Steven Soderbergh Took the Sound and Color Out of “Raiders of the Lost Ark”

Steven Soderbergh created a colorless and soundless version of "Raiders of the Lost Ark."

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Image via Complex Original
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Steven Soderbergh just revisited Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark and made two huge adjustments, by removing all color and sound from the film.

Soderbergh explained the project by talking about the importance of staging:

1.

"I value the ability to stage something well because when it’s done well its pleasures are huge, and most people don’t do it well, which indicates it must not be easy to master (it’s frightening how many opportunities there are to do something wrong in a sequence or a group of scenes."

He then indicates how he wants viewers to study the staging, just as he would:

2.

"So I want you to watch this movie and think only about staging, how the shots are built and laid out, what the rules of movement are, what the cutting patterns are. See if you can reproduce the thought process that resulted in these choices by asking yourself: why was each shot—whether short or long—held for that exact length of time and placed in that order? Sounds like fun, right? It actually is. To me. Oh, and I’ve removed all sound and color from the film, apart from a score designed to aid you in your quest to just study the visual staging aspect."

Soderbergh even says you’ll be inclined to say Raiders looks “amazing” in black and white. We have to agree. Watch Raiders of the Lost Ark in a brand new way here

[via Extension 765]

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