What I want to know is what’s the significance of the sand inside the Ark? My Da always said it was the ‘sands of time.’
It’s all that remains of the Ten Commandments… “The actual stone tablets that Moses brought down Mt Herod and smashed. If you believe that sort of thing.”
Exactly, although I think that this final realization by Indy is rather critical in appreciating his character arc in the film.
Remember that throughout the film, he dismisses the full gravity of his search. Marcus tries to warn him at Indy’s home, but he relegates it to the “boogeyman”. The seer reads the inscription off the headpiece, but Indy rushes him past the warning to get the staff height. Even discussing the ark’s history with the Feds at the beginning, his caveat is “if you believe that sort of thing”. In his class, he emphasizes the importance of Folklore, but for him it’s an abstraction.
And also remember that the original title of the film is called Raiders of the Lost Ark (the “Indiana Jones and” was only added later for commercial reasons). Indy is as much a violator of the sacred as anyone else. He may be one of the “good guys”, but the Ark is greater than national identities or global politics. Belloq may come off as a bit of a fanatic, but he’s right in that (within the story of the film), the Ark is a direct link to God. The problem is that he’s arrogant enough to believe that he’s ready to look at God in the face.
So Indy’s tied up. He’s not going anywhere. He’s a professor, a historian, an intellectual, and so someone who’s going to have a natural curiosity about the contents of the Ark. So when something truly amazing is about to take place, why doesn’t he look? Why doesn’t he choose to satisfy this curiosity?
Because at that moment, he becomes a believer. This is his moment of conversion. His skepticism and lack of faith is supplanted by a feeling, an intuition that he’s out of his depth. Even though there have been absolutely no indications of any type of supernatural element in the film (and probably his life*) up to this point, he knows that something truly awesome and powerful is about to take place. So even though he has no good empirical reason to do so, he shuts his eyes. And in thus humbling himself, he’s allowed to live.
Personally, I think it makes Indy that much more interesting a character, and it’s the single greatest demonstration of Faith in any of the Indy films. Even in Last Crusade, his final search for the Grail is motivated by saving the life of his father. He may not believe, but it’s worth a shot when his dad’s life is on the line. But tied up with Marion, all but forgotten during the ceremony, what does he have to lose by watching? On the surface, nothing. There’s no good reason not to look, except that he knows in his heart that it would represent some sort of transgression. Faith is the conviction in something absent any physical evidence or proof. And for that critical moment, Indy is a man of faith.
It’s a marvelous moment that allows the film to resonate in a way that the other sequels miss. Close Encounters may be Spielberg’s greatest examination of faith (in all its stark, obsessive, and contradictory qualities), but I think Raiders is a provocative and underappreciated treatment of the subject as well.
*the supernatural moments in the prequel Temple did not yet exist when the film was first released
It’s my belief that during the trip back to Delhi, Indy convinced himself that everything that happened had a rational explanation. And aside from the heart-ripping (which can be handwaved away with the explanation that Indy was too far away to see what was really happening), everything does.
Wellll… also at that moment shit started happening. He decides to close his eyes after the lights flicker and the lightshow starts. So it is more of an oh crap this might be real moment rather than a leap of faith.
The whole business about the contents of the ark being deadly was not a surprise to me at the time and I never really thought about it. I’m not Jewish so maybe it came from other movies I have watched. I remember one of the 50s biblical epics where someone touched the ark and instantly died (might have been Solomon and Sheba).
There are several other more puzzling things in the movie, most have been pointed out in other threads. What are the Nazis doing in Egypt in 1935 with armed troops? Wouldn’t the British be pissed? Where the hell did that flying wing come from? In 1935 they were just developing the ME109, some of the more creative designs were years away (and that flying wing never existed). Why are all the Germans running around with MP40s? It didn’t exist at the time and wasn’t fielded until 1940 (the name is a clue). What the hell was that RPG that Indy grabbed?
Still love the movie. I watched it the other day with my daughter. It was her first viewing.
Of course G-d can do that too. He can do anything.
Bonus incongruity for you: almost none of the snakes in the Well of Souls are native to North Africa.
And when they did so they invariably had a watch crew on the bridge. Where would Indy be able to hide then? Underneath the deck gun?
