In 1970, Harrison Ford's credited screen performances included episodes of THE VIRGINIAN, IRONSIDE, MY FRIEND TONY, THE F.B.I., and LOVE, AMERICAN STYLE; and a pair of Westerns nobody saw, one of which was ghost-directed by Roger Corman. Suffice it to say that he wasn't quite yet setting the world on fire. One could theorize that his relative lack of commercial success thus far was rooted in a kind of desperation to give the best, most noticeable performance imaginable, even if the role didn't call for it. In GETTING STRAIGHT––a counterculture campus film by the incomparably creative Richard Rush (THE STUNT MAN, PSYCH-OUT, FREEBIE AND THE BEAN)––Ford plays an art student, and in his brief screen-time he runs the gamut of widened eyes and indicating eyebrows and slack jaw and furrowed brows... it's an entire encyclopedia of trying too hard––known to many as "schmacting."
(It must be noted that while there are moments of levity throughout, GETTING STRAIGHT is not a screwball comedy, and in fact, its major setpiece is a police crackdown on unarmed campus protesters––furthermore, it was released to theaters a mere ten days after May 4th shootings at Kent State University.)
In Ford's three brief scenes––two of which, where his main character motivation is to invite Elliot Gould and Candice Bergen to a party in his apartment––he overreacts to every happening and tries to imbue each line with an accompanying, on-the-nose facial expression. I've found this sort of thing to be quite common among anxious, eager young actors who sometimes pin their hopes and dreams and desperation onto "under-five" roles that were never intended to be the center of the film's universe. The result is a roller-coaster ride of disparate reactions and maniacal acting choices––which is something that I obviously enjoy quite a bit, in the right context.
The world had not yet broken young Harrison––he hadn't yet bombed out of the movies and turned back to carpentry (from which he would be notably rescued by George Lucas during AMERICAN GRAFFITI), and he had not yet perfected his James Garner-ian tonal authority, his Lee Marvin-style physicality, or his Bob Mitchum-esque art of not giving a shit.
Harrison Ford, giving all the shits, so many shits, WHYYY AM I SO MISUNDERSTOOOOD, MAN
Compare this to the opposite end of the Fordian spectrum––perhaps the voiceover of BLADE RUNNER (mercifully unused in the director's/final cut), where he was actively trying to be terrible... which is certainly awful in its own way, but again note that it involves "actively trying." I think Ford is at his cocky, lazy best when he's coasting through the universe like he owns it (Han Solo, Indiana Jones, Rick Deckard etc.). The best part is that I think Ford himself is well-aware of the acting tendencies he had as a young man, because the only other times I've see it is when Ford's character is "acting"––i.e., when Indiana Jones pretends to be a Scottish tapestry enthusiast in INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE or when Rick Deckard impersonates a nerdy moral crusader in BLADE RUNNER.
Anyway, I think there's a lesson here about detachment and confidence and self-awareness and nervousness and desperation; in short, the art of letting go––and the grand and mysterious power sometimes vested in not givin' a shit.
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