The Searchers

The Searchers (1956) is about a man spending five years looking for the niece taken by Comanches. Ethan Edwards arrives at his brother's ranch three years after the Civil War and will not say where he has been or where his money came from. Soon there is a raid: his family is killed and two girls are taken. The search begins and lasts years. His adopted nephew Martin comes with him, and his real reason is to stop Ethan. Because Ethan does not want to rescue her. He wants to find her and kill her: having lived with the Comanches, he believes she no longer belongs to the family. The film presents that not as heroism but as a sickness. It is the darkest part of John Wayne's career and the opposite of the good man he had played until then. The film does not endorse the racism; Ethan's hatred stands as the story's problem and Martin objects to it constantly. Even so, the writing of the Indian characters belongs to its period and is criticised now. The opening and closing use the same frame: a dark doorway opens and the outside appears. At the end the door closes and Ethan is left outside; he never comes in. It was shot in Monument Valley, which Ford used in nine films. Winton Hoch's VistaVision photography is regarded as the measure for the genre. The generation of directors that followed quoted it constantly, and that doorway shot became one of the most imitated in cinema. It runs 119 minutes. Good for: westerns, classic Hollywood, and film history. Less good for: the depiction of Native Americans is a problem and the lead is full of hatred throughout.