T.” Elliott secrets E.T. in his room and, first chance he gets, begins educating E.T. about everything important — Star Wars mythology being first on the list, with Jaws coming a close second, then expanding outward to food and entertainment, and eventually basic science and broader concepts. When Elliott goes to school, E.T. furthers his own education by getting drunk and screwing around, pursuing an afternoon of wild free-association. By the end of the act, he’s sufficiently educated to hit upon the idea of building a machine to contact his people.

ACT III (57:00-1:17:00) This act could be called “Building and Activating the Machine.” Elliott, Michael and Gertie all help E.T. build his machine and conspire to activate it on Halloween night. Their efforts are, or seem to be, spectacularly unsuccessful, even though there is much wonder and humor on the journey to failure. At the end of this act, E.T. is found face down in a stream bed being investigated by hungry raccoons, Elliott is ill and his house has been invaded by Keys and his men.

ACT IV (1:17:00-1:34:00) This is almost too short to be considered an act, but the arc is too pronounced to ignore. It could be called “Keys Invades,” and it involves Elliott’s family’s house being taken over by government scientists (at least I think they’re government scientists — I don’t think the script actually specifies who Keys works for). It climaxes with E.T.’s death and concludes with the first hint of his resurrection.

ACT V (1:34:00-1:50:00) Here we have, perhaps the first Dreamworks “race to the finish line” final act: sixteen minutes of pure cinema — Elliott and Michael slap together a hastily-considered plan to get E.T. to his spaceship and, miraculously, make it.

NOTES:

LOVING THE ALIEN: “Invert the cliche” is Bob Dylan’s advice to the writer. This sentiment is expressed in the halls of Dreamworks as “Turn the idea on its head.” This concept is central to Spielberg’s success. If you’re making a flying saucer movie, make the saucer-men friendly. If you’re making a WWII movie, take the most irreverent approach possible to the war and its causes. If you’re making a haunted house movie, make the house an anonymous suburban tract house. (In my case, if you’re making a movie about an ant, make him an individualist ant.) In the case of E.T., if you’re making a movie about contact with an alien, start by telling the story from the alien’s point of view.

I am now going to spend a little time writing a little about the very beginning of the movie. Because it’s sheer genius. This paragraph will take longer to read than it takes to watch the passage discussed, and much longer to write.

I’m watching E.T. at a Saturday matinee on opening weekend. The crowd is substantial and the energy is palpable. The lights go down and the Universal logo comes up, with its Earth spinning around in those odd little cosmic energy bands that hover around it.

Here’s what happens next: the Earth in the Universal logo zooms away from us, and out of sight, leaving us in empty space. The audience laughs at this mild logo-joke, but then Spielberg goes to black and gives us his simple titles on a black background, with spooky music that prepares us for, perhaps, a redux of Close Encounters. After the titles, space comes back up on screen, as though we are back in that logo. The audience believes we’re still in space and giggles with anticipation — the movie seems to be starting over, or even running backwards. We’re somewhere out in space, watching a movie called E.T.: The Extraterrestrial. What’s going to happen next?

What happens next is the camera tilts down, the sky lightens a bit, and we come to a tree-line. After a brief pause, we cut to a shot of E.T.’s ship, already landed, in a clearing. The shot is from a tree-height camera — one of the very few camera placements in the entire movie that’s above belt-level.

And there you have it — Spielberg, in that brief, wordless sequence, has essentially made his movie’s argument. By putting the logo joke up front, he got us used to the idea that we are out in space, far away from home. Then, as the titles end, he puts us back in that shot, then tilts down to reveal that, yes, we are out in space, far away from home, on Earth. We are put in E.T.’s POV before we even meet him. By shooting the ship from above, he deliberately removes any sense of threat or menace — the exact opposite of his approach in Close Encounters, where the alien ships are always above us, messengers from the heavens.

