The morality of Raiders; or, how Spielberg has "grown in office"

They say you don't miss the water till the well runs dry. All this excitement about the new Indiana Jones movie made me think about the first one and how it fired up my imagination. It also made me think about how Raiders differed from a more recent production by Steven Spielberg, Munich, and how it in fact surpassed it.

I didn't see Munich, but it was clear from reviews I read like these that there was a moral equivalency drawn between the Israeli commandos and the Palestinian terrorists they were tracking down.

It just struck me today how different that is from the central conflict in Raiders. The adversaries in Raiders are not so much Indy v. the Nazis as Indy vs. his foil, Belloq, played with oleaginous zest by Paul Freeman. Each of these guys stands in for a nation—Jones for the U.S., Belloq—a Vichy S.O.B.—for Nazi Germany, although neither is an unthinking pawn of his country. Indy is clearly critical of the U.S. handles the Ark at the end, and one suspects from his discussions with Marcus Brody that his true loyalty is to science and his beloved Marshall College than to the dull OSS bureaucrats who send him on his way.

Belloq, likewise, considers himself superior to his Nazi associates and regards the arrangement as one of convenience. He also wants the Ark for science, not (as the Nazis do) as an instrument for world conquest.

And the reason the movie worked so well is that Belloq is a perfect foil for Indiana Jones, and they both know it. Belloq constantly needles Jones at every one of their meetings about how "we are not so different, you and I"...which attempts at equivalence always earn a sharp retort from Jones.

Belloq, of course, has a point. When Jones intercepts the procession of the Ark on the Nazi island and levels a bazooka at it, Belloq calls his bluff. Go ahead, he dares Indy, blow it "back to God". Which Indy just can't bring himself to do.

So the men are similar, yes. But as shown by the horrific judgment that follows—manifested through the faux-priesthood of Belloq who opens the Ark—they are not equivalent. Jones realizes at the last minute that he is participating in a desecration, not a scientific exploration, and wills himself (and Marion) to look away.

Meanwhile Belloq, remember, does more than just crowbar the top off the Ark. All duded up in Old Testament priestly vestments, he overrides the (well-placed, in retrospect) objections of head Nazi Dietrich to "this Jewish ritual" and stares down directly into the depths (...the abyss looks back...) of the opened Ark. Remember earlier that Belloq had described the Ark as a "transmitter" for talking to God. He wants to look upon God's face, which is something he (and Indy) know is forbidden. And because of his hubris, he becomes literally the transmitter of God's wrath into the assembled ranks of evil Nazis.

...then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods...

Jones and Belloq, like Munich's Mossad agents and Palestinian assassins, are rough men who use questionable, illegal, or violent means to achieve their goals. But Jones and Belloq are not morally equivalent, are they? Now, you can tell me that Munich was supposed to be a serious movie about real issues, and Raiders was just a goof, a cartoonish silly pastiche of old 1940's serials cobbled together with some hokey religious fantasy thrown in. Maybe, but Munich is already forgotten while Raiders remains timeless, a film I look forward to showing my own kids when they get older, one that everyone has seen and can recognize and quote from.

Besides, which film is further from reality: one in which the Nazi assassins and their collaborators are portrayed as unvarnished, hideous metaphysical evil, and those who oppose them are, though flawed, serving God's will—or one in which PLO assassins who murdered innocent Jewish athletes are humanized, softened, and painted with a palate of grays, the same shades used to flesh out the flawed but earnest men who bring them to justice?

In retrospect, despite its being a popcorn flick, despite the unpardonable sin of being a riproaring good story, it looks like Raiders also had a lot more moral depth than Munich did.

Two rights are in a sense competing. You can't bring that to a simplicity. --Steven Spielberg