Harrison Ford
Indiana Jones, the characters he has portrayed in five of the top-grossing films of all time (Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom). Though everyone from media analysts to sociologists has scrutinized the characters and the trend they embody, the taciturn Ford sums up the distinction between Jones and Solo with the words, “ Different clothes, different guy . Ford’s screen status can be summed up with similar brevity: superstar. Fame and wealth aside — and Ford’s wealth is the kind that comes with per centages of world-record profits — he is unafraid to tamper with a winning formula and a winning screen persona. He is, he says, only now beginning to reap the rewards of his sterling industry record, in terms of being offered challenging roles and projects. The first of these was released in the United States in February to near unanimous critical raves and excep tional box-office. Witness, the first American movie to be directed by Peter Weir, works as both a love story and a thriller, exploring the relation ship between Ford’s cynical cop and a Pennsylvania Amish woman (Kelly McGillis), whose young son (Lukas Haas) has witnessed a murder. Marked by a particularly strong sense of time and place, Witness also contains some sensuous romance. Though not as steamy as the Sigourney Weaver-Mel Gibson couplings in Weir’s The Year of Living Dangerously, the hungry looks exchanged between Ford and McGillis have not gone unnoticed by reviewers — or by audiences. Nor has the new ‘adult’ image for Ford, which suits the 42-year-old actor just fine. “ I don’t want to bemoan any films of the past, but I think this is the most complicated role I’ve played in quite a while. And this time, it’s one with adult appeal,’’ he says. Remarking on the film’s spiritual quality, underlined when the cop’s violent world collides with the pacifist beliefs of the Amish, he adds: “ That moral context is one of the important things about this film. 32 — May CINEMA PAPERS
That’s what makes it work. Without the Amish serving as a kind of para meter to the violence, this would have been the usual indulgence. This is what attracted me to the project: I think the film has something to say.” During the interview at a Los Angeles hotel, Ford does not immedi ately come across as an actor with something to say. “ I don’t do a lot of these: I’m not a self-starter,” he says. And the man who once declared that “ I don’t see myself as being unique: I just work in the movie business” , is especially protective of his private life, which includes marriage to screen writer Melissa Mathison (E.T., The Black Stallion). Casually dressed in jeans, Ford is a study in diplomacy as he politely answers (and sometimes ducks) ques tions about films and filmmakers he has known. And so, despite obvious pleasure over a role set in the here and now (as opposed to outer space), in which he plays opposite people rather
Though media analysts and sociologists have scrutinized the characters of Han Solo and Indiana Jones, Ford sums up the distinction between them with the words: “ Different clothes, different guy. . . ” than robots, he stresses: “ I’ve never been bothered by proximity to special effects . . . I’ve never felt dis advantaged by them. They’re all part of a movie and, when the movie’s under control, I don’t feel upstaged by them.” Denying that he has ever felt con strained by the Star W ars experience, Ford notes that “ the basic feeling is that it was a long time ago and far, far away” . Still, if he had had his way,
Han Solo would have died at the end The hero, the cop and the Amish: top left, of Return of the Jedi. “ I thought it Ford in trouble as Indiana Jones; right, was a good idea, to give the films some Ford in action in Witness; above, Amish Alexander Godunov (centre) and bottom, some depth. I thought Han farmer ■ , was dispensable: he had no momma, family. no poppa, no story. It would have been a good thing. George didn’t While the critics admired the agree.” Nor did George Lucas agree, visually arresting style of Ford’s first during the maiden Star Wars outing, star outing as something other than a when Ford told him: “ You can’t say superhero — Ridley Scott’s B lad e that stuff: you can only type it.” But Runner, in which he starred as the Ford is happy to concede defeat: “ I bounty hunter, Deckard — the futur was wrong: it worked.” istic film noir did not work at the box office. And it is apparently a sore spot with Ford, who will only say of the project: “ I don’t want to cast stones “ I don’t see myself as but . . . I think audiences were turned off because they didn’t have any being unique: I just work emotional context for the whole film, including my character. But we really in the movie business’’ shouldn’t get into this. It’s a very deep well. And it’s over.”