LOCATING THE METAPHOR: While watching E.T. during its 2002 theatrical re-release (with the superfluous extra scenes and the idiotic federal-agents-wielding-walkie-talkies redaction) it was my first viewing as a professional screenwriter and I pressed myself to locate the screenplay’s metaphor. All fantasy screenplays must have a metaphor or else they inevitably run off the rails. I hit upon this notion that Elliott needs to be noticed, and E.T. is God, leaning down and saying “It’s okay, Elliott, I see you, in your loneliness and fatherlessness. I see you and I love you — you’re the most special kid in the world.” This is a moving and worthwhile metaphor, but on closer inspection I’ve decided I’m wrong. Unlike the aliens in Close Encounters, and contrary to the Michaelangelo-inspired poster art, E.T. is not an emissary from Heaven.

Rather, he springs from a more internal location — Elliott himself. E.T. is a movie about a kid who knows he’s special but finds himself in a position where he is undervalued and overlooked. He needs badly to be noticed, to be counted — and so he creates a situation where that happens in a very profound, unexpected way. E.T. is a part of Elliott himself — that’s why the alien’s name is a compression of the protagonist’s.

Elliott makes the point over and over that E.T. is “his.” He is horrified when Gertie dresses him in girls’ clothes and disdainfully snorts “he’s a boy” when Gertie suggests otherwise. The bulk of Act II exists to demonstrate that they are psychically linked. E.T. is the “special” part of Elliott, as though Elliott has found a way to take his specialness and make it physical. When Elliott says “I believe in you” to E.T., he is really talking to himself.

From there it’s not too much of a leap to see that Elliott is the boy Spielberg and E.T. is his filmmaking talent — his artistic impulse. Like an artistic impulse, E.T. is weird, unpredictable, simultaneously ancient and innocent, powerful, wily and difficult to harness. Spielberg, like Elliott, grew up in a suburban house with an absent father, and it’s not hard to see in Elliott the young Spielberg, anonymous and slighted, convinced of his genius and determined to one day prove it to everyone. The fact that Elliott yearns to be recognized by his older brothers’ gang suggests (to me anyway) Spielberg’s yearning to be taken seriously as an artist by his older, better-reviewed director pals. If we say that Michael is Steven’s “brother” George Lucas, the rest of the gang could be seen as Scorsese, Coppolla and DePalma. That might sound like a stretch, but I can’t think of any other reason why the “gang” needs to participate in the action of Act V. Elliott and Michael simply need to get E.T. to his spaceship — the gang have nothing to do with the effort but tag along anyway, specifically to show that Elliott, once the tag-along squirt, is now the leader and center of the group.

On the other hand, one of the gang members wears a hat marked “Camus,” which, well, I don’t know what to do with.  Maybe Spielberg is shooting at bigger fish than his film buddies.

THE ARTISTIC IMPULSE: E.T. is thrust out into our world, abandoned and alone, fragile and terrified. Anyone who’s ever created a work of art knows this feeling. You feel tender, exposed and fearful — you created a thing out of love and who knows what people are going to do with it? E.T. is born into and emerges from the forest, which any folklorist will tell you is a metaphor for the subconscious. He is inspired by, and assembles his machine from, the detritus of suburban American homelife — toys and gadgets and comics and TV. In this way,E.T. the movie is exactly like E.T. the character, and Spielberg’s artistic impulse, finding magic and wonder in the pop-culture garbage that sits strewn around every American household. “Want a Coke?” pipes up Elliott when he isn’t sure what to say next to E.T., making America’s most universally recognized brand, well, more universally recognized.

If E.T. is Spielberg’s artistic impulse, then who is Keys? Is he “the critics,” eagerly pursuing E.T. in order to examine him, tie him down, quantify him and maybe kill him in the process? Or is he the studio hacks, the capitalists who can’t wait to get their hands on the artistic impulse to package it, brand it and make a ton of money off it? Elliott’s desperate cry in Act IV, “You’re just going to cut him all up!” takes on new meaning in this context — he could be talking about E.T., or he could be talking about the filmmakers terror at turning in an edit to the studio.

It is, of course, to Spielberg’s credit that he doesn’t demonize Keys. Whether Keys symbolizes critic or studio exec, he knows the artistic impulse and, in Act IV, admits that his impulse is identical to Elliot’s. “I’ve been to the forest,” he says, and, “He came to me too. I’ve been dreaming of this since I was ten years old.” Keys is not evil, and neither are critics or studio execs — they just don’t have the power that Elliott has to make their artistic impulse flesh.

