Stephen Spielberg's Raiders Of The List Ark

Stephen Spielberg's Raiders Of The List Ark

I this essay I am intending to view a Steven Spielberg film - "Raiders

Of The Lost Ark" and analyse hoe different individuals and social

groups are portrayed. The film is the first in the series of

successful Indiana Jones films where he quests to save the world

against ancient religions and powers. His quest takes him through many

social groups such as Arabs, Napalese Sherpas, Native Indians and

Americans, which I will analyse how they are portrayed.

In this film Spielberg represents men as violent and murderous. He

shows this where Jones shoots the Arab swordsman and shows no regret

and where the Gestapo agent threatens Marian and he is virile. Another

example to enforce the representation is that men - the Gestapo Agent,

Belloq, the Nazis' and Indy are the basis of the story and all of

these male roles all use violence. This is done because men

stereotypically are dominant and violent when sorting problems out.

This is enforced where the men always use violence to solve

situations, for example all the fight scenes. Men are also shown as

hostile and amoral; this is shown when Indy and Belloq are talking in

the bar. He shows these two as hostile because he wants to emphasize

the tension between them and how important the ark is to them both.

Even though Belloq is a mean man who resorts to violence he also

contradicts himself and cares deeply for Marian and doesn't want to

see her killed. Spielberg shows him like this to shows that he to is

human and has all types of feelings like other Nazi agents. Indiana

Jones is shown as violent in the film but not in the same way that the

others are portrayed. He will resort to violence to achieve his goal

(him shooting people and fighting people) but he does this for the

better. He is shown like this because this was the "typical" 1935

character; he will protect the girl at all costs and is the "good

guy".