Steven Soderbergh cut the color and soundtrack from ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ to study film technique

Raiders of the Lost Ark is a classic, and stands up as one of Steven Spielberg’s finest films. But, while most of us fell in love with the fight scenes and special effects, Steven Soderbergh seemingly admired the director’s singular gift for staging. Soderbergh writes on site that staging “refers to how all the various elements of a given scene or piece are aligned, arranged, and coordinated.” To expose Spielberg’s mastery of the technique — according to him, few people even do it well — he produced a black-and-white version of the film with a whole new soundtrack as a way to make us consider how each scene is created and shot. It’s nowhere near as extreme as what he did with Heaven’s Gate, but it’s a powerful way to make fans think about the filmmaking process. You can watch the film in its entirety at Extension 765.