The movie that made Joseph Kosinski fall in love with cinema: “The first film I became obsessed with”
Some directors like to use their movies to tell small, emotional stories about relatable, interpersonal drama. Others exploit the platform for political gains, spreading messages and doctrines through the power of filmmaking. Not Joseph Kosinski. The American director likes his films to be big, loud, and exciting, and he’s very good at delivering all of those things.
He made his feature-length debut with Tron: Legacy, the CGI-tastic follow-up to the 1980s cult classic. In 2013, he put out Oblivion, the post-apocalyptic sci-fi romp that first put him in touch with a certain Tom Cruise. Nine years later, the pair collaborated again on one of the biggest (if not the biggest) movies of the year – Top Gun: Maverick. This rare example of a worthwhile legacy sequel raked in the cash and was nominated for ‘Best Picture’ at the Oscars. With this, Kosinski had established himself as one of the ones to watch in Hollywood.
The American, who recently came out with the Brad Pitt vehicle (no pun intended) F1, took a little while to get there, but he has now achieved his dream of making huge films for everyone to enjoy. Given the material he grew up on, it’s no surprise that this is the path he would follow later in life.
“I’ll start with the first film I remember seeing in a theatre, which was Raiders Of The Lost Ark when I was six,” Kosinski told The Academy when asked for the movies that made him who he is. “The thing I remember about that film that blew my mind was that Indiana Jones was also a professor at a university, and that cut from him escaping the airplane with his buddy and the snake to teaching – you know, writing on the chalkboard in his archeology [sic] class – was the first time that I realized your leading man could also be an academic and be a smart guy too. That was the first film that I became obsessed with.”
The first of what would become five films to star Harrison Ford as the whip-cracking treasure hunter, Raiders of the Lost Ark, is also a massive blockbuster that critics went nuts for. It became the highest-grossing movie of the year it was released, an accolade Top Gun: Maverick missed out on, thanks to Avatar: The Way of Water. Both were nominated in multiple categories at the Oscars, but Steven Spielberg’s picture came away with five statuettes, whilst Kosinski and the team could only manage one. You’ll get there one day, kid.
In all seriousness, the influence of something like Raiders on Kosinski’s best work is clear to see. Maverick is a high-octane adventure film anchored by real people with real relationships. Unlike so many other mediocre outings, which rely solely on big, empty stunts, this one keeps audiences around by giving them characters they can actually get behind. Indiana Jones is the perfect example of a three-dimensional action hero, which clearly rubbed off on Pete Mitchell in the sequel
Four decades after it first hit screens, Raiders of the Lost Ark is still talked about as one of the best movies ever made. Maybe Kosinski will get to make his own ‘Indy’ movie at some point, as it seems that Harrison Ford has no desire to ever hand that character over to anyone else.
