THE SEARCHERS
by
JOHN FORD
Q: What do the following have in
common?
• Buddy Holly’s 1957 hit “That’ll Be The Day”
• Sergio Leone's film Once Upon a Time in the
West (1969)
• Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976)
• Paul Schrader’s Hardcore (1979) with George C.
Scott
• George Lucas’ Star Wars
• Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third
Kind & Saving Private Ryan
• Donnie Brasco
• A: They were all
inspired by John
Ford’s classic
1956 Western
The Searchers
• The Searchers tells the emotionally complex story of
a perilous, hate-ridden quest and Homeric-style
odyssey of self-discovery after a Comanche
massacre, while also exploring the themes of racial
prejudice and sexism. Its meandering tale examines
the inner psychological turmoil of a fiercely
independent, crusading man obsessed with revenge
and hatred, who searches for his two nieces (Pippa
Scott and Natalie Wood) among the "savages" over a
five-year period… John Wayne, in his first antiheroic role as a bigot and racist, is a tragic, lonely,
morally-ambiguous figure who is perenially doomed
to be an outsider - a role that the actor often
described as his favourite. It is commonly regarded
as Wayne's finest-acted performance - his ninth
starring role in a Ford film.
Greatest Films
Created in 1996-2002 © by Tim Dirks.
http://www.filmsite.org/sear3.html
Ford’s visual style
• Classic composition
• Visual effects reflect
traditional narrative
structure
• Landscape plays vital
role in story and
image
The West, Progress & ‘Manifest
Destiny’
• In a memorable, optimistic speech about the
rough settlement of the country, Mrs. Jorgensen
expresses her pioneering hopes for better times
as a populist ‘Texican’. Change will eventually
come to the raw frontier through the country's
optimistic belief in manifest destiny:
It just so happens we be Texicans. A Texican is nothin' but a
human man way out on a limb, this year and next. Maybe for a
hundred more. But I don't think it'll be forever. Some day, this
country's gonna be a fine good place to be. Maybe it needs our
bones in the ground before that time can come.
But for this civilising ‘Manifest Destiny’ to
come about, the demons of the American
psyche
– The savage domination of nature
– The violent oppression of ‘enemies’
– The conflict between free will and unity
must be exorcised by one man…
The mono-mythic American hero
• John Wayne’s darkest role
• A hero torn by love, hate & guilt
• More savage than the Indians he
swears to destroy
• Like Mel Gibson in Braveheart,
Schwarzenegger in Terminator and
Johnny Depp in Donnie Brasco, he
cannot remain in the community he
saves
A key sequence (DVD chapter 14)
• The cinema is, first and
foremost, about SPACE:
inner space, outer space,
psychological space. It is
the only medium that can
effortlessly combine all
three through the magic
combination of sound and
silence, light and dark,
and moving images.