nothing else has come close
There are some great shots in Raiders of the Lost Ark . I will inevitably get into a rant about how awful Indy is as a person (probably tomorrow), but importantly, the film never tells us that he is a good person. So, today, I will ignore Indy and look at Spielberg's work. From a great shot with mist and sunlight through the trees in the opening sequence to that warehouse matte painting in the final shot, Spielberg frames things nicely. But, even better--and this probably comes from screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan more than from anybody else--are a couple key moments of foreshadowing and... Whatever you call explaining something ahead so that when it happens we don't need useless dialogue. And, I don't mean the snake thing. That's basic stuff. Also, an odd detail I noticed yesterday (and maybe I'd seen it before, but it stood out yesterday): that bit where Sapito gets Indy to throw him the idol and then drops the whip--there are stone walls on either side of them, an...