The Searchers

The Searchers is a western film centered around a racist mans search for his captive niece. Ethan Edwards returns to his family’s home after the Civil War. We see what seems to be some sort of forbidden love between him and his brothers wife before a group of a Comanche Indians come in and murder his brother, his wife and his two sons, while taking the two older daughters as captives. Ethan seems to be a thief and it also seems like he was in trouble before leaving home. We learn about his racist attitude pretty quickly in the film after he shoots a dead Native American in the eyes so that the NA cannot move on to the spirit world. Towards the middle of the movie, he also says that he would rather his niece be dead because she was forced to have sex with a "Buck" Comanche. Eventually at the end of the film, he is slightly redeemed when he allows his niece to come home instead of killing her, but I still imagine that is the movie had continued, their relationship would have been very tumultuous and strained. 


This is such an interesting movie to me because the storyline is pretty dark and the characters are pretty racist and stereotypical, but the scenery and shooting in the movie is beautiful. The skill taken for such beautiful long landscape shots, especially being that the movie was made in 1956, is awe inspiring and very impressive to me. This is rated one of the best westerns, and I can see why. The story line isn’t entirely my thing, but it was a movie that captured my attention, interested me, and looked very pretty. 

Comments

  1. CharlesSeptember 27, 2020 at 5:46 PM

    I agree, the scenery in the movie is beautiful, the storyline is dark though, but the cinematography mostly made up for. it.

    ReplyDelete

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