What's your favourite scene from a film? The one that gives you goosebumps when you think about it. The one you can quote word for word and you know every single beat of it. That one bit that if you come across it on TV you have to sit down and watch it and then more than likely the rest of the film?
I've a few. It's too hard to just pick one.
But at this very moment it's the climax of Raiders Of The Lost Ark. The opening of the Ark Of The Covenant. The Ark was where the tablets containing the 10 Commandments were kept. Supposedly it had the power of god and could level mountains and lay waste to entire armies. Hitler wants it and Indiana Jones wants to stop him getting it.
It's a scene that never gets old. It never gets boring. And it never ever fails to give me goosebumps.
I'm fairly sure the vast majority of the 6 people who will read this have seen it so we'll skip the film and just set the scene. The Nazi's have both the Ark in their possession and Indiana and Marion captured. They are on a small remote Island in the Aegean Sea and Belloq ( Indy's enemy and the big bad of the film ) wants to see what's in the Ark before he presents it to Hitler. He's going to ritually open it. He's flanked by his cohorts Colonel Dietrich and Major Toht and the whole thing is being watched by a couple of dozen soldiers lighting and filming it all. Indy and Marian are tied up and watching too. There's an eerie air about the place. John William's haunting score isn't helping matters. The irony of an old Jewish ritual being done by evil German's is not lost on us. The ark is opened. Everyone leans forward for a look. Belloq reaches in and...........................finds sand. He's sickened. Feck. Toht starts to laugh manically. All their work for this?
But then we hear an ominous pulsing noise. Something is happening. Something very strange. Fog begins to pour from the ark. Strange flashes of light and rumblings of thunder appear within. Then ghostly figures start to drift from it. Everyone is freaked but mystified. They back away but can't look away. Except Indy. Cos he knows what time it is. He knows the true power of the Ark and what it can do. "Marian, don't look at it. Shut your eyes Marion don't look at it no matter what happens!" This is the moment we realise it's all going to kick off. More apparitions pour from within. Haunting angelic faces swirl through the people watching. Belloq is delighted with himself and proclaims "IT'S BEAUTIFUL!!" and then very quickly it's not.
Just watch the link below for one of the all time best and still scariest movie scenes.
It's quite stunning that this film was rated PG. 80's family films were like snuff movies compared to the tameness of blockbusters releases these days.
I was 8 the first time I saw this film. I fell in love with it and 30 years later I still do. And this scene still gets me. Goosebumps every single time. As a young lad it was the scene of the angelic face turning malevolent that did me in. That moment combined with the score going from haunting to petrifying. I dived behind a chair for safety but crucially I kept watching. Enthralled. The wrath of god lashing out against the Nazis. Scores of them being smited and the worst punishment being kept for the main baddies. What a crowd pleaser of a scene. I'd have loved to have seen it in the cinema in 1981 with a huge unsuspecting crowd. I'd say there was bedlam.
Brilliant stuff.
So? What's yours?
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