OTHER THOUGHTS IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

I very much appreciate Spielberg making Michael an Elvis Costello fan. And I imagine Elvis Costello appreciates it too.

My son Sam (6), of course, sat up wide-eyed and amazed when he saw the interior of Elliott’s room, festooned as it is with Star Wars toys. “Hey! He’s got a Hoth Rebel Cannon with Probot Playset!” is a typical exclamation from Sam as E.T. is shuffling around Elliott’s room.

(For those curious, Sam’s reaction to E.T. is curiously muted. He enjoyed it and had no complaints, but he didn’t spark to it the way he sparked to Jurassic Park or Raiders of the Lost Ark. I cannot account for this — I thought it would hit him like a sledgehammer.)

The Peter Pan references in E.T. seem to be there primarily to lift the burden of Christ comparisons from E.T.’s shoulders. E.T. doesn’t come back to life like Jesus, the movie insists, he comes back to life like Tinkerbell. Both plot turns hinge on issues of faith, but one doesn’t need to believe in Jesus to believe in E.T., one only needs to believe in fairies. And the power of storytelling devices.

Elliott’s father is missing. He, like E.T., has been abandoned. I don’t quite buy the scene in the garage where Michael and Elliott contemplate their father’s shirt, but otherwise I greatly admire the way the missing father is delineated. One of my favorite moments is in Act III, when Mom, storming out the door to go look for her truant kids, backs the car out of the garage and says only “Mexico,” the country, we are told, the father ran off to.

I love the slowly-uncoiling yellow extension cord, which is all we see of the scientists doing recon work on Elliott’s house. Perfect example of Spielbergism, the object standing for the thing, the thing more frightening because we can’t see it.

I do, however, have some reservations about the acting in E.T. and, really, all of Spielberg’s 80s work. The warm naturalism that abounds in Sugarland Express, Jaws and Close Encounters was turned into eye-popping cartoonism in 1941 and movie-movie shorthand in Raiders. Now, and for the foreseeable future, Spielberg’s actors are all very good, but never quite as human as the least supporting player is in his early movies. This is, I’m guessing, a symptom of the “high concept”, er, concept that E.T. created that went on to sweep Hollywood in the 80s. Story, it was decided, does not spring from character any longer — it springs from an irresistible “concept,” and the acting is there to help illustrate the concept.

Of course, no besieged family in a Spielberg movie can be left that way, and by the end of E.T. we are to believe that Keys, far from being an antagonist, will replace Elliott’s father. This is indicated by Keys checking out Mom’s rack as E.T. prepares to blast off.

In addition to Peter Pan, Spielberg also refers to Jaws, of course, and John Ford’s The Quiet Man, and also puts Wile E. Coyote in the kids’ closet, a reference to The Sugarland Express. Michael finds E.T. in a stream next to a storm drain, a visual reference to a key scene in Amblin.’ Spielberg then takes the most terrifying scene in Close Encounters, the siege on Gillian’s house, and stands it on its head at the climax of Act III, when Keys and his men invade. Mom in E.T. responds exactly the same way that Gillian does, and the otherwise-unmentioned suddenly self-operating electric train set makes the link permanent.

In addition, E.T.’s afternoon-long journey from innocence to experience echoes that of Dumbo, who, the viewer will recall, was also an overlooked child with hidden specialness. Spielberg forges the link to Dumbo by having E.T. make his breakthrough the same way Dumbo does — by getting drunk. A drunken alien and a drunken 10-year-old boy seem like odd things to put in a children’s movie, but Disney used to do it all the time — all the way from Dumbo through The Rescuers we find characters getting drunk, getting high and having hallucinatory experiences. For E.T., the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom. E.T.’s technological breakthrough is echoed, cinematically, by Elliott’s sexual breakthrough. As E.T. brainstorms his machine, Elliott grabs his pretty blond lab partner and plants a juicy kiss on her lips. He is led off to the principal’s office as the blond swivels her foot in rapture. This sexual side of Elliott’s maturity is,oddly, out of the blue and never referred to again — I have the feeling Spielberg is working out something private in this sequence.

