Review of The Searchers (1956) by Joshua B — 26 May 2012

John Ford's The Searchers is a difficult film. Its treatment of race, while nowhere as offensively simplistic as something like Birth of A Nation, feels dated by today's standards. Yet Ford's narrative cannot be written down to a simple "cowboys & Indians" story, for it plays more like a tentative exploration into attitudes about race, conflict, and racial mixing. Remember that this screenplay was based on the Alan Le May novel of the same name, for which he also wrote a companion story from the opposite perspective, of a Native girl being taken by whites. Even the fact that its protagonist, Ethan Edwards (John Wayne in a stunning performance), is a Confederate Civil War veteran suggests a subversion of the heroic structure. Ethan's singular vision in hunting down the Comanches who kidnapped his niece -- and it becomes increasingly a question of whether he will let her live now that her time with the Comanches has made her beyond reclamation -- plays with ideas of civilisation; Ethan's perception of the savage comes to feel like a description of himself more than he would like to admit. In lieu of Ethan's own bloodlust we wonder whether he is the one beyond redemption. And the film wonders this, too, as the final shot questions Ethan's place in both family and society.

Despite an overtly racist subplot in which Jeffrey Hunter's character accidentally takes a Comanche bride, where his abuse of her is played for laughs, and some truly terrible performances from some of the actors who surround Wayne, The Searchers holds a strong place in the Western canon, for its complex ideas, its gorgeous cinematography, and its influence on the genre. Without The Searchers, we would never have had Unforgiven.