THE SEARCHERS (1956). John Wayne and Jeffrey Hunter spend years searching for Wayne's niece (Natalie Wood), who was abducted as a child by Comanches. Far from a picaresque adventure yarn, The Searchers is director John Ford's forceful meditation on racism, revenge and obsession -- one of the most powerful ever filmed. And Wayne's portrayal of a brutishly obsessed "savior" is downright frightening. (119 mins)
Jonathan Lethem said of Wayne’s portrayal of Edwards that he was “tormented and tormenting ... his fury is righteous and ugly, at once, resentment branded as a fetish.”
While the movie was primarily set in the staked plains of Northwest Texas, it was actually filmed in Monument Valley. This geographical space became the icon of Ford’s America.
In a 1964 interview with Cosmopolitan magazine Ford said:
“There’s some merit to the charge that the Indian hasn’t been portrayed accurately or fairly in the Western, but again, this charge has been a broad generalization and often unfair. The Indian didn’t welcome the white man... and he wasn’t diplomatic... If he has been treated unfairly by whites in films, that, unfortunately, was often the case in real life. There was much racial prejudice in the West.
Within the movie there is the dialectic of mobility vs stability, trail vs hearth. Ethan’s mobility is seductive at first but then becomes problemetized by his racism.
The traditional icons of white vs native, civilized vs virile. In order for Ethan to match the virility of the other (the Indian), he must become an outsider to civilization. Interestingly, Ethan loves his brother’s wife, and it is the impotence of the borther that causes her death.
In this film, “someday this country is going to be a fine country”, in Easy Rider, “this used to be one hell of a country”
Many now draw the parallel to the hype created to draw us into the war on Iraq. Have we again been lead by one who is creating an Other for us to hate?
The intro is striking- a brick wall and the theme, “what makes a man to wander, what makes a man to do wrong?”
In a 1964 interview with Cosmopolitan magazine Ford said:
“There’s some merit to the charge that the Indian hasn’t been portrayed accurately or fairly in the Western, but again, this charge has been a broad generalization and often unfair. The Indian didn’t welcome the white man... and he wasn’t diplomatic... If he has been treated unfairly by whites in films, that, unfortunately, was often the case in real life. There was much racial prejudice in the West.
Within the movie there is the dialectic of mobility vs stability, trail vs hearth. Ethan’s mobility is seductive at first but then becomes problemetized by his racism.
The traditional icons of white vs native, civilized vs virile. In order for Ethan to match the virility of the other (the Indian), he must become an outsider to civilization. Interestingly, Ethan loves his brother’s wife, and it is the impotence of the borther that causes her death.
In this film, “someday this country is going to be a fine country”, in Easy Rider, “this used to be one hell of a country”
Many now draw the parallel to the hype created to draw us into the war on Iraq. Have we again been lead by one who is creating an Other for us to hate?
The intro is striking- a brick wall and the theme, “what makes a man to wander, what makes a man to do wrong?”
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment