The Searchers

Directed by: John Ford
Written by: 
Starring: John Wayne

It’s embarrassing how many westerns I haven’t seen.  Not from a lack of interest.  There’s always been something else to watch instead.  I’ve decided to change all that with The Searchers, John Ford’s excellent western about a man lost and looking for redemption and how a simple quest can force you to miss out on the other people in your life.  

I chose this film first after I discovered that David Lean used it as an influence when shooting Lawrence of Arabia.  The Searchers is a quest undertaken by group of men, riding horseback across the wild west.  Trade out horses for camels and the American West for the African Desert and you have Lawrence of Arabia.  While there a few similarities between the two lead characters, it was more of the look that Lean was going after.  Both directors shoot scenes with wide masters, rarely going in for the close up - choosing instead to shoot their stars from farther back and only cutting in when necessary.  It allows the characters to shut themselves off from us and only allow us in at their most vulnerable moments.  Lawrence’s trek across the desert is shot almost identically to the horse riding scenes in The Searchers.  

John Wayne stars as Ethan Edwards, a Confederate veteran of the Civil War.  Three years after the war, he finally returns home to his brother’s family.  It’s very clear that there’s a past to Ethan, one that he wants to escape from.  The family is soon attacked by a tribe of Comanche Indians, who kidnap the two daughters and kill the mother, father, and son.  Over the next five years, Ethan and other people from the area spend their days tracking down the Indians in hopes of recovering the younger daughter Debbie.  Ethan is also searching for something else.  By rescuing the young girl, he hopes that he can also have redemption from his not so clean past.  

I feel that there are two leads to this film.  Certainly Wayne’s Ethan Edwards, but also the young Martin Pawley (Jeffrey Hunter).  Martin was taken in and raised by the Edwards’ so he has a strong interest in finding the young daughter.  Martin soon finds that the five years he spends tracking down Debbie, takes him away from the life he could have back home - a young woman, most importantly.  

The film’s plot is deceptively simple - there is always much more going on with the main characters and Ethan’s motivation seems to always be shifting.  Giving up for him is not an option and it becomes clearer over the course of the film that getting Debra back is not his only goal.  There is a deep rooted hatred for the Comanche Indians and at some points you think that the Debbie may just be an after thought.  It’s a great character study and Wayne does a great job playing Ethan, even if there’s always a little of himself poking through.  

This is the first John Ford film I’ve seen (who’s from Maine!), but won’t be the last.  He appears to be a solid director and a lot of people have been influenced by his work.  Clearly David Lean was.