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SOME ARTISTS, at some point in their career, might find a style which defines their specific contribution to the genre in which they participate. A close in-depth look at such a style often reveals references, queues, from great preceding artists in the relevant genre whose skills have been noted, absorbed, and formulated into a new progressive manifestation. The Hollywood actor, Harrison Ford is such an artist. Those who have enough respect for classic Hollywood to pay attention to its beautiful, exhilarating, and morally exploratory films will perceive how the examples of great Hollywood actors like Clark Gable, James Stewart, Fred MacMurray, and Cary Grant have set standards for the outstanding free-style acting of Harrison Ford.

Ford’s originality as a screen-star comes from his ability to harness various characterizations of individuality, or self, and project them on screen as the positive or expository result of free-style acting. In fact, the foremost quality of North American originality which developed in the arts of literature, painting, and cinema, has been the subjective exploration of first-person narratives, the painter’s existential abstract brush-stroke, and the director’s and screen actor’s collaboration in interpreting scripts from an individualistic visual perspective.

Examples of free-style acting emerge when the actor/actress, even minor cast members, explore their own personal or subjective style via the linguistic framework of film scripts.

Of course, we do not see Ford’s mastery of free-style acting at the beginning of his career in those TV episodes of ‘Gunsmoke’, ‘The Virginian’ etc, or even later adventure films which established his mass popularity, such as ‘Starwars’, ‘Raiders of The Lost Ark’, etc. But the evidence of what can develop is there in his loose, unkempt, instinctive mannerisms and tone which move away from the clichés of early Hollywood adventure films.

It is not off-key to suggest that the immense popularity of his adventure films was based not only on the public’s attraction to archetypes of the ‘Hero’s Journey’, but on Ford’s vulnerable quotidian free-style acting, which made learning and heroics a sort of ‘Everyman’s’ quality.

Early career
An overlooked but significant moment occurred in Ford’s early career in 1970 when he made an un-credited cameo appearance as an airport worker in Michelangelo Antonioni’s controversial American based film, ‘Zabrieskie Point’.

It is not Ford’s brief cameo that is important, but his presence in the overall production of such a film by an Italian master, whose personal cinematic style in this specific film made use  of many unknown actors, and updated the mobile kinetic detail and expressionism of often ignored masterpieces of the classic  Hollywood Film Noir genre, such as ‘Phantom Lady’(1944),  ‘DOA’ (1949), ‘Nocturne’ (1946),  ‘Humoresque’ (1946), and ‘His Kind Of Woman’ (1951).

Antonioni’s absorption of the cinematic techniques found in such Film Noir masterpieces re-emerged in the personal free-style direction of ‘Zabriskie Point’. Similarly, Harrison Ford’s eventual mastery of free-style acting reformulated the approach and attitude of early first-person American fictional narratives found in American novels like Mickey Spillane’s ‘Kiss Me Deadly’, Steve Fisher’s ‘I Wake Up Screaming’, or Raymond Chandler’s ‘The Lady In The Lake’.

Ford’s acting style is not a literal interpretation of the Film Noir writer’s voice, but rather a physical, visual equivalent of the style’s flexible personal delivery, enticing the viewer with a sympathetic point of view.

Ford’s acting career really began to find its particular tone with ‘Blade Runner’ of 1982. Here, typically, a futuristic scenario becomes the new arena of past Film Noir anxieties, and Ford’s role is of an individualistic conscience in a colonized future. It is significant that Ford’s real life dedication, despite his numerous sci-fi or futuristic films, concerns ecological balance and wild life conservation.

‘Witness’, of 1985, is the first of Ford’s four neo-Noir colour films that in the 1940s and 50s would have been far more visually structured in black-and-white; the others are ‘Frantic’ of 1988, ‘The Fugitive’ of 1993, and ‘What Lies Beneath’ of 2000.

In ‘Witness’, Ford is the city detective who leaves his familiar metropolitan culture to investigate a crime involving a secluded Amish community in the countryside’s farmlands. What will become the constant value or attitude explored by Ford since ‘Witness’, is the ability of a human character to adjust and learn, and also discover the possible pleasures of being flexible in new situations. But it was not until he made ‘Frantic’ in 1988 that Ford firmly found the role that offered his first opportunity to clearly display the free-style acting which defines his originality.

