OTC50 #132

POSTED

AMERICAN CINEMA

MARQUE STAR RISES WITH RISE OF INDEPENDENT CINEMA

by PETER THOMAS BUSCH

For a generation, not just his generation but a generation thereafter, Harrison Ford has been synonymous with the movie theatre marque.

The protagonists created by Ford are part of the American storybook– even if just one part of the fantasy world created for the movies.

Ford’s career began with small film parts, as one-dimensional characters in supporting roles until he got the attention of the emerging college educated auteurs forming production companies independent from the studio system.

No doubt that Ford had to develop a character that fit among the established big star screen personas from a previous generation of actors, such as Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum, John Wayne and James Mason.

Director Francis Ford Coppola decidedly foretold the start of Ford’s career, casting Ford as Colonel Luke in Apocalypse Now (1979).

The Colonel drops a portfolio of secret papers during the briefing of a Vietnam War Black Op. The papers detail the assassination of a military general who has gone rogue in the jungle.

Even when cast as Han Solo in a supporting role behind the leading actors, Mark Hamel and Carrie Fischer in the space opera, Star Wars: New Hope (1977), Ford lacked that signature marque appeal with which he would later become associated.

Han Solo is a carefree intergalactic smuggler living from space port to space port in what will become the Star Wars space opera franchise. The screen character though is so one dimensional that he even gets chastised by the leading female character, Princess Leia, as being insufficient to take the path of a hero of the rebellion.

Ford eventually generates enough interest over two or three years working the casting calls of filmmakers George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola and then Steven Spielberg, who produce generational success by working as detail oriented creatives.

If Ford intended to be a matinee idol, he could not have picked a better group of filmmakers with whom to create a continued presence in Hollywood. Lucas and Coppola founded the production company American Zoetrope. Coppola reinvented the gangster film with the Godfather (1972), while Lucas produced the space opera Star Wars (1977) and Spielberg created the movie blockbuster with Jaws (1975).

Coppola directs Godfather Part II (1974) and Apocalypse Now (1979), while Lucas and Spielberg collaborate to launch the Indian Jones film franchise, and cast Ford as the title character, Indy, in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981).

The casting could not complete a more perfect combination of producer and director and actor to further develop Ford’s image. America Cinema changes with Ford in the front of the casting calls.

The collaborative production team notches up the action adventure several fold with modern special effects. Ford’s career accelerates success as the focus of the camera along a sophisticated narrative compelled forward by the innovative filmmaking of the new auteurs.

Indy is an archeologist who teaches at college while also doing enough adventurous field work, rescuing artifacts for his college’s museum, to get the attention of the America government.

The character takes the form of an imperfect anti-hero who illegally retrieves artifacts from archeological sites, but who wins out over more villainess characters, such as German Nazi relic hunters searching for esoteric power, and the Indian Thuggee cult using relics to enslave child labour.

Ford develops an endearing character that is charismatic, accomplished and yet fallible enough to underwrite a comedic element in the script. The Chaplinesque action sequences create suspense by endangering the character’s personal integrity just as much from the anticipating laughter as from the near certainty of death.

Indy can fearlessly climb down into an Egyptian crypt that has not been opened in 3000 years, but an aversion to snakes turns the archeologist into a screaming, quivering boy scout.

Director Ridley Scott then casts Ford in a similar leading role except within a darker, disenfranchised context.

The tone of the screen character changes for the dystopian policer, as the protagonist is reenlisted to hunt down rogue artificial intelligence units, used off-world as slave labour for work too arduous and too dangerous for humans.

The dark brooding futuristic policer omits the slapstick and pantomime of previous films, which enables Ford to mature the screen character for more dramatic feature film roles moving forward.

The anti-hero becomes tweaked into more of an unconventional hero, with the caveat that not all rules are meant to be followed. Deckard is not acting outside the law like Han Solo, but he accomplishes his mission a bit more like a military special ops officer determined to win at all costs to be able to return home alive.

From space rebel to special ops officer, Ford builds a three-dimensional image for the marque that is decidedly more enduring than a swash buckling space pirate too singular in focus even for the leading characters.

The acting performances improve substantially with the opportunity, like the American miracle, the more challenging the role the more inspiring the character becomes and the better the film product.

Ford shifts Hollywood away from the previous generation of films about the western frontier and military involvement in the world wars, which had continually reinforced the American perspective of national dominance from within the world order.