Then, for good measure, in the closing moments of the movie he throws in the tympani roll from 2001, not being able to resist forging a link between Kubrick’s masterwork and his own, taking the narrative conceit of the grandest of science-fiction movie of all time and placing it in a suburban back yard.

CHAPTER 1 (59:00 – 1:10:00): Indy descends into the Well of Souls as Marion uses her mutant drinking power to try to escape Belloq. The interesting thing about Belloq giving Marion the flouncy white dress and the gourmet meal is that he is, perhaps unintentionally, being the “good suitor” that Indy never was and still isn’t. Belloq provides her with dinner, a nice dress and a bottle of wine from his family’s private vineyard. He’s got money, power and social standing. He’s polite, gracious and generous. We know that Marion isn’t going to fall for it, and yet she actually says at one point to him that she’d like to see him “under different circumstances.” So on some level we see that Marion could go for a version of Belloq, that she isn’t necessarily at home in a Nepalese bar drinking locals under the table. This both suggests a poorly-developed narrative tension for Marion and a further example of Belloq and Indy being two sides of the same coin.

Marion, of course, tries to escape and runs into Toht. Toht walks in, they do the gag with the coat hanger, and then Toht sits down and, in a creepy, giggling Nazi voice to rival Peter Lorre, suggests that a long night of torture is about to occur.

The next time we see Marion, she shows no signs of being tortured or even strongly questioned. So what happened with her and Toht? I puzzled about this for a long time, and then, while watching the “making of” documentary of 1941 the answer was presented. The coat-hanger gag, it turns out, was originally part of the sequence on Cmdr Mitamura’s submarine. In the earlier movie, it was Nazi Christopher Lee threatening Slim Pickens with the coat hanger. The gag in 1941 is poorly staged and the gag didn’t get the laugh Spielberg wanted, so he insisted that he was going to work the gag into every movie he made until it got a laugh. That movie turned out to be Raiders, and here it is, and it works like gangbusters. And what I realized is that Toht doesn’t torture Marion, or even question her — the scene is there only to include the coat-hanger gag. Once Marion reveals that she is not falling for Belloq, that she has gotten him drunk (shades of Judith of Bethulia) in order to escape, the scene is done — Belloq is betrayed, Marion is caught and Belloq throws her away.

This is, perhaps, the “lesson” Marion needs to learn — the “nice guy” may have power, wealth and influence, but the rough-hewn rogue will give you independence, freedom and adventure — when he’s not causing you to be kidnapped and murdered, anyway.

Indy and Sallah descend into the Well of Souls (imagine my shock to learn there is such a thing!), nab the Ark (I always cringe when, after lifting up the stone lid of the sarcophagus, Indy and Sallah just chuck it to the floor, where it shatters into dust — what the hell kind of archaeologist is this? Some history lover!) and head back, just in time for Belloq to show up to throw Marion down with Indy.

Here’s a question. Belloq has the Ark, Indy knows Belloq’s got the Ark, we know Belloq has the Ark, but does Belloq know he has the Ark? The narrative says yes, absolutely, but after watching the movie oh, approximately fifty million times, I suddenly found myself asking “Hey wait, Belloq doesn’t even open the crate to check to make sure that the Ark of the Covenant is inside. How does he know for sure that he has it?” And, more to the point, why does he seal the Well of Souls with Indy and Marion inside? The moustache-twirling villain answer is obvious enough, but again I have to ask, what kind of brilliant archaeologists are these guys? Indy routinely demolishes sacred temples and Belloq seals the Well of Souls without even taking a look inside. Isn’t he even curious about what sort of things might be found in a super-secret chamber called the Well of Souls? What other treasures might be squirreled away in such a super-secret chamber? There are mummies-aplenty down there, and thousands of snakes, but Belloq doesn’t even seem to care that there might be some cool statuary or illuminative artwork on the walls. He doesn’t even remark on the giant jackal statues holding up the roof. If I was a world-renowned brilliant archaeologist, and I had my nemesis on the ropes, and a million Nazis at my disposal, I’d send a few guys with machine-guns down into the Well of Souls to kill Indy and Marion, drop in some poison gas to kill the snakes, and spend a substantial amount of time quantifying all the mysteries of this room that hasn’t been seen in, you know, four thousand years. But no, Belloq has his crate, he’s perfectly happy to seal up the Well of Souls and head back to Berlin (well, by way of Anonymous Mediterranean Island, to be sure, but still).