I was thinking of fanwanking this:
The Nazi’s applied for the permits (through Belloq the Frenchman) to dig at a site.
Since the site may be remote, they request, and receive permission, to hire and bring a “private security force”, to protect against bandits and vandalism. (Don’t modern digs need security?) The security force actually is, of course, made up of German soldiers.
However, the dudes running around in Wermacht uniforms is tougher to fanwank. Unless the dig is really really remote, someone is bound to notice. (But maybe they were noticed, but various minor British or Egyptian officials were bribed to look the other way?)
He ties his whip to the propeller guard, and hides in the subs wake. 
http://www.navsource.org/archives/08/0817808.jpg (for example of prop guard)
ArchiveGuy, well said! I’ve seen the movie a dozen times - loving it anew, each time - and I never saw it that way. Thanks.
mlees, linky no worky.
Yeah, that post was excellent.
Hmm. Works for me, even after rebooting my pc to clear any cookies or bookmarks.
There is a cylindrical metal railing welded to the rear of the hull of a sub, and looks like a balcony railing, only horizontal instead of vertical. It’s there to try to keep ropes, nets, or other stuff hanging off the sub from getting entangled in the propellers
Um, yes. That’s the whole point. It’s inspired by weekly serials, where something suddenly happens in the final chapter and saves the hero’s ass without much prior setup. It’s literally a deus ex machina, and that’s intentional.
Umm, no – everything else in the film was well set-up in advance. Even in a serial, the director isn’t supposed to be just “winging it”.
Archive Guy’s interpretation is a very good and interesting one, but it still doesn’t absolve Lucas and Spielberg of their need to account for Indy’s behavior regarding the “don’t look at it” It DOESN’T follow from your knowledge of Judaism, or the Old Testament, or the picture in the Bible at the beginning (and the Rays that shoyt out of the Ark and pierced the Nazis didn’t go through their eyes – they went through their chests).
I’m not alone in my feelings of “What th…?” upon seeing this scene, now or whemn it was new. I’ve heard too many other people voice the same question.
I like ArchiveGuy’s take on Indy becoming a believer, and closing his eyes out of humility & fear.
As for the well of souls (what did all those snakes EAT, for goodness’ sake?), I think they were supposed to be working in there all night.
The sub? How about dumb luck, poor planning, and coincidence?
Somehow, I don’t think that was a photo.
Wait. What? I saw all of the Indy movies on their first-runs but never got the memo that Temple of Doom was a prequel. Where does that come from? I have always seen them as chronological. They even make more sense as being chronological from the viewpoint of Indy’s acceptance of the supernatural.
I had composed a post attempting to say more or less what ArchiveGuy said. Then I previewed, read his post, and thought, “Crap, that was way better than I could have put it!” So thanks a lot! 
What’s really crucial, I think, is that it wasn’t just faith that saved Indy’s life – it was his humility and reverence for the power of the Ark. As ArchiveGuy said, Belloq certainly had “faith” of a sort, but that wasn’t enough to save him, because he was also arrogant enough to think he could *control * the Ark. Indy, however, was wise and good-hearted enough to realize that the Ark was too holy to be controlled by any man, and that is what saved him. I especially like how this was foreshadowed by Indy’s refusal to blow up the Ark when he had the chance. At that point he had to assume he was dead meat (and Marion along with him), and yet he still couldn’t bring himself to do it.
On the other hand, the swimming-out-to-the-submarine scene still bugs me. It just seems like such an easily-fixable plot hole, and yet they didn’t bother. My personal fanwank explanation: the sub never submerged, and Indy avoided the guards on deck via an early prototype of what would later be called the Jack Bauer Hoodie of Invisibility. 
Yep. My take on that scene was that what ‘clicked’ wasn’t that he have to close eyes - he knew well before that people are supposed not to look at ark. What actually ‘clicked’ at that moment when clouds started gathering was his realization that it’s real. That it’s not just old stone chest that some desert nomads thought is holy, but it’s indeed ‘radio transmitter to God’. And that guy on the other end of receiver isn’t nice, white-bearded cloud-wearing old man, but old testament, very pissed-off God.
On the preview, I have nothing to say but join to kudos to Archiveguy.
They could have easily fixed the scene by strapping the ark of the deck of the sub because there is no way it would have fit down the hatch anyhow, then or now.