Raiders Of The Lost Ark's Cinematographer Was Mere Steps Away From Cliff-Plunging Death
Making movies can be fun, it can be as boring as watching paint dry, and, sometimes, it can be dangerous. And I'm not even talking about filming stunts where people are crawling under moving trucks or getting electrocuted by Old Testament ghosts and an angry God. There's lots of heavy equipment and dangerous, exotic locations that crew have to be mindful of when they're out of their element.
Case in point: "Raiders of the Lost Ark" cinematographer Douglas Slocombe and his penchant for constantly nearly yeeting himself off of cliffs and other large drops while making the iconic, whip-cracking adventure.
As recounted by director Steven Spielberg in a lengthy piece he wrote for American Cinematographer, Slocombe would get so caught up in looking for a shot that sometimes he'd lose track of his surroundings.
Slocombe was a well-known and well-respected British cinematographer and although he was in his sixties by the time Spielberg hired him to shoot "Raiders of the Lost Ark," his enthusiasm for his art made him a bit like an excited schoolboy on set:
"When I said, 'I'd like the third camera on the hill' — I'd turn around and Dougie would be on the hill with a third camera two minutes after I had spoken. I found that rather amazing."
Sometimes that excitement would result in near castastrophe.
Some helpful hands saved the cinematographer's life
Spielberg said when Slocombe had his eye to the camera he was in another world, which made him a perfect collaborator because he was always thinking in terms of what the audience was seeing. But the problem was he'd ignore the real dangers around him:
"Throughout the shooting of 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' there were dozens of cliffhangers all involving Dougie Slocombe and a sense of balance. Dougie would have his eye screwed into his contrast glass, looking up at the sun and the clouds, walking backwards and, sure enough, there would be a 350-foot drop and, sure enough, Robin or Chic, who have worked with Dougie for an average of 25 years as a team, would reach a hand out and keep Dougie from falling into Roadrunner and Coyote oblivion."
Slocombe survived his Indiana Jones adventures, shooting all three of the original movies, and by doing so, he gave us some of the best-looking movies of the 1980s.
I once saw Spielberg and Harrison Ford speak at an LA screening of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and Ford recounted a story about how Slocombe wouldn't use a light meter to gauge the light. Instead, he'd hold up three fingers, like a scout's salute, and eyeball the distance between his fingers and the shadow they made and used that to dictate his lighting set ups.
Slocombe was an old school shooter, the likes of which we don't get much anymore, and I, for one, am thankful for not only the fantastic legacy he left behind, but also for his crew for being there to stop him from constantly plummeting to his death.