An analysis of John Ford's 1956 Western The Searchers, starring John Wayne as a morally complex anti-hero on a quest to rescue his niece. The film is widely seen as a Western adaptation of Homer's Odyssey and has profoundly influenced cinema, inspiring works from Star Wars to Taxi Driver. Despite its controversial depiction of Native Americans, it remains a landmark film celebrated for its visual grandeur and psychological depth.
John Wayne made a Western riff on The Odyssey during his heyday, and it resulted in his greatest movie. After toiling on cheapie,"poverty row" Western s during the 1930s, John Wayne's introduction in Stagecoach changed his career forever.
It helps that the movie surrounding him was a masterpiece in its own right, but this intro alone cemented Wayne as a future screen icon. While he worked with many great filmmakers, including Howard Hawks, the John Wayne/John Ford collaborations are considered the best work of either man. Ford, a famously tough, grizzled director, knew how to get the best out of Wayne, who was sometimes content to coast on his default screen persona.
Despite his bullying reputation, Ford's filmography speaks for itself. With Wayne alone, he made several classics like The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Quiet Man and Fort Apache. Their best outing, and by extension, one of the best Westerns ever made, was 1956's The Searchers. This cast Wayne as Ethan Edwards, a cynical, racist Civil War vet who heads up a years-long campaign to rescue his kidnapped niece.
While the movie was well-reviewed at the time, it has since been recognized as a true classic for its rich visuals and Wayne's morally complex anti-hero. The Searchers Remade The Odyssey As A Western It may not feature any Cyclops battles, but The Searchers was clearly intended as a riff on Homer's The Odyssey. They share a basic setup, with both stories involving a troubled war hero embarking on a years-long quest to reunite with their loved ones.
Both texts explore the traumas of war and their protagonists' struggles to fit back into a society that has moved on without them. It's the mythic quality of Ford's Western that has made it so enduring. It's also the film's exploration of its lead character's psyche. Wayne made his name playing unambiguous good guys, but Ethan is easily his darkest role.
Ethan is capable of being warm and loving, but he also commits barbaric, spiteful acts of violence. John Wayne's co-star in The Searchers is Jeffrey Hunter, who later became known for playing Captain Christopher Pike on the pilot of Star Trek: The Original Series. The Searchers never sugarcoats Ethan's racism and in the end, he recognizes that he has been so poisoned by hate and violence that he can never truly go home.
The movie was groundbreaking for it's time for offering a bleaker, more nuanced view of the Old West, which is another reason it has aged so well. The Searchers Has Been Remade Many Times In the same way there have been countless movies, TV shows and books that have used The Odyssey as inspiration, The Searchers has been endlessly reworked over the decades.
Ford's film was a major influence on the"Movie Brats" of the 1970s, for instance, with George Lucas giving it a sci-fi makeover with Star Wars. The central conceit, where Luke Skywalker teams with a crusty war vet to save a kidnapped woman, is right out of The Searchers.
A less obvious example would be Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver, which again involves a troubled veteran going on a dark journey to save a young woman; in this case, Jodie Foster's Iris. Later examples include Ron Howard's The Missing, which is about the closest thing to an actual remake of The Searchers yet.
There is also 2015's Bone Tomahawk, which offered a more horror-focused take on the material, while 2011's Priest adapted both the cult manga of the same name, whilst using The Searchers as a thematic blueprint. There are many more examples, and it speaks to how important this John Wayne Western has become that it keeps getting reworked by new generations.
The Searchers is considered a classic for a reason, even if its depiction of Native Americans is regarded as problematic now. It makes sense that arguably the greatest Westerns ever made were so heavily inspired by one of the greatest mythological tales ever written. 33 9.0/10 6/10 The Searchers 10 stars 9 stars 8 stars 7 stars 6 stars 5 stars 4 stars 3 stars 2 stars 1 star Like Follow Followed NR Western Release Date May 26, 1956 Runtime 119 minutes Director John Ford Writers Frank S. Nugent Producers C.V. Whitney Cast See All Powered by Expand Collapse
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