Harrison Ford picks his all-time favourite movie line
From day one, Harrison Ford never claimed to be the archetype for a Hollywood movie star. Given his reputation for playing relatively normal characters in extraordinary circumstances, Ford’s penchant was always that of a man who had a job just like anyone else, except that job happened to be in front of millions of people. While he has earned a reputation as a living legend, Ford has never lost his initial love of filmmaking.
Much like his secondary roles as a carpenter away from the camera, Ford looks at cinema as the dirty work, working tirelessly to get the exact right take for any one shot. And when it comes to dirty work, nothing rings true to Ford’s mentality than his turn as Indiana Jones.
Made as an adaptation of the cinema reels that both George Lucas and Steven Spielberg saw when they were kids, Jones was the least likely to become a certified action star. Although he may be good with a gun and a whip, what drives him to secure pieces of history is his fascination with archaeology.
From the few minutes of the character’s debut in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jones maintains that he has no interest in the same spiritual power that the Ark of Covenant supposedly holds. All that’s on his mind is to be involved in some part of history, which is either noble or despicable, depending on how one looks at it.
Even when working in some of the most death-defying situations for his craft, Ford tells Buzzfeed that one line from the original Raiders movie stands as one of the best lines that he’s heard in a movie. As his old flame Marion tries to help him tend to his injuries during a break in the action, his reply about his condition is, “It’s not the years, honey, it’s the mileage”.
Coming from a man supposedly in his 30s when taking on these acts, it makes sense why he thinks his adventurous times are behind him. Even when he’s still relatively young, the wear and tear he has put on his body throughout the years have beaten him before he even sees his twilight years. When he springs into action, all of that weary demeanour goes out the window, with Indy always escaping by the skin of his teeth and always finding a way to win the day.
That amount of mileage is confirmed in the third instalment in the franchise The Last Crusade, where the audience sees Indy back when he was a kid pulling off the same daring adventures, with Ford being replaced by River Phoenix. Those years have come and gone, though, and Ford is still willing to put the signature fedora on again this year for the fifth instalment in the franchise, Indiana Jones and The Dial of Destiny.
While there’s sure to be some good-natured fun and action in the latest film, in one line from the first movie, the audience is given everything they need to know about Indiana Jones as a character. He’s probably in no shape to take on any adventures anymore, but it’s always that fire of discovery that keeps him coming back for more.