Again, another 180-degree character reversal for the protagonist — he begins the chapter as the most powerful man in the world, and ends it locked in a death chamber, powerless (but with his beloved).

CHAPTER 2 (1:10:00 – 1:20:00) : Belloq’s disregard for history is soon topped by Indy, who at least has desperation on his side as he topples one of the jackal statues in order to demolish a wall and get him and Marion out of there.

(Another stupid question: where do the snakes come from, and how do theylive down in the Well of Souls? The narrative indicates that they come from outside, and apparently come and go as they please, but there are thousands of them — what are they eating all this time? And when the army of Nazis are looking for the Well of Souls, how come no one notices the hole in the ground where the thousands of snakes slither out every night looking for food?)

The Escape from the Well of Souls is followed directly by the Fight on the Plane, back-to-back blockbuster scenes, beautifully staged, choreographed and executed. The character beat I note in the Fight is that the Big Guy With Moustache easily bests Indy with one punch, and it isn’t until Indy realizes that Marion’s life is at stake that he gets up and takes him on. Again, the twin pursuits of Marion and Indy butt against each other — Indy, faced with BGWM, thinks twice about pursuing the Ark, but when the potential prize is Marion he finds the strength to fight on.

(At this juncture of the narrative, my five-year-old daughter Kit announced “there aren’t very many women in this movie.” Well, she’s got a point.)

Indy and Marion blow up the plane, causing the Nazis to load it onto a truck instead (which Sallah conveniently stops by to announce).

CHAPTER 3 (1:20:00 – 1:30:00) But the Ark isn’t on the plane, it’s been loaded instead onto a truck. Thus follows a ten-minute truck chase sequence, the longest in the movie, and another tour-de-force masterpiece of action, pace and choreography, ending with Indy getting away with the Ark.

ACT IV involves Belloq re-stealing the Ark from Indy and spiriting it away to the Unnamed Mediterranean Island (with the Secret Nazi Submarine Base), with Indy in pursuit. There is very little character left to be explored in the narrative at this point, just pursuit, capture and spectacle.

CHAPTER 1 (1:30:00-1:39:00) The Ark is loaded onto Capt Katanga’s vessel. Capt Katanga is presented as a red herring — a dark, mysterious, threatening character who turns out to be not only a good guy, but a wily manipulator of others’ perceptions. I’d like to see a movie about Capt Katanga and his adventures carrying risky cargo around the Mediterranean in the 1930s. His name is close enough to Kananga’s in Live and Let Die that I think it’s safe to assume the similarity is intentional (especially when you consider that Indiana Jones was George Lucas’s answer to Spielberg’s desire to direct a James Bond movie).

Belloq gives Marion a white dress and then throws her into the Well of Souls, then Katanga gives her another white dress (this one nicer than Belloq’s, but what do I know). Are we to infer that Marion just doesn’t get it, that men who give her white dresses don’t necessarily have her best interests at heart?

In any case, Marion appears in her white silk dress and Indy takes off his shirt and Marion and Indy have their almost-love-scene. And I find myself wondering about Indy’s relationship with Marion from “ten years ago — ” what did he do to her that was so abominable that it destroyed his relationship with Abner? Here, he’s such a thoughtless lover that he doesn’t even make it through sex — he falls asleep in the middle of the first kiss. And I can see Marion sighing and thinking “geez, at least with Belloq I’d get a decent wardrobe and some good food.”

