John Williams is a genius for this one

11:33 · 1,781 words of transcript · watch on YouTube

1. The whole analysis turns on the leitmotif, German for leading motive, a short musical tag attached to a character or idea, and Williams uses them across the Indiana Jones films more densely than almost anyone.
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2. Raiders carries at least three obvious ones, the Raiders March for Indy being heroic, a sinister figure for the villains, and a romantic theme, all of which most viewers absorb without noticing.
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3. The briefing scene runs nearly five minutes with no score at all, which is what makes the single cue that follows land as hard as it does.
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4. That cue is what the video calls the divine motif, introduced the moment the Ark is first depicted, and it is the most important one in the film because it carries the picture's actual subject, the quest for divine power.
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5. The same device organises the sequels: Temple of Doom scores Indy's descent, physically underground and morally into his own fortune-and-glory motives, and Last Crusade has a theme that appears almost only when the Grail and Indy's father are named together.
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6. The structural frame is John Truby's 22 steps from The Anatomy of Story, and the divine motif turns out to appear at the most load-bearing of them.
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7. Its first appearance is the inciting event, and it does two jobs at once, marking the Ark as sacred and foreshadowing how much it will matter.
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8. The second appearance is cut off mid-phrase when Indy scoffs at Marcus's warning, and that interruption is the film telling you his disbelief and recklessness are the weaknesses that will cost him.
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9. In the map room the motif grows, adding flutes, a haunting choir and thunderous percussion as the sunbeam finds the Ark. This is Truby's drive step, and the music scales with how close Indy is to the thing he is chasing.
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10. Once the Nazis hold the Ark the divine motif fuses with the villains' theme for its most twisted version, and the film ends not on a triumphant cue but on that same divine motif over a warehouse, which argues the power should stay untouched.
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