![]() When Indy stands up, the forced perspective of Spielberg’s framing makes it appear as if the archaeologist’s hand is eagerly hovering over the treasure. So when Indy and Satipo pause in the foreground of a shot and strategize about how to grab the glistening idol from the far side of the chamber, the small gold statue can be seen in the space between them, seducing them both in soft focus and anticipating the conflict to come. The New Hollywood wunderkind was raised on motion pictures in a way that taught him to look at the world through the lens of a camera, and he naturally conveys even the most basic information with an eye towards how it can better contextualize his characters in a Spielberg film, everything that you see (and how you’re allowed to see it) exists in the service of a single purpose, because - unlike in real life - it can be. Stripped of their expositional utility, the famous opening sequence of Indy’s first adventure suddenly calls new (or at least far more pronounced) attention to the unrepentant movieness of it all - to the sheer unreality of how Spielberg shoots his way into this story. The effect is rather extreme, even for those of us who have always gotten drunk off the kinetic grace of Spielberg’s direction. And then there’s the lack of color, which heightens the contrasts in Douglas Slocombe’s lustrous cinematography and turns every shadow into a signal for where to look, like a glowing weak spot in a video game boss fight. You’ll wince at the “Music by John Williams” title card, but there’s a method to this madness. “Raiders” certainly makes that easier to try.The fractal-like bleeps and bloops that Fincher commissioned for “The Social Network” are so obviously for the soundtrack from the moment the movie begins that it severs the relationship between sound and image and segregates every aspect of the film into its own discrete element. “See if you can reproduce the thought process that resulted in these choices.” “I want you to watch this movie and think only about staging, how the shots are built and laid out, what the cutting patterns are,” Soderbergh wrote alongside his post of the edit. The main thing that Soderbergh wants people to look at with fresh eyes is Spielberg’s impeccable command of cinematic space. Like that one film professor you had in college who (correctly?) insisted that you can learn as much about editing from Tony Scott as you can from Sergei Eisenstein, Soderbergh slips into a tweed blazer and transforms the highest-grossing movie of 1981 into a hypnotic masterclass of movement and time. ![]() It isn’t even like when he seamlessly edited Gus van Sant’s shot-for-shot remake of “Psycho” into the original that experiment had an additive bent to it, while “Raiders” is all about stripping away Spielberg’s upholstery so that it’s easier to appreciate the incredible craftsmanship underneath. ![]() This isn’t like the time that he assembled an 108-minute “Butcher’s Cut” of “Heaven’s Gate” in order to streamline Michael Cimino’s epic fiasco into something more palatable. Which brings us to Soderbergh’s “Raiders,” his 2014 recut of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” that drains all of the color out of Steven Spielberg’s whip-cracking adventure classic and replaces its sound with a thick, messy, and deliberately obstructive wall of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross tracks from “The Social Network” and “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” Keep in mind that he isn’t trying to improve Indiana Jones’ iconic debut. But every once in a while - maybe during that interminable, Sartre-esque long night of the soul between finishing post-production on one film and starting pre-production on another the next morning - Soderbergh is compelled to look in the rear-view mirror and show people what made him obsess about movies in the first place. Usually that means forging a new path into the future. Sam Neill Recalls Being 'Slightly Irked' by 'Jurassic Park' Marketing CampaignĢ3 Controversial Film and TV Book Adaptations That Rankled Their Audiences and AuthorsĢ023 Emmys Predictions: Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or a Movie TCM Classic Film Festival 2023: Hollywood Titans Support Saving Movie Memories At the end of the day, Soderbergh loves cinema with an Erin Brockovich-like passion, and he just wants to cut through the noise that can make it harder for the art to shine through. ![]() It’s the difference between “Mosaic” and Quibi. And yet you never get the sense that he’s more interested in breaking shit than he is in making the movies better, and less compromised by the business around them. ![]()
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