Review of The Searchers (1956) by Joshua T — 24 Dec 2008

Like so many movies trumpted as the foundations of cinema itself, supposed milestones like John Ford's 'The Searchers' are really exposed to be little more than vastly empty white elephants, despite generations of critics swooing over this, that and the other that apparently exists with the films. When watched from a simple audience's point of view most of these movies are limp, lukewarm and grossly over rated.

First and foremost this film is supposed to 'deal' with racism, though how it exactly does that is never really defined. By the end we get the impression that racism is a hearty American tradition that has allowed the white European settlers to kill their way across the lands of America, which for some mystifying reason 'belongs' to them. We don't get any sympathy or even balance for the Native American point of view. They're represented as childlike, backward and unintelligent, or merciless savages, just like in every single Western film until the 1970s, when racism suddenly came out of fashion. The Natives are the butt of jokes, faceless and bloodthirsty. 'Scar' himself is a stereotypical noble savage, made out to be extra evil because he speaks English. That they're massacred at the end is more disturbing than anythign else because it shows that the film makers really do advocate wiping out the Natives, and are just as racist as John Wayne himself, or, as he's known in this film, 'Ethan Edwards'.

Admittedly, Wayne gives a brilliant performance, though an ambiguous one. A rampant Republican racist in real life, sometimes you don't know if what you're watching is his acting or just being natural. One thing's for certain in that he'd totally agree with Edward's xenophobic hatred, which perhaps makes for him to be a believable character. Jeffrey Hunter also puts in a good turn, flickering at times with a damaged intensity, though he mostly never rises out of melodrama.

And neither does anyone else. Everything about this film seems horribly misjudged. The injection of comedy allevates it all to an absurd abstraction, whilst the romantic subplot is messy and distracting. Even in that there's room for offence. Ken Curtis' Southern stereotype is the dumbest and most indecipherable character to swagger across the screen, and Vera Miles' 'Laurie' plays to the sexist convention that women love nothing more that to watch two men beat each other up over her. Even Natalie Wood amounts to nothing more than a cameo role, and her bizarre rejection of the Native American culture at the end only reinforces the subhuman treatment the Native's get. When some rescued white girls act like they're more mentally disturbed than the vegetables in 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest' it's almost too much to take.

For the most part this is a lumbering and unpleasantly ludicrous wallow in the feeble, selfish and misanthropic origins of the American nation, never attempting to even criticise the sexist and racist conventions the film adheres to. While the cinematography is gorgeous the plot and story stall and trudge along and the film just goes on and on and on and on. If you like your Westerns or John Wayne's whatever they're about then you'll like it; if, however, you buy into all the intellectual crap people come out with about it, you'll be frustrated, offended and patronised, and feel bullied into liking it. The only thing worth admiring is the final shot, containing more lyricism, intelligence and meaning in those two minutes than in the entire preceding 117. A genre classic and pioneering cinema cornerstone? That'll be the day...