It was a Friday morning in June of 1981 when THC and his consulting firm colleagues learned they had just lost a major project proposal to a competitor. Expectations had been high that they'd get the job which was critical to the continued viability of the small firm so everyone was very discouraged.
A couple of hours later the boss came around and said "there's a new Spielberg movie coming out today, let's take the rest of the day off and go see it" and so it was that in early afternoon they found themselves in a theater in downtown Boston for the first showing of Raiders Of The Lost Ark which had just opened nationwide. It was an exhilarating experience not to be repeated with the later films in the series which lacked the element of the unexpected, something Raiders had in spades. Crushed spirits disappeared for a few hours and thirty plus years later THC can't remember what the project proposal was about but clearly remembers going to the movies that day. Now that's good managing!
Recently the director Steven Soderbergh (THC favorites of his visually distinctive films are Out Of Sight, The Limey, Ocean's Eleven and Solaris; he's also made some lousy ones) created a new take on Raiders on his website about which he instructs viewers to:
"think only about the staging, how the shots are built and laid out, what the rules of movement are, what the cutting patterns are"adding:
"this filmmaker forgot more about staging by the time he made his first feature than I know to this day."And to enhance your focus this version is in black and white, with no sound except for a soundtrack added by Soderbergh!
THC didn't exactly follow Soderbergh's instructions; he just enjoyed watching the reimagined film. You don't miss the dialogue since for years it has been mandatory for every American to watch the film often enough to know the story and in black and white you see many new details (Soderbergh tells us the cinematographer was Douglas Slocombe, known for his high contrast lighting style which converts well to black and white). Seeing the film this way gives you more chance to focus on the details. In crowd scenes look as far as you can into the picture and see how well Spielberg builds the scene from back to front. Also look at the little visual details in every scene. The overall effect is of something familiar yet different.
Watching this version is rewarding whether you do it from start to finish or just dive in at different points to see specific scenes and leaves you appreciating both Spielberg's original and Soderbergh's approach. The video cannot be embedded so you have to go to Soderbergh's website to view it and read more about his purpose in creating this version.
And THC left the company early in the following year.
So
I want you to watch this movie and think only about
staging, how the shots are built and laid out, what the rules of
movement are, what
the cutting patterns are. See if you can reproduce the thought process
that
resulted in these choices by asking yourself: why was each shot—whether
short
or long—held for that exact length of time and placed in that order? -
See more at: http://extension765.com/sdr/18-raiders#sthash.5q5HPdXp.dpuf
So
I want you to watch this movie and think only about
staging, how the shots are built and laid out, what the rules of
movement are, what
the cutting patterns are. See if you can reproduce the thought process
that
resulted in these choices by asking yourself: why was each shot—whether
short
or long—held for that exact length of time and placed in that order? -
See more at: http://extension765.com/sdr/18-raiders#sthash.5q5HPdXp.dpuf
So
I want you to watch this movie and think only about
staging, how the shots are built and laid out, what the rules of
movement are, what
the cutting patterns are. See if you can reproduce the thought process
that
resulted in these choices by asking yourself: why was each shot—whether
short
or long—held for that exact length of time and placed in that order? -
See more at: http://extension765.com/sdr/18-raiders#sthash.5q5HPdXp.dpuf
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