‘That’ll be the day…’
John Ford is perhaps the most celebrated director of all time. As the only person to win four Best Director gongs at the Oscars, he is beloved by critics and people within the industry and is as respected as Kurosawa, Coppola and Scorsese. And yet, because the kind of ultra-macho films that he made have gone out of fashion now, his cultural footprint outside of committed cinephiles is relatively small. This is a shame because The Searchers is an all-timer.
Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) embarks on a years-long journey to find his niece Debbie (Natalie Wood) following her abduction by the ruthless Comanche chief Scar (Henry Brandon).
When people think of a parody of masculinity, they are thinking of John Wayne in this film. No wonder the boomer generation was so emotionally repressed if they had this guy as an idol. Having said that, it’s impossible not to get swept up in the whole thing and while Wayne is racist, misogynist and rude the whole time, he also has a quiet dignity and buckets of charisma. It should also be noted that the wild west was a violent and dangerous place, and it was undoubtedly tough to be a woman or a Native American or pretty much anything apart from a strong, silent, white guy. The Searchers is simply a reflection of both the time it was made and the time it depicts and there is no denying that Frank S. Nugent’s screenplay is phenomenal despite all the slurs.
As previously stated, I’m not really into westerns, but The Searchers is one of the best in the business. You might start off hating Ethan Edwards, but in the end, even through the lens of 2023, it’s impossible not to admire him. This is a testament to both Wayne’s iconic performance and Ford’s peerless direction.