The Searchers: The End of the Classic Western

        The Searchers (1956) is a western directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne as returning Civil War verteran Ethan Edwards. Soon after his return and with word of Comanche raiders, his families homestead is burnt to the ground and his family killed with only one eventual survivor in his niece Debbie (Natalie Wood). As the title implies Ethan and the only other member Martin (Jeffery Hunter) search for 5 long years after the Comanche known as Scar (Henry Brandon) to see if they can get Debbie back.

This isn’t the first John Ford movie I’ve watched for a class, that distinction belongs to his adaptation of the John Steinbeck (a lot of John’s in this blog) book The Grapes of Wrath (1940) starring Henry Fonda. I won’t wax poetic about the racism of this picture. Both Ford and Wayne were racist, the portrayal of the Comanche is racist, Much of the western genre pioneered by Ford and Wayne is very much has racist views and is a reason why westerns like this will never be made and why the simple morality plays that many of the westerns are gave way to the more nuanced and dark spaghetti westerns os the 60’s and 70’s. But just because John Ford is racist, that doesn't make him a complete idiot.

The Searchers is known for being probably the best shot of all of John Ford’s westerns. However two moments stick out, the first and last shot of the movie. The beginning starts in the dark with the door of a house opening, we see the outside is a frame within a frame and we follow Aunt Martha (Dorothy Jordan) outside to greet Ethan returning home, the Edwards family all comes out to see, all facing to the left. The final shot is similar but in reverse, the Jorgensen Family all on the porch this time looking to the right to an approaching Ethan with Debbie. The family goes inside and we get a frame within a frame of the door as the inside is dark and all we see is outside and with Ethan in the middle, and as he walks off the door closes. We end the movie the same way we started, We get the message through framing that the journey and the search is over, literal closure with the door. All that’s left is Ethan left to wander as he’s left with only himself.

I forget where, and sadly can’t find the video where I saw it, but the end shot can also be taken as the end of the John Ford/John Wayne style western. The Searchers is one of the last prominent westerns that are typical good guy John Wayne fighting Indians in the old west. The last shot of an older John Wayne walking towards the horizon with a solemn song playing and with again the door closing, almost like the end of a book in the story that is the Western. But if the classic western has to die in order for the spaghetti westerns to live, then that’s a trade I’m willing to make.

A side note, I noticed that Ethan wears a black hat throughout the movie. White hat and black hatted characters being shorthand for who’s a good guy and who’s bad.





How to see | Westerns: Is the Genre Dead? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOeMHxBgShs 

Beginning Scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_j3NrcDiS4 

End scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvfIsbhIQLA  

Comments

  1. Kasimer ClarkSeptember 28, 2020 at 3:04 PM

    I think your points about this film being a turning point in the genre are very apt. you can definitely see where the advent of spaghetti westerns deviate from the genre, leaning more on the characterization and less on the conflicts with the indigenous. I too am glad to see this pave the way instead of resurging nowadays.

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