A Face Melting Good Movie By Logan Hessek

Contents  3 – Definition of Plot development stages  4 – Stage 1: Exposition  5 – Stage 2: Complicating Action  6 – Stage 3: Climax Stage 4: Resolution  7 – Definition of dangling cause  8 – Example: Snakes  9 – Example:  10 – Example:  11 – Definition of Motif  12 – Example: Colors  13 – Example: Actions  14 – Example: Music  15 – Example: Music contd.  16 – Conclusion  17 – Citations

Four Stages of Plot Development  Exposition – Characters are introduced  Complicating Action – An issue arises and the protagonist takes on the quest  Climax – The Protagonist must make important decisions and fight the antagonist  Resolution – The problem is solved and a lesson is learned from the story

Exposition  The ark is introduced and Indy finds out that Nazis are after it  Marion and Indy nearly get killed from the men who enter the bar who are also after the ark

Complicating Action  The Nazis are digging in the wrong place  They find Indy in a hole with the ark  The Nazis take the ark  Indy and Marion are sealed in the tomb  The two break out but have more Nazis to deal with

Climax and Resolution  Indy has a car chase with the Nazis  Then he sneaks onto a German U-boat to the Nazi island  Nazis open ark and die from seeing the holy covenant  The ark is sealed away among many other boxes

Dangling Cause  Lines, images and actions shown early in the film that are significant later on  Similar to a Motif  The key difference is that a motif uses those same things throughout the film to make things more understanding  A dangling cause just shows something twice- once early on and a second time near the end

Cause One - Snakes  Early in the film – Indiana finds a snake on a plane that he escapes in. He says he hates snakes  Significance – Later, he finds himself trapped in a tomb full of venomous snakes

Cause Two – The Contents of the Ark  Early in the movie, we see a rat in the warehouse where the ark is and as soon as it stares looks at the ark, it starts acting all weird  At the very end of the movie, we find out why the rat acted the way it did because when the Nazis open the ark, they all die

Cause Three – Marion  When the truck blows up, Indy think that Marion was killed because she was tied up in the back  Later though, when Indy goes looking for the ark, he finds Marion unharmed, but held captive in a Nazi tent.

Motif  Something that repeats many times in a movie  Color  Image  Sound  Music

Motif One - Colors  The color red was repeated many times in the film through various significant objects  Nazi flag – Shown throughout the movie  Gas barrel – Shown when Indy is spraying the gas on the snakes to keep them back and burn them

Motif Two – Music  Indiana’s Theme – Whenever Indy was in the middle of doing a brave thing his theme would play  His theme was quieter when he was preparing to do something heroic and there was no action  Marion’s Theme – Her theme would play even when she wasn’t around and Indy was either talking about her or thinking about her

Motif Two – Music Contd. The Ark’s theme also plays when it’s being discussed  The theme also plays when Indy is being lowered into the tomb to let us know that it’s down there  Finally, we hear the ark’s theme at the end of the movie when it’s in that box

Epic Conclusion  Raiders of the Lost Ark was a great film because it had all those motifs and dangling causes  The transitions from each stage were well timed because they were each about a half an hour  Everything in the film was necessary to move it forward  The occasional scenes where it seems impossible for something to be done we forgive because it still fits in nicely to the film

Citations  N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Sept