From ‘Raiders Of The Lost Ark’ 1981

Dude, I don’t know what to tell you. This film is a goddamn masterpiece. End of discussion. Sure, you can deconstruct it, tear it down, be better than its reputation or the film itself, but all of that nonsense falls flat when the thing unspools onscreen and its infectious brand of adventure, intrigue and fantasy work the alchemical magic of cinema into your soul.

Bear in mind that the success of this film meant nothing short of pure redemption for the boy director Steven Spielberg. Here’s the line, Spielberg is a young upstart director among a rash of fresh young talent in Hollywood. It’s the Seventies, the culture is changing from a puritanical post-war utopia to a slightly less puritanical post-war cynicism. As the purse string holders hands change from once-independent coots and codgers to corporate shareholders, new opinions about how to squeeze the public lead to pandering to the growing sentiment that ‘youth culture’ is lucrative like never before.

Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson, George Lucas, Francis Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Brian DePalma to name a few of the more recognizable creatives of the era are leading this new wave in American cinema. All are intensely and passionately inspired to fuse to their American sensibilities the influence of French, Italian and Japanese film in particular. Many are college-educated in film which again puts them in a new category of filmmaker as directors transitioning from college to the industry is a new development at that time. Armed with the new ratings system, they are poised to achieve greatness, but stakes are high. In some ways the fate of the industry rests in their hands.

Steven Spielberg has had a modest start to his career with some delightful, low-key fare, but cracks everything wide open with the biggest hit to ever grace the silver screen, ‘Jaws’ in 1975. The horror genre is having a moment in the spotlight beginning with Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’ (and the impact of his work overall) and blossoming fully with The Omen, Rosemary’s Baby, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Exorcist and Jaws. With Spielberg, however, the success of his fish tale is (over)shadowed by massive production woes. Over-budget and over-schedule, critics and pundits are waiting for the wave of young directorial success to crest and roll back. Francis Coppola has had a similar near miss as well with ‘The Godfather’ in 1972.

‘Close Encounters Of The Third Kind’, Mr. Spielberg’s follow-up to ‘Jaws’ is also plagued with going very over-budget and over-schedule. This is considered highly unprofessional and typical of a young person, drawing much criticism. But this film too scores at the box office.

Amidst some of the biggest hits in film EVER, there is bound to be a tragic misstep and it seems critics of the day were waiting with baited breath. As far as the popular narrative is concerned, this burden falls on the shoulders of Spielberg himself. Released in 1979, Spielberg’s ‘1941’ is a dismal failure and so the critics now have their ‘I told you so’ moment. Never mind that on top of Spielberg’s failure, he has to share it with FNG’s Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale as the screen writers as well as then up and coming comedy stars, John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. These two turkeys were already labeled ‘not-ready-for-prime time’ by SNL marketing though the fate of ‘1941’ would not hinder their rising stars. Belushi already had ‘Animal House’ and ‘Blues Brothers’ under his belt and 1982’s ‘Continental Divide’ (penned by Lawrence Kasdan, produced by Steven’s Amblin Entertainment) would lend him some legitimacy in the drama department. Though within a year of the film’s 1981 release, Belushi would be dead. Mr. Aykroyd would soon have both ‘Trading Places’ and ‘Ghostbusters’ pushing him to the heights of stardom.

The only one with anything to lose really from the failure of ‘1941’ was Spielberg. He was the one standing firmly on the precipice poised to either take flight or tumble to his death. Tumble he did. And while many licked their chops at the turn of events which seemed to signal the end of a ‘lucky run’, with the help of his friend George Lucas as producer, Spielberg brings in under budget and on schedule, saving his reputation and his career (if either of those things were ever truly in jeopardy), the masterpiece in question, Raiders Of The Lost Ark.

A handful of sequels have followed, but to find more of the cinematic glory brought forth by the confluence of radness that is Raiders, one must look deeper into the past. ‘Treasure Of The Sierra Madre’ is the best place to start.