Harrison Ford’s memorable speech, truly one for the ages, at SAG-AFTRA’s Actor Awards on Sunday night has resonated as few others have (watch it below). Many of those in the room were visibly moved as the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchise acting titan spoke of his 15-year struggle to break through, and his comments about creating ”moments of emotional connection” also struck a chord.
It seemed appropriate that Ford deliver such heartfelt words to fellow thespians and artisans — his people, as he put it. They knew what he was talking about, and those of us watching thousands of miles away in the early hours knew also.
How could we not, after all those hours spent watching Ford up on the big screen in darkened cathedrals of entertainment.
We need to be reminded that people of honor and dignity still bestride the globe. The real-life folk supposedly in charge, those in positions we once venerated, have been found lacking of late. Instead, we turn to those who inspire us in reel life for some sort of moral sustenance.
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We need examples of people of stature able to project an image of simple trust. “As actors, we get to live many lives,” Ford said during his speech, as if to read my mind. “We get to explore ideas that affirm and elevate our shared experience. The stories we tell have a unique capacity to create moments of emotional connection; they bring us together. So while we’re all at different stages of our lives and careers in this room, we all share something fundamental: We share the privilege of working in the world of ideas, of empathy, of imagination. Sometimes we make entertainment, sometimes we make art. Sometimes we’re lucky — we make them both at the same time. And if we’re really fortunate, we also get to make a living doing it.”
Who needs sleep? Ford’s speech has been on a constant loop, his words prompting a re-evaluation from me of 1973s American Graffiti at 4:30 a.m. BST, then Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope followed by Raiders of the Lost Ark, plus a few episodes of Apple’s Shrinking. I had this bizarre hunger to keep watching Harrison Ford, like a 16-year-old [of the ’70s!] watching movies on a Saturday night.
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I remember seeing American Graffiti, back during its first release, after which we tumbled out of the Odeon in Richmond, Surrey, blurting out that we’d seen Ford in Gunsmoke!
What a thrill, when we later caught up with Zabriskie Point at an arthouse in town and spotted Ford as a student being hauled away by cops.
Oh, then we heard he was in The Conversation with Gene Hackman. We rushed to the Gaumont to see that.
That’s what it was like growing up with Harrison Ford in the 1970s.
All of that came flooding back as Ford told of being given a start by George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Fred Roos, the casting director — and a producing partner of Francis Ford Coppola — and Patricia McQueeney, who represented Ford for three decades from the earliest point of his career.
It felt important to hear him thank them, just as it felt right that he honor all of the actors, filmmakers, crafts people and crews he’d worked with over six decades. There are so many young thespians who could do with being locked in a room and made to learn Ford’s speech until they can recite it backwards. (Crikey, I’ve become my father!)
Clips of Ford’s appearance are all over social media. SAG-AFTRA and Netflix, understanding its impact, put up his entire speech. Watch it here:
The speech also was a reminder of what the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has lost since it decided in 2009 to shunt the Academy’s Honorary Awards — the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and the Honorary Oscar — from the main ceremony to a standalone event of its own.
The arguments at the time were that our attention spans are such that watching great artists and creative talents being celebrated for their contribution to cinema art dragged the show — making it, we’re told, unendurable for audiences watching at home.
They were restless and wanted the show to zip along. It’s true that the ceremonies were stretching our patience, but that had nothing to do with the special honorees. Rather, it was the witless tittle-tattle from hosts and presenters — and some winners!
But with the departure of those honorary salutes, the heart and soul was ripped out of the Oscars.
The honorary occasion is not televised, though clips are available on the Academy’s YouTube page.
I just rewatched some of last year’s Oscar show and realized that, apart from Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande performing a melody of songs from the Wizard of Oz universe, memorable moments were few and far between.
Whereas, the most recent Governors Awards featured Tom Cruise, Debbie Allen and Wynn Thomas and Dolly Parton, who participated from Nashville.
Cruise was a lesson in grace. He spent several minutes applauding his fellow honorees. Then he raved about his collaborators and asked all those present that he’d ever worked with — filmmakers, writers, actors, talent agents, casting directors, designers, cinematographers, editors and so on — to stand. He wanted to share his good fortune with his community. How I wished little girls and boys could have watched that live as part of the main event.
Why? Because we remember them forever.
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In 2002, Denzel Washington presented Sidney Poitier with an Honorary Oscar. An hour or so later, Julia Roberts cried, ”I love my life,” and announced Washington as that year’s Best Actor recipient for his performance in Training Day.
The significance of the moment was not lost on those of us present as we trained our eyes on Poitier seated in a regal balcony.
“Two birds with one stone,” Washington intoned as he took his prize from Roberts.
“I’ll always be following in your footsteps,” said Washington, addressing Poitier, who was by now saluting him back.
It was the first time an African American had taken the Best Actor statuette since Poitier won in 1964 for Lilies of the Field, himself making history.
Poitier remarked that it was “pregnant with all sorts of things. It represented progress … it represented the embracing of a kind of democracy that had been very long in maturing.
Some time later, Poitier offered AMPAS some thoughts about that “spectacular evening,” as he called it, and of the historical significance of Washington winning that same night, in the very same show.
“It was a spectacular evening,” Poitier noted, adding that Washington has been “a quintessential element in the finest of all American actors.” Watch Poitier’s acceptance speech and Washington’s intro here:
Past recipients of Governors Awards include Charlie Chaplin, Walt Disney, Shirley Temple, Judy Garland, Bob Hope, Noël Coward, MGM, Sir Laurence Olivier, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Cary Grant, Barbara Stanwyck, James Stewart, Akira Kurosawa, Federico Fellini, Lauren Bacall, Francis Ford Coppola, Oprah Winfrey, Angelina Jolie, Harry Belafonte, Spike Lee, Agnès Varda, Liv Ullmann, Angela Bassett, Mel Brooks, Spike Lee and more. Looking at some of the old footage on YouTube from those past ceremonies is pure gold.
And if you search for it, you can see Katharine Hepburn’s only Oscar appearance in 1974, when she presented Lawrence Weingarten with the Irving Thalberg Memorial Award.
Look, perhaps the Academy will carry out a makeover of the awards when the show transfers from ABC to YouTube starting in 2029. Maybe it will give back its heart and soul by reinstating the Governors Awards, where great artists can be lauded by all their peers, rather than just a few. What’s four hours on a Sunday night once a year?
And by the way, it’s pretty outrageous that Ford hasn’t been feted with an honor from the Academy.
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