Episode 57: Box of God(s): On 'Raiders of the Lost Ark'

Weird Studies

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel

Society & Culture, Arts, Philosophy

4.8 • 688 Ratings

🗓️ 9 October 2019

⏱️ 91 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Raiders of the Lost Ark is more than a Hollywood movie made in the summer blockbuster mold. As Phil says in his intro to this popping Weird Studies episode, the film is "a Trojan horse of the Weird, easy to let in but once inside, apt to take over." This conversation sees him and JF discuss a movie we dismiss at our own risk, a cinematic masterpiece replete with enigmas that reach back to the foundations of Western civilization. What does the Ark of the Covenant signify? What does it contain? What happens if you open that box of god(s)? And whose god is this, anyway? These are questions that have puzzled theologians and mystics for centuries, and Steven Spielberg's great work asks them anew for an age gone nuclear. Image by arsheffield REFERENCES Steven Spielberg, Raiders of the Lost Ark Steven Soderbergh’s version of Raiders with sound and color removed Weird Studies Patreon extra, “Weird Genius” Weird Studies episode 28, “Weird Music Part 2” Camille Saint-Saëns, Danse Macabre M. Night Shyamalan, Signs Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon Neil Jordan (dir.), The End of the Affair Weird Studies episode 29, “On Lovecraft” Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, The Occult Roots of Nazism Howard Carter, British archaeologist Jorge Luis Borges, “The Library of Babel” Claude Levi Strauss, French anthropologist Clement Greenberg's concept of medium specificity D. W. Griffith, Birth of a Nation David Mamet, On Directing Film Dumbo (1941 film) H. P. Lovecraft, “The Strange High House in the Mist” Jan Fries, Helrunar: A Manual of Rune Magick Neil Gaiman, American Gods GIF of the soldier moving funny at the end of Raiders Weird Studies episode 2, “Garmonbozia” Aaron Leitch, occultist Austin Osman Spare, The Book of Pleasure Gene Wolfe, [Soldier of the Mist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoldieroftheMist)_ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Spectrevision Radio.
0:03.3	Welcome to Weird Studies, an arts and philosophy podcast with hosts Phil Ford and J.F. Martel.
0:23.3	For more episodes or to support the podcast, go to weirdst. I'm Phil Ford.
0:53.6	A McGuffin is something that the main characters in a movie are all chasing after.
0:58.5	It could be a suitcase full of money, a priceless work of art, or a doomsday weapon.
1:03.4	But whatever it is, it matters a lot to the characters.
1:06.7	To the audience, though, the McGuffin matters only to the degree that it moves the plot along.
1:12.0	Now, three of the four movies in the Indiana Jones franchise are propelled by MacGuffins,
1:17.2	the Sankara Stones, the Holy Grail, the Crystal Skull.
1:21.3	However, in the first and best of these films, Raiders of the Lost Ark,
1:25.4	the obligatory mysterious lost ancient artifact is no
1:29.3	McGuffin. It might look like one. I mean, it's an ornate gold box, and it does turn out to be a
1:35.1	weapon of sorts. But it's what's in the box accounts. And what's in the box is God, Yahweh,
1:43.1	the God of the Hebrews, the Old Testament God. That God is a character
1:48.3	of sorts, albeit a dangerous and enigmatic character we never see directly, and whose motivations
1:54.3	we can only guess. We can scarcely recognize the God in the box. It is inhuman, strange, cruel, and infinitely old,
2:03.7	more like Lovecraft's great old ones than the god of our churches. As a matter of fact,
2:08.9	maybe it's not one God, maybe it's a whole bunch of them. Needless to say, when Indiana Jones
2:15.9	and the Raiders of the Lost Art came out in 1981,
2:18.8	neither I nor any of the kids at school thought about any of this stuff.
2:22.5	We didn't think it was an imperishable work of cinema.
2:25.5	We just thought it was a lot of fun.
	...

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