Raiders and Irony: Why do We Laugh at Indy’s Cowardly Cold-Blooded Murder? Timothy Sexton College

Raiders of the Lost Ark contains many spectacular and memorable scenes that linger in the memory and provide a better education in the art of cinematic storytelling than a four-year degree at some lesser universities. What is often lost amid all the excitement and adventure is that perhaps above all else that can be said about the film, it is an absolutely indispensable textbook for every wannabe filmmaker on the singular art of cinematic irony. Writer Lawrence Kasdan and director Steven Spielberg unveil almost every conceivable example of how irony can be particularly effective when presented visually and thematically on the silver screen. Raiders of the Lost Ark mainlines irony with almost the feverish addiction of an addict mainlining heroin.

The ironic moment that many viewers perhaps most immediately recall from the film is that infamous showdown between Indy and the saber-slinging slasher who is introduced and presented in a fashion suggesting that this showdown is going to make all the other fighting set pieces of the film almost fade into obscurity by comparison. Indy has just spent a considerable chunk of screen time fighting off villainous would-be assassins coming at him from every direction and all that effort now...