His role as the respected physician who comes to Paris to attend a conference and ends up frantically searching for his abducted wife, allowed Ford to brilliantly illustrate the theme of the wealthy professional who must come down socially, on the streets among vagrants, night club swingers, drug abusers, tough guys, etc, and is forced to trust some of them in order to unravel the mystery of his wife’s disappearance in a foreign city and culture whose language he does not even speak, and where Americans are seen as coarse, pompous, naïve humbugs.

Ford is genuinely wonderful as the frustrated husband/professional, whose flexible nature and naiveté allows him to solve the mystery of his wife’s disappearance. The film also builds a touching sympathy for the seemingly materialistic and amoral culture of a new generation, which is beautifully represented by young French actress Emmanuelle Seigner. Ford’s chance to display various qualities of free-style acting here, is related to the film’s outstanding director, Roman Polanski, and the poignant, tender script he co-wrote with Gerard Brach.

Usually ,today’s Hollywood remakes of its past classics are not of the same previous high standard, but Ford’s acting in ‘The Fugitive’ of 1993, a film based on gripping classic earlier versions, makes this new version  perhaps even more gripping and interesting.

Once again, the theme of an affluent physician, this time accused of the homicide of his beautiful wife, leads to a convicted Ford accidentally escaping from custody and setting out to prove his innocence. Reduced to being a poverty-stricken pariah, he must enter a lifestyle which exposes him to the condemnation of society but also the trust of old friends. Such a scenario allows Ford to use his free-style acting to bridge the gap between upper and lower class, educated and uneducated, in brilliant moments which make ‘The Fugitive’ not just exciting entertainment, but a serious paradigm of American freedom, individualism, practicality, and justice.

The film’s theme of an innocent man on the run, helped by a few free-thinking friends and strangers, is comparable to that classic 1953 Audie Murphy western, ‘Tumbleweed’, one of Murphy’s best films.

Maturity
By 2000 Ford’s free-style characterizations found another role of the well-educated affluent professional in ‘What Lies Beneath’, but this time his loose personality is not evident on the level of his acting-style, but hidden on the level of content, since he is the killer-at-large of his ex-lover, which is discovered by his inqui
sitive psychic wife, amusingly played by Michelle Pfeiffer, who enjoys the chance to parody the sensual ‘femme fatale’, while exercising a feminist debunking of the male authority figure.

Ford and Pfeiffer’s characterizations counter each other perfectly, and make ‘What Lies Beneath’ a taut, spooky, and terrifying contemporary Film Noir, which perhaps would have been far more visually effective in black & white.

However, we have to return to 1988, the year when Ford made another of his best films based on his free-style acting: ‘Working Girl’ is another one of those Ford classics we never tire of seeing  because of its seamless blend of social commentary and optimism under the subtle direction of Mike Nichols.

When Ford, a financial analyst, expresses his fears of losing his job, mentioning to Melanie Griffith – a fine actress with the free-style as well – all the past names under his office Id: while chewing on a hotdog on the street, crumbs stuck to his chin; when  half-naked in his office, putting on a new shirt, or when in a Club refusing to join the cliquish business group which idolizes him ,etc, all that is evidence of  the free-style acting situation.

Another ingredient from classic Hollywood which Ford updates is the attitudes in ‘Screwball Comedy’ of the 1940s. But when it came to ‘Regarding Henry’ of 1991, and ‘Random Hearts’ of 1998, Ford showed us how stunningly existential he could be in two roles where past tragedy is the spark which ignites the rejuvenation of life within us. The free-style now becomes self-critical, hesitant, contemplative, and insightful towards others previously misperceived.  Ford is also the sort of male actor who needs a bright female co-star to bounce off of, and Kristin Scott Thomas, one of the most quietly beautiful and sensitive Anglo actresses to emerge in a long time, was riveting in ‘Random Hearts’. Thomas’ demeanour also seems to coincidentally hark back to a similar quietly beautiful off-key classic Hollywood actress like Ella Raines, especially in films like ‘Phantom Lady’, ‘Tall In The Saddle’, and ‘Ride The Man Down’.

Harrison Ford, in most of his films which exemplify Hollywood free-style acting, achieves a deep lasting human value which may not represent extravagant theatrics that attract one-trick-pony Oscar votes, but instead sustains the enormous treasure that is classic and contemporary Hollywood’s lifeblood, ensuring the industry’s international survival as a vital creative tradition for both new film-makers and their audiences anywhere.arrisoin FordHarrison