Review of The Searchers (1956) by Leigh O — 01 Feb 2009

Highly revered western. It has grown on me somewhat in the years since I first saw it and didn't really like it. The thing that struck me again and again throughout this movie this time around was the breathtaking vistas and visual wonder of Monument Valley (especially if watching the blu-ray version). Larger than life mountains literally dwarf the actors and fill every inch of the screen with aching beauty.

The story is good. Very straightforward. I can rarely distinguish one John Wayne performance from the next (with the exception of Red River), so I can say that he is no better or worse than he ever has been. One thing about this picture and why it doesn't have the emotional effect on me that it does on people who saw it when it first came out is that its dark tone and violent themes are quite tame in the wake of films like Unforgiven and The Proposition. I can appreciate that in 1956 it was bold to present such themes, and to give an actor like John Wayne, who held such a heroic figure in films, a character who did terrible things and thought terrible, racist thoughts. And while some films, and specifically Westerns, never show their age (again Unforgiven and Red River come to mind) some others, as good as they are, have trouble surviving the millennium.