The Searchers

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?”

Pee Wee's Big Adventure

PEE WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE (1985). When his treasured bike is stolen outside Chuck's Bike-O-Rama, Pee-Wee Herman (Paul Reubens) is devastated -- and he'll do anything to get it back. Working off a hot tip that his wheels may be stashed in the Alamo's basement, Pee-Wee leaves his girlfriend (Elizabeth Daily) and sets off on a whirlwind cross-country adventure. Quirky filmmaker Tim Burton directs this classic comedy with an all-star cast that's too long to list. (90 mins)

Was it really funny, or was it just creepy?

One of the striking differences about Pee Wee is that although he already lives in a fantasy world, he still requires a road trip to actualize his "self."

Loss of the bike is a loss of transport and yet this creates the structure for the road trip and thus Pee Wee's ultimate transformation.

What is Burton trying to tell us -- "I've really learned something out here -- humility"-- and yet, at this point Pee Wee is still at the beginning of his quest.

Play on Tropes/Iconic moments: Asian Butler, Fighting in a pool, breaking down a door with a shoulder, noir lighting in the basement, shadows in the alley, keystone kapers, amneisa as a plot device, dreams as dance acts, ET, recap at the end of the film, Wizard of Oz, Bambi, Return of the Jedi, Hobos, Buster Keaton / Charlie Chaplin

Repo Man

REPO MAN (1984). This is a cult classic from Alex Cox (director of Sid & Nancy. Lacking role models and a purpose, baby-faced delinquent Otto (Emilio Estevez) finds a code of honor and a higher calling when he hooks up with a band of contemporary "knights": the repo men. A "seasoned" auto repossessor (Harry Dean Stanton) shows Otto the ropes, and when a big reward is offered for an elusive 1964 Malibu, Otto dodges G-men, cops, religious kooks, and more, in a frenzied quest for the car. Does his fate lie in its trunk? (93 mins)

The use of the alien is a significant plot device- a commentary on "freaks", a reference to fears of radiation and nuclear devices, a reference to 50's B movies, and perhaps even a nod to the need for something to believe in despite the empty consumer culture of the 1980's.

The character of Miller is that of "The Fool", a long used plot device for delivering important information in a subtle way.

This film is tremendously post-modern in the disappearance of the critical distance; the text embraces the object of commentary. In this case what is the commentary? Consumerism? Bad films? Loss of meaning?

And yet the text also mocks everything. It mocks the hippies and the 1970's, it mocks the punk counter culture, mocks the government and scientists. What is left at the end for us to believe in?

Themes of the Road Trip Movie (a mid-season introduction)

Season Three of Rowhouse Film Festival is called "On The Road." Starting with a quintessential road movie, Easy Rider, we'll explore the genre of the road film as a manifesto for freedom & wandering, and as the anti-establishment American dream.

We all go on roadtrips and inevitably they have marked meaningful moments in our lives. So what is it about the open road and us driving down them that is so compelling for us (and filmmakers) to try to capture?

Very loosely, this is what we're trying to explore here this season by examining 12 films about being "On The Road." We've built and organized our series around a few obvious themes, general sub-categories (perhaps meaningless) that they all can fit into: the buddy flick, romance on the road, the lone rider on a quest, and the family who strike on the road for new beginnings.

But what we find when we look a little further into what is now become a genre in American film making -- "the road movie" -- are the inseperable iconography of the car and the horizon which surrounds it. Most strikingly we see in cars an individualist mode of transportation, a modern interpretation of a rugged cowboy's horse. And the expanse of open road articulates a similar manifest destiny to modernize and to make the unknown known.

And yet, mining the cinematic history of these mobile obsessions, we might find that the films themselves repeatedly focus on the consequences of a culture moving away from the stabilizing structures of community and communication. There is often desperation and turmoil which send our travellers adrift in a desire to find significance and perhaps stability in the contemporary world.