"The Searchers" is on again. I think it's going to be running a lot this month.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

It's on the Movies! channel.

It's supposed to be this really great movie, but I don't get it. I don't see what's so great about it. Possibly, that's because I have a hard time watching John Wayne. I don't think he's that great an actor. It's not his politics. I think Clint Eastwood is terrific. I can separate the actor from his politics.

I know I started a thread about this a couple of years ago. Maybe someone can explain the greatness of "The Searchers" to me this time around.

[Walleye]

1. I think it's the scenery and the cinematography.

[Sibelius Fan]

2. One of Wayne's best performances. A great movie.

If I have to explain it, I can’t help you.

[TreasonousBastard]

3. From the Wiki entry...

The film was a commercial success. Since its release, it has come to be considered a masterpiece and one of the greatest and most influential films ever made. It was named the greatest American Western by the American Film Institute in 2008, and it placed 12th on the same organization's 2007 list of the 100 greatest American movies of all time.[3] Entertainment Weekly also named it the best Western.[4] The British Film Institute's Sight & Sound magazine ranked it as the seventh-best film of all time based on a 2012 international survey of film critics[5][6] and in 2008, the French magazine Cahiers du Cinéma ranked The Searchers number 10 in their list of the 100 best films ever made.[7]

In 1989, The Searchers was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress, and selected for preservation in its National Film Registry; it was one of the first 25 films selected for the registry.[8]

But there is also this:

Randy Roberts and James Olson write that Ethan Edwards:

is also an obsessed maniac. White settlers are not simply the advanced vanguard of civilization; they are racists. Indians are not just noble savages; they are savage killers. The frontier is not a place of opportunity; it is a wasteland....In the character of Ethan Edwards, John Wayne had extended the Western hero to the border of evil.[38]

It's been along time since I saw it, but I think it was one of the few, maybe only, film where Wayne actually acted. I suspect, however, that it was not deliberate on his part.

[hlthe2b]

4. The scenery & cinematography from John Ford is spectacular. The movie, though is racist as hell.

John Wayne gets credit for agreeing to portray such a despicable character, but frankly, I always thought it just went along with his machismo fixation (and apparently some of his own philosophy about Native Americans and other non-white people).

As a horse-lover myself, I have to say the the quality of riding and difficult ascents/descents are often amazing.

So, there is the scenery, horses, and a very difficult storyline. And, John Ford.

Enjoy those aspects.

[ShazamIam]

5. John Wayne was a boring actor he only played that one role over and over again. It didn't matter if

the movie was a romantic comedy or a military romp or the most common, cowboy outlaw bs, John Wayne played the imaginary ultimate White Western Man.

I haven't seen this movie but have of course seen it mentioned on various good old movie kinds of lists. I looked up the movie summary, seems interesting. What if a real actor had played the role of Ethan. Most of all I now want to see if I can find a copy of the book the story came from, 1954 by Alan LeMay. I wonder how the Ethan character is presented in the book, it does have a dilemma.

[frazzled]

6. Obsession, racism, and adventurous cinematography

It’s a painful film to watch, but beautiful to behold. To frame Wayne, the outsider obsessed with a hatred against the nearly black interior opening onto the brightness of the desert landscape was fairly revolutionary in its stark contrasts. Similar shots reprise the visual motif.

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Then there were the VistaVision landscapes of Monument Valley





And most significantly, the authorial claustrophobic, low angle interiors, a Ford signature. When had you ever seen the ceiling and floor condensed in a single shot?

[mahatmakanejeeves]

7. You might have hit upon something. I've seen "The Searchers" only on a television set.

Last edited Wed Jul 14, 2021, 05:39 AM - Edit history (1)

I've never seen it in a movie theater.

I've seen "Citizen Kane" in a movie theater, and I can personally attest that viewing it in a movie theater is a completely different experience than viewing it on a television set.

I checked out the DVD of "The Searchers" and I still didn't see the big deal.

I have a problem with a lot of movies. They were digitized for broadcast several years ago, using a lower standard than is in use now. If the transition were done again with modern standards, I think that would help.

The best Western ever? Better than "The Wild Bunch"? "Once Upon a Time in the West"? Nah.

[El Supremo]

8. It ended up being anti-racist.

Ethan Edwards was going to kill his niece for being "with a buck". He ends up saving her.
John Ford regretted his negative stereotypical portrayal of Indians in his earlier movies and this was his first attempt to right that. His other one was Cheyenne Autumn which wasn't received well.

It also had terrific cinematography in Monument Valley (which was supposed to be in Texas?)

"That'll be the day."

My pick for best western ever. Just above Shane, The Magnificent Seven and Unforgiven.

[gratuitous]

9. Glenn Frankel, who has written several books about movies did "The Searchers"

"The Searchers: The Making of an American Legend" plumbs the story behind the movie: "In 1836 in East Texas, nine-year-old Cynthia Ann Parker was kidnapped by Comanches. She was raised by the tribe and eventually became the wife of a warrior. Twenty-four years after her capture, she was reclaimed by the U.S. cavalry and Texas Rangers and restored to her white family, to die in misery and obscurity."

I preferred Frankel's book on the movie "High Noon," but he really goes deep on how Cynthia Ann Parker's story affected its time, and its influence continued for decades.