Ford has to adapt a bit and work a little harder along the narrative to maintain a signature status and compete with the other emerging actors, such as Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Maryl Streep and Michelle Pfeifer.

Ford accomplishes the task by finding work along a favourable storyline, telling stories about the individual struggle to succeed within a system made fallible by humanity.

In Witness (1985) John Book is tasked with protecting a child who saw the execution of a police officer. Ford’s character embeds himself within the child’s Amish community in Philadelphia until the mess can be sorted out and the danger to himself and the child dissipate.

Viggo Mortensen gets an early feature film credit.

Ford then taps into the idea that innovation made America great, when he plays Allie Fox in The Mosquito Coast (1986). Fox has good ideas for invention, but he has been unable to earn respect from within the community even though the innovation will allow the community to prosper.

America’s admiration for perseverance from a position far afield of success pushes Ford further along.

Ford begins a bit of a rout at the box office and establishes himself as a major theatrical draw even when crossing over from action-adventure films into feature length dramas.

In Presumed Innocent (1990) Rusty Sabich is a prosecutor who finds himself a political target in a justice system that still relates to the days of voting the small town sheriffs into office.

America loves the democratic ideals behind an elected official. And Ford has convinced the casting directors that he is more than a one sheet for the blockbuster.

Ford creates a prosecutor whose personality is reflected in his dedication to the job as lead attorney. The role is binary opposite to the bravado of the intergalactic space merchant, but Rusty gets into just as much trouble in Los Angeles County as Han Solo does in space.

Ford shifts the character along the narrative from a dedicated crime fighter to an innocent accused, drawn into the politicization of the justice department during the election for attorney general.

Rusty finds his colleagues have become suspicious rivals, and his enemies have obtained moral authority over his situation when he gets accused of murdering a female colleague.

Ford adds another installment to a series of victim justice films with the lead role in The Fugitive (1993).

Dr. Richard Kimble is wrongfully convicted of killing his wife, and after being sentenced, manages to escape during an accident involving the prison transport vehicle and a train.

Ford creates a three-dimensional character whose emotions twist and turn through the moral uncertainty of the escape or be captured plotlines.

The camera follows Dr. Kimble as he attempts to find the motive for his wife’s murder and to ultimately exonerate himself. The role is all the parts Ford has played before, and a bit more.

Portraying the hero as victim of the system resonates with the quiet discontent of a nation still coming to terms with the nation’s obvious acts of injustice, at home and on the world stage.

In Patriot Games (1992) Jack Ryan becomes the hero during a domestic terror attack by the Irish Republic Army in London. Ryan saves a member of the Royal family, but the IRA seeks revenge even after Ryan returns to his family in America.

Ford sheds all notions of fallibility to become an all-American patriot, which ultimately allows him to play the President of the United States.

In Air Force One (1997) Ford maximizes the draw as America’s movie star by playing United States President James Marshall, whose high security presidential plane gets hijacked by a rogue group of military expats from Kazakhstan.

Gary Oldman plays the lead terrorist.

This series of hero films becomes a sort of franchise of independent stories next to the victim justice series and the blockbuster action-adventure franchises.

With the role of a nuclear submarine captain in K-19: The Widowmaker (2002) Ford ends three decades as an American hero by portraying Russian submarine captain Alexei Vostrikov. Ford still creates a character within the national storyboard of ideas by personifying the wishful perspective of Russian military intelligence as being flawed and conquerable.

Film scripts typically have relied on the narrow focus of a nation being at the center of world affairs to make compelling material for yet another Harrison Ford film project. The Star Wars themes of rebellion against an empire provide a slightly distorted mirror to real geopolitical events during the Cold War.

The rebels seem continually on the run while raiding oppositional forces to dimmish the empire’s strength all but sums up Cold War machinations.

And the Indian Jones films show the hero continualy having to fight for right over wrong.

Ford continued to work the marque by reprising his franchise roles as Indiana Jones, Han Solo and Deckard. The characters remain consistent, although a bit older, while the actor’s draw is assisted by the advancement in film production and special effects, and an emerging new generation of actors.

Five decades since a role in George Lucas’ American Graffiti (1973), a film that defined the restless, young adult car generation in America, in which Ford’s character, Bob, crashes the marque in a supporting role, Ford pulls off an end run for the Disney franchise reboots by introducing himself to a new generation of movie goers.