Movies That Changed My Life: Raiders Of The Lost Ark

During spring break of 1981, my parents took me to Washington DC. I was nearly nine years old and elated about the trip. We saw the capitol and the White House. There were visits to the various halls of the Smithsonian and while eating at a table in front of a pizza joint, a motorcade went by with Anwar Sadat and his aides inside. Do you have any idea how exciting it is for an eight - almost nine - year old to get to see the President of Egypt in the flesh? As great as that was, and still is, the highlight of the trip would be going to the Natural History Museum to see the dinosaur exhibit. Except that when we arrived, the dino exhibit was "Closed For Renovations".

After a full fifteen minutes of sobbing, snot-wiping and wishing it to not be so, my folks corralled me away from the gathered onlookers and took me for ice cream. Even a double scoop of chocolate chip could not heal my wounds that day. So, my parents began hatching a plan to remedy the situation later that very summer. They said that after school let out, we would take a trip to Toronto.

Now you know you're loved when your folks plan another vacation just to make up for the fact that the dinosaurs you've pined so hard for, were unseeable. I mean it's just bones and wire, but my third grade soul could accept no substitute. We soldiered happily through our remaining time in the nation's capitol and I began to fantasize about the collection of T-Rexes and Brachiosaurs that the Royal Ontario Museum had to offer.

After the school year ended my folks made good on their promise. We packed the car and headed to Canada, which from our home in Michigan's thumb, was only four or so hours away. That evening we checked in to our hotel and in the lobby I found a brochure for the Royal Ontario Museum. I pored over its contents and photos until I finally fell asleep, dreaming of running with the Stegosaurus and watching the Pterodactyls fly overhead.

We arrived the hour the museum opened and I insisted that we head for the dinosaurs first. Our tickets were handed over and guide maps were doled out and I bee-lined for the dinosaur wing. Almost immediately, I saw the sign. CLOSED FOR RENOVATION. Could this be possible? Was there some great conspiracy to prevent me from seeing the creatures of the Jurassic era? After the initial stage of denial, I moved to the second and most prolonged stage of grief for the American eight year old: Anger and Tears.

A full meltdown ensued and it was worse than the D.C. episode. My sobs and cries echoed back and forth of the marble halls of Toronto's glorious old museum. There is much of the next several hours that I have blocked out of my memory completely. It seems that we must have seen the rest of the museum, but I have no memory of it. Until our early dinner that evening at the Spaghetti Factory, I can recall virtually nothing.

After dinner, the suggestion surfaced that maybe a movie would cheer me up. I was not in the mood, but I was quickly instructed that I would not, "Sit in the hotel room feeling sorry for myself". The vacation was a family outing and we were going to see a movie.

Arriving at the theater, I saw a cartoonish poster with a series of images that included snakes, a man appearing to be in mid-scream, and a guy with a whip wearing a fancy hat. My bullshit meter went through the roof and I assumed that I was being dragged to some dumb-ass Disney thing with a couple of clever kids and an evil witch or some shit. Never mind that there were no kids anywhere on the poster. It seemed certain that I was being patronized with a sort of dreck I didn't even like anymore. The sophisticated tastes of a Midwestern nine year old were too much for my parents to handle and they just ducked into the first movie hall they could find with a "family style film" showing that night. Oh Lord, how wrong I was.

It seems certain to me now that after thirty years of consideration, in many ways I had not truly seen a film before Raiders Of The Lost Ark. Sure, I had watched lots of movies, and even enjoyed them greatly. But, this was an experience alone unto itself.

The music made the blood pump faster. Harrison Ford's charm and cool and wit made you positive he was the coolest dude on the planet. I watched Nazis and Egyptian and Gypsies fight over lost relics and talk about the Bible like a treasure map in a Robert Louis Stevenson novel and not like some boring ass Sunday school lesson. This shit can make the Bible seem interesting? I'm sold.

From the motorcycle chases to fighting natives in the jungle to wondering why it had to be snakes, and of course to that massive and unforgettable boulder, I was utterly transfixed. The memory of missed dinosaurs vanished and I was ready to trade my natural history penchant in for a pith helmet and an Archaeology workshop at a moment's notice. The misery and horror from earlier that very day had melted away in the powerful glow of a projector.

Hundreds of movies have this effect on millions of people. It is corny and trite and obvious to say that movies are transformative. That of course, is inherent in their nature. What happened to me in that theater in a country not so far away was that I noticed that power for the first time. I realized I was in the church of the cinema and I was a devout believer.

I now have children of my own and have watched Raiders with them. For them it is another movie they sort of enjoyed that their old man likes a little too much. It feels great to watch it with them and I still love it a great deal. But even with them, it can never be like that first time that night in Toronto when I was just a sad little boy hunting for dinosaurs.