I don't have a snappy title for this one: The Searchers

Continuing my film education, it was time for that other most famous John Ford/John Wayne western: The Searchers (1956).

When Confederate solider Ethan Edwards (Wayne) eventually finds his way back home after the war, his temporary rest is destroyed by a Comanche killing raid on his brother's family's homestead. When he doesn't find the bodies of two of his nieces, Ethan assumes they've been taken to assimilate into the band as wives, and sets out to find them. Traveling with his adopted nephew, Martin, and his eldest niece's fiancee, Ethan spends the next five years in a state of hope and anger as he travels the Southwestern U.S. searching for the girls.

This film is first and foremost a character study, and Ethan is a fascinating character. He's the most interesting racist I've seen to date, because there's much more to him than simply hating Indians. He has a shady and unexplained past, which begs the question of whether or not he's always been racist, or did his attitudes change based on loss, or atrocities witnessed? The film suggests that it is the latter, with strong implications that his primary motivation comes from a desire for revenge rather than racial hatred, as Ethan is no mindless racist. For example, Martin is 1/8 Cherokee, having been taken in by Ethan's brother as a baby when his parents were killed in a raid, and 1/8 is too much Cherokee for Ethan. He doesn't consider Martin family, and won't let Martin call him "uncle" when they ride together. However, he also won't let Martin call him "sir", instead making the younger man address him by his first name, as an equal, demonstrating a recognition of Martin as a worthwhile man that grows in subtle but significant ways throughout the film. Looming over the whole movie, to Martin's increasing concern, is the ultimate question of how Ethan will react to his nieces when he finds them, because they won't have survived without assimilating. Ethan grows without transforming, if that makes sense - it's interesting, realistic, and great moviemaking.

The other driving factor of this film is the exploration of what happens when racism spawns actions that spawn revenge, and grow to combine the two. For example, the war chief who took Ethan's nieces during a raid that was probably directly caused by being a victim of Manifest Destiny is shown to be a racist himself - but it is suggested that his primary motivation for his actions has, like Ethan, become revenge. When Ethan finally meets the chief, he is shown a scalp collection that the chief explains was taken in revenge for the murder of his sons...but the number of scalps outnumbers the number of sons by more than double. John Ford, who gave many interviews about his belief and anger that the Native American people were victims of a genocide justified by racism, has been accused of being racist himself. I'd give those accusations about as much weight as I do the accusations that Steven Spielberg is anti-Semitic for making Munich, or Spike Lee's very public self-embarassment of calling Clint Eastwood racist for making a biopic of trumpet great Charlie "Bird" Parker. There's really nothing to say in response to something so baseless. I guess I watched the bootleg, non-racist version of The Searchers.

The only thing that distracted me in a negative way during this film was the handful of outdoor scenes shot on a soundstage, back in the day when such soundstages were pretty tacky things (think original Star Trek). This rankles only because the majority of the film is shot on location in the Monument Valley area, a natural wonder that can be best described as "epic". And, you know, because soundstages are so amazing now that you'd never guess they were soundstages, like the jungle on Lost which stopped being a location shoot after the first season. It's a trifle. It's a nitpick. It really has no bearing on the film as a whole. So I guess what I'm trying to say is, I have no complaint with this picture. Wierd, huh?

With a thoughtful look at a tough and contentious issue, fantastic performances, and some nice humour from Ethan's catchphrase and the Southern dandy who moves in on Martin's girl while he's away, The Searchers is a low-action, high-interest western that's well worth your time.