Moments later, of course, Belloq turns up in a U-boat to grab the Ark and Marion. I can barely watch the deck scene where Belloq and Katanga barter for possession of Marion — not because of the sexual barbarism on display, but because the actress playing Marion is quite obviously freezing to death in her flimsy white dress.

CHAPTER 2 (1:39:00 – 1:44:00): Belloq takes off with the Ark and Marion and heads to Secret Submarine Base Island, with Indy secretly piggy-backing on the deck of the U-boat. Head Nazi Dietrich announces that he’s uncomfortable with “this Jewish ceremony” of opening the Ark, which made me wonder — is Belloq Jewish? He’s already a Frenchman collaborating with the Nazis, but is he also a Jew? The narrative does not say so explicitly, but Belloq dons the Jewish Priest robes and chants in Hebrew — is he “putting on a show” for God, or is he actually a Jew, with his own agenda against the Nazis he moves among? Think of that! If Belloq is a Jew, manipulating not only Indy and Marion, but also the Nazis, into getting him the Ark, planning to screw them all and become ruler of the world, just think of how much more interesting a character that makes him — he’s almost a better protagonist than Indy!

On the way to the Place Where They Open The Ark (how did they decide on this location, I wonder? Why can’t they open it in the submarine dock? Why do they have to shlep across the island to this non-descript grotto?) Indy catches up to them and, disguised as a Nazi (his second disguise of the movie) threatens to blow up the Ark. Belloq calls his bluff and Indy backs down — he cannot destroy the artifact, even though it means that Belloq (and maybe Hitler) might rule the world. And so he is bound, literally, to his other prize, Marion.

(Belloq, of course, goes to The Place Where They Open The Ark because it makes for better drama cinematically, the exact same reason why the aliens land at Devil’s Tower in Close Encounters.)

CHAPTER 3 (1:44:00 – 1:51:00): A chapter of pure spectacle as the Ark is opened and fireworks ensue. My daughter was terrified at this scene — she was perfectly okay with the movie up to this point, but the angel/demons and the Wrath of God freaked her out plenty. My wife has some problems with this scene herself, and I have my own issues, although mine are not the same as my wife’s.

My wife’s problem with the scene is that she feels it’s tacky. The movie has been building up to this moment of what is going to happen when they open the Ark? and then when it’s opened and the Wrath of God is presented, it’s all rather Technicolor and scary and gory, with melting faces and exploding heads, which to her seems like an inconsistency. Myself, I think Spielberg has no higher aspiration here than presenting the Power of God in images that will match those in Cecil B. Demille’s The Ten Commandments, and in this he succeeds well enough.

My problem with the scene is that, after dozens of viewings, I’m still not sure what happens in it. Belloq says some magic words, the Ark is opened, and is revealed to contain sand. What does this mean? The first time I saw the movie I thought “well, that’s the remains of the stone tablets — over the years they’ve been pulverized into sand.” But subsequent viewings make me doubt this reading — we’re clearly meant, I believe, to think Belloq has picked a dud Ark, that it’s just full of the same sand that was sitting around the Well of Souls, or perhaps somewhere in history the tablet fragments have been swiped and replaced with sand to give the Ark some heft.

But then, in spite of the Ark being filled with sand, the magic happens and everyone gets zapped. Why? What does the Ark actually contain? Is it, as Belloq suggests earlier, not the container of the stone tablets at all, but rather “a radio for talking to God?” which would mean that, strictly speaking, there is nothing in the Ark, but the Ark itself is the artifact? But that makes no sense — the Ark was built by whomever to house the remains of the stone tablets, it shouldn’t necessarily have any powers unto itself.

It is, of course, called “The Ark of the Covenant,” which in one way suggests that it’s built to house the Ten Commandments, but in another sense it suggests that it houses an agreement with God, a kind of “hot-line” to God. Although it seems like God is cranky about getting unsolicited calls on this particular hot-line, which makes me wonder what the point of the Ark is in the first place. The New Testament God wouldn’t zap anyone who tried to open his hot-line, he’d ask them to pull up a chair and have some bread and wine while you chat about your troubles. Or maybe he’d have you whipped and tortured in the public square, you never can tell with the New Testament God.

