As the Cannes Film Festival crowd stood in rapturous applause, a visibly moved Harrison Ford stood on the stage, making an attempt to maintain his feelings in examine.
The heat of the viewers and a clip reel that had simply performed had left Ford shaken.
“They say that if you’re about to die, you see your life flash earlier than your eyes,” he said. “And I just saw my life flash before my eyes — a great part of my life, but not all of my life.”
If last year’s Cannes was partially defined by its tribute to “Top Gun Maverick” star Tom Cruise, this year’s has belonged to Ford. This time, it’s been far more poignant. Ford, 80, is retiring Indiana Jones, saying goodbye to the iconic swashbuckling archeologist more than 40 years after he first debuted, with fedora, whip and a modest snake phobia.
It’s been a moving farewell tour — most of all for Ford, who has teared up frequently along the way. Speaking to reporters Friday, Ford was asked: Why give up Indy now?
“Is it not evident?” he replied with a characteristically sheepish grin. “I need to sit down and rest a little bit. I love to work. And I love this character. And I love what it brought into my life. That’s all I can say.”
Harrison Ford on the 76th worldwide movie pageant, Cannes, southern France
| Photo Credit:
Daniel Cole
“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” the fifth Indiana Jones movie, premiered Thursday evening in Cannes, bringing an affecting coda to the franchise begun with 1981’s “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” While that film and the next three were all directed by Steven Spielberg from a story by George Lucas, Ford’s final chapter is directed and co-written by James Mangold, the “Ford vs. Ferrari” filmmaker.
The gala, one of the most sought-after tickets at Cannes this year, also included an honorary Palme d’Or given to Ford. The next day, Ford was still struggling to articulate the experience of unveiling his final turn as Indiana Jones.
“It was indescribable. I can’t even tell you,” said Ford. “It’s just extraordinary to see a kind of relic of your life as it passes by.”
Following the disappointment of 2008’s little-loved “Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull,” the possibilities for a fifth film lingered for years and went through many iterations. Ford said he was intent on seeing a different, less youthful version of Jones. “Dial of Destiny” is set in the 1960s and finds Indiana as a retiring professor whose long-ago exploits no longer seem so special in the age of space exploration.
“I wanted to see the weight of life on him. I wanted to see him require reinvention and support. And I wanted him to have a relationship that was not a flirty movie relationship,” said Ford, who stars alongside Phoebe Waller-Bridge. “I needed an equal relationship.”
Ford is clearly deeply happy with the film. He was particularly complimentary of his castmates and Mangold, whom he mentioned did greater than “fill the shoes that Steven left for us.”
“Everything has come together to support me in my old age,” mentioned Ford with a wry grin.
The film begins with an prolonged sequence set again within the remaining days of WWII. In these scenes, Ford has been de-aged to seem a lot youthful. Lucasfilm chief Kathleen Kennedy was fast to say that an AI-crafted Ford will not be utilized by the corporate sooner or later. Ford referred to as the employment of a de-aged model of him “skilled and assiduous” — and did not make him jealous.
“I don’t look back and say I wish I was that guy. I’m real happy with age,” said Ford. He then added, with an expletive, that it could be worse. “I could be dead.”
Ford is not retiring from appearing. He has two ongoing TV sequence (“Shrinking,” “1923”) and he said he remains committed to working.
“My luck has been been to work with incredibly talented people and find my way into this crowd of geniuses and not get my ass kicked out,” said Ford. “And I’ve apparently still got a chance to work and I want that. I need that in my life, that challenge.”
Ford, like Indiana, isn’t departing without his hat. He’s kept one, Ford said, but he more prizes the experience of making the films. “The stuff is great but it’s not about the stuff.”
And Ford can still turn heads. One female reporter declared that the 80-year-old was “still hot” and asked Ford — who briefly appears shirtless in the movie — how he stays fit. After a few chuckles and some mention of his avid cycling, Ford answered with mock pomposity.