What Does a Work Not Need?

Ten years ago, Steven Soderbergh released an unusual cut of Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark: he put the entire film in black and white, then removed all the audio and replaced it with Trent Reznor’s soundtrack to The Social Network. I watched this cut of Raiders for the first time only recently, and it struck me. It’s like watching the most exciting 1940s action movie ever made set to…