A literal “pillar of fire” rises into the heavens, makes a u-turn and heads back down into the Ark — what is this? Is this some divine energy reaching into Heaven? If so, why does it stop short with the ionosphere and head back, to get locked back in the Ark?

More to the point, why are Indy and Marion spared? Because they “don’t look?” Does that mean that if Toht had had something in his eye when Belloq opened the Ark and turned away at the proper moment he would have been spared too?

(Dramatically, of course, this makes perfect sense. Indy is, essentially, a scientist, a skeptical inquirer obsessed with knowledge. He survives the Ark incident because he makes the decision to remain ignorant of whatever is inside the box. Shades of Pandora.)

Indy reluctantly turns the Ark over to the folks in Washington (getting screwed by the government, who had previously promised to turn the Ark over to the museum). He loses everything — he always does — but gains Marion. “They don’t know what they’ve got there,” grouses Indy, answered by Marion’s “Well I know what I’ve got here,” and Indy makes one small gesture of gentlemanliness by offering her his arm as they stroll down the steps of the government building.

Indiana Jones, of course, begins every movie cynical and jaded and ends every movie enlightened and humble, then starts the whole cycle over the next time. He never learns a thing, which is one of the things that makes him lovable.

A few posts back, one of my readers asked me if there is a Disney reference in all of Spielberg’s movies. I can’t find an overt one in Raiders (unless you want to call the roiling clouds a reference to the “Night on Bald Mountain” sequence in Fantasia), but the closing reference to Welles is unmistakable.

CHAPTER 1 (0:00-12:49): The bit in Peru. It would be difficult for me to overestimate the power of this sequence. The infamous “rolling boulder” looms so large in the memories of the audience of this movie and even in the minds of those who have never seen it that it’s hard to remember that the whole gag goes by in a few seconds. It’s become an icon unto itself, as recognizable a symbol as Bogart’s fedora and the prow of the Titanic. The other day I happened to be in a stereo store with my 5-year-old daughter Kit and Raiders happened to be playing on one of the systems. This opening sequence was showing, and Kit, who knows nothing of Indiana Jones, said “Is this the part with the rolling stone?” Indeed it was, and I got to watch her five-year-old face go slack with wonder and excitement as the latter half of this sequence unfolded before her hungry eyes. I don’t know why the rolling rock works, I’ve seen the sequence too many times to analyze it in any rational way, but it’s one of the handful of indelible moments that form the spine of this movie (two others being the shootout in the Cairo market and the melting Nazi faces at the end).

Part of the reason this sequence works like gangbusters is its kinetic brilliance, but none of that would mean anything if the stunts and gags were not rooted in character. As the sequence starts, Indiana Jones is shown in shadow, a mysterious, difficult-to-read figure (“is he a bad guy?” worried Sam, 6, when Indy whips the gun out of the hand of the Peruvian guy). He is calm, authoritative and magnificently prepared. His li’l Peruvian pal Doc Ock is the perfect stand-in for the audience in the early scenes — he is as frightened, amazed and in awe of Indy and his capabilities as we are. Then, once the idol is in Indy’s hand and the temple starts to come apart, all that calmness and skill goes right out the window and Indy becomes panic-stricken and improvisatory, relying on speed and forward momentum to keep himself alive. (This is, of course, an apt metaphor for the entire movie.) Then Indy emerges from the temple cave barely alive, only to have his prize taken from him by Belloq, who has been following Indy’s party for days in hope of exactly this outcome. Belloq takes the idol and Indy runs away, pursued by the savage hordes. We spend the first half of the sequence in awe of Indy, then when the sequence turns we are placed into his shoes, running for our lives as the character who was “us” (Doc Ock) betrays Indy and makes a quick, violent exit. By the end of the sequence we’re laughing at Indy as he’s reduced to a hapless clown, attacked from all sides, scared of his pilot’s pet snake. The sequence is a perfect introduction to the character, compresses his essential nature into twelve minutes, gives us the movie’s villain, outlines the essential nature of the protagonist’s conflict, and creates a miniature adventure drama that leaves us incapable of any response other than instant love.

