Films, like artists or authors, tend to have their critical reputations wax and wane through a few cycles until a consensus is finally reached. Of course, consensus has little to do with real world excellence or failure. As good an example of this trend as can be shown certainly is John Ford’s famed 1956 John Wayne western, The Searchers. Upon its initial release, the film made a solid profit, and was considered a good film. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, however, film school graduates started championing both it and Ford as more than good, but great. By the 1980s, with the rise of PC, the film’s political content and its portrayal of Manifest Destiny came under attack as ‘racist,’ and the film was not held in as high regard for some years.
With the advent of DVD technology in the late 1990s, the film was re-released, and its current status as a ‘masterpiece’ has been little challenged since. Indeed, in watching the special features on the two disk Ultimate Collector’s Edition DVD of the film, one might believe that the film is Shakespearean. Assorted talking heads and film buffs gush over the film, even people like director Martin Scorsese. Another great director, Akira Kurosawa, is cited as declaring he learned film technique from watching John Ford westerns.
Of course, I do not doubt all of these people’s love for the film, but love (or like/hate) is a wholly different paradigm from artistic excellence. And while there is no doubt that, technically, John Ford was a superb craftsman - in the framing of shots, in the use of silences that he carried over from his silent film days, in the judicious use of close-ups, and the brilliant use of color in this VistaVision film - it is nowhere near a great work of art.
Technique and technical excellence do not equate with greatness. Were that true a poet with a merely flawless ear, like Walter de la Mare, would be ranked along with the Whitmans and Baudelaires. No, there needs to be characterization and great acting. This is where screenwriting and casting come in. The film’s actual screenplay is simplistic, larded with stereotypes, and the acting, save for a few scenes where Jeffrey Hunter (as mixed breed Martin Pawley) shines, is self-conscious, poseur, and given that the film is as triumphalist as can be, it makes such preening seem hedonistic.
Naturally, the worst sinner on this accord is John Wayne, as the film’s putative hero/anti-hero, Ethan Edwards. There is no doubt Wayne had a great onscreen presence, both physically and in his idiosyncratic emoting and speaking styles. But while watching the film, and seeing him strut and spit out trite lines while dick-waving through every second he’s on camera, I fully understand why someone like my dad - a left of center trade unionist - found both the man and the characters he played (which were really minor variations on his own faux persona, admixed with testosterone) to be symbols of everything that’s wrong with America, past and present.
Article comments
1 - LAGirl
Should be interesting to see how Searchers 2.0 (Cox film starring Del Zamora, Fall 07) spoofs this...
2 - TWW
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.
3 - Dan Schneider
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.
4 - yayu
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.
5 - Dan Schneider
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.
6 - Jim
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.
7 - Fritz
I'll take love over "artistic merit" every day of the week, professor.
8 - Dan Schneider
That's why your opinion is not that enlightening.
9 - Darlene Davis
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.
10 - Dan Schneider
Red River's better.
11 - Josette
I only watched this movie for my cinema studies class and also required to study Ethan's hero status. My groupmates and I initially couldn't see anything heroic about Ethan since he proved himself a racist, uncontrollable and impulsive guy throughout the movie.
I also didn't like the part where Lucy screamed like a mad girl. Couldn't she have been smarter and shut up? Another disturbing part was when Martin kicked Look down the hill. That was just plain cruel!
But then, it's still an enjoyable film. Ethan's catchphrase "That'll be the day" was amusing. John Wayne's performance was all right. This is my first time watching a John Wayne movie anyway. :D
12 - Zetmoon
This article is a load of bullshit!
The Searchers is one of the greatest films ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!