DVD Review: The Searchers
Published May 07, 2007
Of course, back in the 1950s, these very qualities were considered everything right with Eisenhoverian America (in both the affirmative and political senses). Then came the Ford as auteur revisionism, and those critics saw Ford critiquing racism and the male role in America. Articles written about the Wayne character tended to see him in the role of the film’s villain.
Yet, watching the film today, free of its era and critical revisionism, what became clear to me was the difference between a work of art embodying a vision or philosophy and critiquing it. Take 1.0 on The Searchers saw the film as an embodiment of good 1950s Americana, while Take 2.0 saw it as a criticism of bad 1950s Americana. Neither is correct in full. In reality, The Searchers is an embodiment of bad 1950s Americana. And I doubt Ford was fully aware of what he was really crafting.
Some alibiers for art think that artists, in any field, are always aware (to the minutest detail) of what they are doing. This ‘criticism of intent’ (rather than accomplishment) leads to critics often ignoring the manifest in a work of art because they lack all objectivity, and have succumbed to a school of thought or –ism.
As example, in Take 1.0 on the film, racism is barely seen, when Ethan Edwards finds out that his family has been massacred by Comanches, and vows vengeance. Take 1.0 sees a knight in shining armor, out to avenge murder and rape. While the sexual aspects of the massacre are given some accord, the racial aspects are not. Take 2.0 sees Ethan as a symbol of White Power, who merely uses his family’s murders as a reason to continue his own genocidal bent against the Red Man. After all, it is established early in the film that he served for the Confederate States Of America, and is likely a closet hood wearer. Therefore, Ford was slipping in a lesson with his portrayal of the character.
Yet, just as Ethan as a knight fails because he’s clearly a borderline psychopath, so does the Ethan as total villain role fail. But not because he lacks villainy, in spades. After all, champions of Take 2.0 point out that, in the end, Ethan does not kill his niece Debbie once he saves her. Earlier in the film he seemingly did want to kill her, and only Martin’s defense, and an Indian attack, prevented him from carrying out the deed. Take 2.0 advocates argue that this proves that Ethan has grown, by film’s end, to accept peoples of other cultures.
Yet, all this really shows is that his love for his lone surviving kin outweighs his anger and racial hatred. Mere moments before, in the final raid on the Comanche camp, Ethan gleefully scalps Scar (Henry Brandon), the chief who kidnapped, raped, and killed Lucy (Pippa Scott), his dead niece, and married Debbie (Natalie Wood as an adult, and her sister Lana wood as a child). Manifestly, Ethan is still a racist, a killer, and even that final iris through the closing door of the Jorgenson homestead cannot erase that verity. So, while there are some points to be made for both Takes 1.0 and 2.0 on Ethan and the film, the reality is that the man has not learned any significant lessons, merely succumbed to emotion, and only briefly, for he cannot even indulge in the reunion that will go on inside the Jorgenson home once the film ends.
- DVD Review: The Searchers
- Published: May 07, 2007
- Type: Review
- Section: Video
- Filed Under: Video: Westerns, Video: Historical, Video: Drama, Video: Classics, Video: Action
- Writer: Dan Schneider
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Comments on this articleComments
Well, all I can say is that you've approached the movie with pre-concieved notions about what a Western is and in particular what a John Wayne western is and nothing that happened on the screen was allowed to challenge that. Which is a pity as you are missing out on one of the best movies ever made. Certainly better than 2001 or Once Upon A Time In The West, both of which I like.
The Searchers IS poetry. It is a complex, realistic, moving, funny, dark and entertaining visual poem of metaphor about a man's journey to the door of Hades, only to pull back at the last moment from it as he has every other door in his life. Unable to enter Hades and having long lost Heaven, he ends the film where he started - in Limbo while the living get on with their lives. Far from being a flaw, the fact that he is unable to even change for the worse is one of the major points of the story. Ethan is a futile man living a futile life.
The movie carefully lays out the characters and their history without shouting about it. Why is Marhta with Aaron and not Ethan? The film tells us, slowly and subtly, through the "silly" interaction of Marty and Lauran. It seems that this sort of story telling is not "in your face" enough for your tastes, but it is sophisticated and much more powerful in the long run than having reams of exposition.
You constantly undermine the story for yourself by insisting on applying 21st Century morals to a 20th Century telling of a 19th Century story. You need to try actually watching the movie instead of trying so hard to filter what you're seeing.
The Searchers was a semi-radical film for its time - the Indians are portrayed as trapped and thrashing hopelessly, the Indian-hunter is a monster not a hero. Again, it's subtle, but this is, for example, one of the first Westerns to portry Indian women and children running screaming from the whiteman, or come to that slaughtered without mercy in their own camp. True "Native viewpoint" westerns were still to come, but The Searchers is pointing out the direction from where they will appear and doing a far more honest job of it than, say, Dances with Wolves.
Watch it again but leave your post-modern bourgeois deconstructionist theories at the door. If you still feel the same way, then my advice is to give up watching movies.
1) it's called reading. My dad had preconceptions about Wayne, not me.
2) 'Certainly better than 2001 or Once Upon A Time In The West' A sense of humor is always good.
3) Paragraph 2- it is not poetry, and your paragraph, ironically, details why the film is trite in many ways. Thanks for making the argument.
4) I applied no moral filter, and this is another time you've imbued into the review things to defend weaknesses in the film.
5) Subtlety is not anything this film is, as I said in the scene where Ford has to zero in on Wayne to tell us 'he's bad.'
6) 'post-modern bourgeois deconstructionist theories' Define that. And if you can, show me anything that even remotely is deconstructivist in the review. I revile such stupid -isms. They are as silly as deliterates who want to try to explicate art.
That would be you, TWW.
This is quite an insightful review. To be honest, it's refreshing to read someone who didn't automatically think TS a complete masterpiece, and poetry in motion. I agree with you complete, it was a good film, enjoying and more engaging that I first thought it would be, but I can't see why people fall head over heels in love with it.
May have to use this for my essay (with citations of course!)
Yayu.
Yayu:
You can always tell bad critics and folks who love something out of proportion by the way they react to a review. Of this film I state: 'It does, however, take its place as a worthy entry in the pre-modern western canon, alongside other classics like High Noon, Shane, Red River, and Ford's other western classics like Stagecoach and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, as a good action film.'
I use words like worthy and good, yet because I do not gush over it, and recognize manifest flaws, folk like TWW automatically get enraged. Silly, really.
I myself was never partial to the old Hollywood Westerns. They're good, but they're flawed. I always prefered Sergio Leone's Clint Eastwood trilogy (the central character's much cooler than any of Wayne's characters), and especially Once Upon a Time in the West, which you mention.
I'll take love over "artistic merit" every day of the week, professor.
That's why your opinion is not that enlightening.
I am ahuge fan of John Wayne,The Searchers, was one of his best ever. So full of emotion.Stands out as a classic because he played the part so well.
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Should be interesting to see how Searchers 2.0 (Cox film starring Del Zamora, Fall 07) spoofs this...