Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark is the first film in one of the biggest film franchise's of all time. The film stars Harrison Ford as the lead character and is directed by Steven Spielberg. This film is considered to be one of Spielberg's 'rookie' films as it was released in 1981 when Spielberg was still starting out and had only released two previous films that had a similar response by audiences.
The film was given to Spielberg by George Lucas the creator of Star Wars. Lucas had the same inspiration behind both Indiana Jones and Star Wars: B-Movies of the 1930's such as Flash Gordon. Both of them also have a feeling of the supernatural behind them; where Star Wars is set in Space Indiana Jones is an archaeologist who finds rare artifacts with supernatural abilities such as the ark.
Spielberg said to Lucas that he wanted to make a bond film to which Lucas replied that he had something even better Indiana Smith, later changed by Spielberg to Jones. They then sat down with Lawrence Kasdan and wrote the screenplay in just three days.
The film was rejected by many large film companies as they thought the plot was too over the top. Eventually paramount took on Indiana Jones for $20 million. This was a small budget but Spielberg made it work. Raiders of the Lost Ark was shot in Elstree Studios in London as Lucas had done Star Wars there and saw it almost as a good luck charm. To keep costs down but also to seperate the sci-fi (Star Wars) from Indiana Jones Spielberg used sound stage and even built in small scale and created like a graphic novel from the 1930's.
Both Spielberg and Lucas took a lot of inspiration from the serials of the 1930's. Indiana Jones especially was inspired by them; his humour, costume and original characterisation are all inspired by serials of the 1930's. Spielberg said the humour in the film was very deliberate and borders on slap stick comedy, though the humour still applies today. This can also be seen in the fight scenes which were choreographed and so looks slap stick. There was some disagreement over the characterisation of Indy as Spielberg wanted to make him a darker hero like Humphrey Bogart and make Indy an alcoholic however this was cut from the film though some of this characterisation can still be seen in the film such as the scene after Marion's death where Indy is getting drunk to drown his pain. Indy's look was created by Comic book artist Jim Steranko, he channeled the 1930's graphic novel style of the 30's and created the iconic Indiana Jones style. The look was inspired by the 1930's adventure style shown in comics and serials. For instance his jacket was scratched by Harrison Ford's own pocket knife to make it look well worn and loved and his hat which is the most iconic piece of clothing and makes Indy recognisable even when you don't see his face was bought from Savile Row which Harrison Ford sat on to make it look worn.
A big reason why the film was so popular when first released in 1981 was very much to do with the success of Star Wars in past years. The fact that Lucas’ name was involved in this film, and that the actual production of the films are similar, would have made his already established fans want to go see it. However, as time has gone on and technology and the director himself have developed, the contextual importance behind why Raiders was such a popular film has faded, and eventually disappeared, which could be behind the reason why his latest Indiana Jones flick, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008).
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