(There’s a great stunt toward the end of the sequence, where the traitorous Peruvian porter falls down dead, face first, flat and motionless, with two dozen poison arrows in his back. After seeing this scene a hundred times or so, I finally decided to find out who was responsible for this flawless bit of physical comedy. It is, in fact, Ted Grossman, the Estuary Victim from Jaws.)

CHAPTER 2 (12:49-22:18): Indy at his “day job,” teaching amorous young women (and one apple-polishing young man) about archeology. Obviously, no one in the room is there to learn about ancient civilizations, they’re all there to gaze upon sexy young Indy (I wonder if young women still look at him like that in the new movie). We learn about his attitude toward the artifacts he searches for: he is interested in them only for their historical value, whereas antagonist Belloq is interested in them for the power they will convey unto him (which we see instantly in the Peru scene). (The fact that Indy routinely destroys ancient temples in pursuit of religious artifacts doesn’t weigh very heavily on the movie’s mind — the object, not the location seem to be the important thing.)

We also see Indy’s skeptical nature — he doesn’t buy into any religious significance of any of the items he pursues. Religion is folklore to Indiana Jones. He is a modern man, and the fact that he keeps stating this stance in movie after movie regardless of the magical wonders he witnesses, makes him more modern than ever.

Chapter 2 introduces Indy as a down-and-out loser archaeologist in a dead-end job and brings into his life a pair of US government agents who have the unhappy task of drawing poor Indy and his pal Dr. Brody through a sadly tedious expository scene. I probably had to watch this movie fifteen times or so before I even had any idea what the hell anyone was talking about in this scene — the headpiece of the Staff of Ra, the lost city of Tanis, the Well of Souls, the Ark of the Covenant, it all comes spilling out of characters’ mouths with no dramatization and precious little visual stimulus.

The dramatic point of the chapter is that Indy is getting a second chance at glory after having his Peruvian idol snatched from him. He gratefully leaps at the chance, even as Dr. Brody warns him in plummy tones that the Ark is a dangerous, dangerous artifact, “like nothing you’ve gone after before.” Indy starts the chapter as a desperate loser and ends it as a cocksure winner, back on top and reckless as he tilts his head back on the plane to Nepal and covers his face with his famous hat while a sneaky Nazi peers at him over his copy of Life magazine. This Nazi will become a worth Second Villain to the piece, although at this point we think he is First Villain.

CHAPTER 3 (22:18-33:44): Indy flies to Nepal to see Abner Ravenwood, his mentor, but instead finds Abner’s daughter Marion, tending bar and drinking the locals under the table. We had gotten a little Marion backstory in Chapter 2 and we get more here: apparently, “ten years ago” Indy loved the teenage Marion and left her, which destroyed his relationship with Abner and now puts him in a dicey position with regards to his pursuit of his goal. He needs Marion to hand over the Headpiece of the Staff of Ra (the significance of which is explained in Chapter 2, if one can follow the dense exposition). This requires a little sweet talk from Indy, a task he is not prepared for and executes clumsily. Having failed, he exits the bar on uncertain terms. The Nazi From The Airplane, Toht, enters with a team of henchmen and tries a different approach to acquiring the headpiece, Nazi-style torture.

(Spielberg loves to have two different teams pursuing the same goal for different reasons and with contrasting methods. He uses it in Close Encounters and The Lost World, to name two of the most obvious.)

Indy re-emerges in the role of Clumsy Rescuer, bumbling his way through a complicated fight and shoot-out until Marion can step up and prove her worth as partner to the protagonist. His charm fails but his improvisatory rescue does the job, and Indy and Marion get out of Nepal alive and a step ahead of Toht.

So Indy begins this chapter as a cocksure winner, enters Marion’s bar cautiously as a repentant lout, and ends as a clumsy, scorched-earth rescuer, repeating the dynamic of Chapter 1, and once again destroying the building containing his prize. There are, of course, two prizes here, the Headpiece of the Staff of Ra and Marion, and the remainder of the narrative will dramatize Indy’s struggle to balance the comparative worth of the love of the woman he betrayed and the object he pursues.