by Antonio Jacobs

Created on: May 26, 2008   Last Updated: May 27, 2008

Harrison Ford and the Oilcan: a character study of an American icon

After his years of dedicated work to Hollyood, Harrison Ford has emerged as a household name, managing to maintain his identity through a series of typecast roles, which for a weaker man, would have meant immediate obscurity. Harrison has played Han Solo, Indiana Jones and Jack Ryan. He has played killers, healers and a U.S. President. Harrsion has gravitated toward roles that invovlve physical strength and emotional depth, mechanical acuity and social inadequacy, and All-American boy scout heroics. These career choices make him an ideal candidate for the tinman.

In the two dozen credited movie roles he has played, Harrison Ford is a tinman in nearly all of them. With some subtle alterations, Harrison's characters come from the same mold: a hardened, rugged outdoorsman with a sensitive side, often recovering from some traumatic loss (the death of his wife in Randon Hearts and The Fugitive), or dealing with a crisis (someone is always trying to kill him). Harrison is given ample opportunity to show off his vulnerabilities, then his strengths. Tough guy that he is, Harrsion is not afraid to show how difficult action is. When Han Solo is tortured by Darth Vader in The Empire Strikes Back, his screams are bloodcurdling; in Return of the Jedi, his temporary blindness after his release from the carbonite prison is heartbreaking, especially after he realizes it is his love, Princess Leia, who has freed him. The assortment of injuries Dr. Indiana Jones sustains in Raiders of the Lost Ark is punctuated by his comment to Marion: "It ain't the years, honey; it's the mileage." As Jack Ryan, his reaction to the news that his daughter has lost her spleen as a result of an automobile accident engineered by terrorists is open sorrow, which turns into passionate righteous anger later on when he confronts the villain in Patriot Games.

Like the tinman, Harrison is mechanically inclined, and often capitalizes on his handyman skills on camera. Harrison is a caroenter and a pilot, and we're able to see his transition into jack of all trades in his films. Han Solo is constantly tinkering with his ship, The Millennium Falcon. In The Mosquito Coast, Allie Fox builds an ice maker in the middle of a tropical rainforest. Harrison shows off his piloting skills in films such as Air Force One, and Six Days, Seven Nights.

The names of Harrison's characters often suggest the tinman. The original tinman was named Nick Chopper:

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