Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) is a non-stop action film that came out of nowhere in the summer of 1981 and left its impression because it evoked similarly styled Saturday matinee films of ere -- the kind that filmmakers George Lucas and Seven Spielberg saw as kids.
Pictured up top is the epiphanic moment, when the Nazis, now in possession of the ark and its magical contents (remnants of Moses's God-given "Commandment" tablets), open its lid.
What at first is a disappointment of sand quickly turns into clouds and fog. "It's beautiful!" cries the Nazi's French archaeologist, Belloch, who conducts the ceremony that allows the ark its second life.
"Whatever you do, don't look!" our hero Indiana Jones tells Marion, his once and future girlfriend.
Seventeen years later (or 64 in the film's years) Indiana and Marion are wheeled into Marion Goodman Gallery to see Jeff Wall's The Flooded Grave (1998/2000) and are re-traumatized, if there was such a thing back then.
