Searchers, The (HD DVD)

Connect to Facebook/Twitter, recommend via email and much more.

---

Then, too, Ford uses his favorite location for shooting, Monument Valley, the beauty of the landscape making a fascinating contrast with the brutality of the plot. Again, when I was a kid I took this landscape for granted as being the real West. I saw Monument Valley so often in movies I thought the entire West looked like that. Strangely, it never occurred to me that I grew up and lived in California, as far "West" as you could go in the continental United States, yet I never saw a single prairie or plateau like the ones in a John Ford Western. I never thought of myself as being a part of the actual "West," the one in the movies. I suppose film and television and literature in general continue to distort our perceptions of reality.

Anyway, Wayne may be playing a less-than-righteous individual here, but he never looked better. Rugged, handsome, in a characteristic red shirt and a rifle slung across his shoulders, he is the archetypal movie Westerner. But Ford makes this Westerner a person of dubious intent, an ambiguous man whom we never come fully to trust. Surely, that was Ford's sense of American history speaking in the movie, the sense that what the white settlers did in coming West was not always right or fair. And when we see Edwards himself taking a scalp, we're made sure of the fact.

The rest of the cast is up to par as well. Hunter as the young man who accompanies Edwards on the quest is properly youthful, enthusiastic, and arrogant. Natalie Wood as one of the girls they are searching for is beautiful and innocent. Ward Bond, a Ford regular, is bellowing, boisterous, and bigger than life. Vera Miles, John Qualen, Harry Carey Jr., Henry Brandon, and many others in the cast are more than adequate, but it is Wayne who towers above them all.

The film's drawbacks are minor: Ford's use of humor to break the built-up tension works in some cases, not in others; and the director's insistence on a romantic angle for young Pawley rather diminishes the movie's overall friction. But these are small concerns in a film that by and large captures the American spirit in all of its glory and with all of its warts. "The Searchers" is at once an attractive and entertaining picture yet an intentionally harsh one in its depiction of the darker side of "the winning of the West."

Video:
For their HD-DVD, Warner Bros. used a restored and remastered print, which maintains most the film's original VistaVision dimensions, stretching to a 1.78:1 ratio across my widescreen television. While the standard-definition results were generally superb, the high-definition is even better, the fifty-year-old film looking as good as almost anything made today. There are still a few instances where the picture is a trifle dark, particularly during indoor shots, but mainly the image is sharp and well detailed, with no signs of age whatsoever--no lines, scratches, flecks, or fades. The colors shows up brilliantly, of course, deeper and more vibrant than ever. Given the amount of wide-open expanses of land and sky involved in the shooting, there is relatively little grain in the picture, too, except that which was probably inherent to the original print; nevertheless, high definition shows up a few patches that might not have been so noticeable before. The grain varies from scene to scene, from zero to mild, and I doubt anyone would notice who wasn't specifically looking for it. This is gorgeous cinematography, excellently reproduced.

Audio:
The Dolby Digital Plus 1.0 mono sound quality is, if anything, even more sparkling than it was in regular Dolby Digital, although you obviously still won't find any surround information here. Nor is there much in the way of bass or dynamic extremes. However, you will find an extraordinary clarity in the dialogue and music that makes listening a pleasure. The audio is the proverbial "clear as a bell." Not for a minute did I notice it was in monaural. There is a touch of background static around the sound in a few scenes, but like the minor, occasional film grain, it is hardly noticeable.

Extras:
This single HD-DVD contains all the special features found on the standard-definition, Ultimate Collector's Edition, two-disc set. This means you'll find a generous forty-four scene selections, a theatrical trailer, and an optional two-minute introduction by John Wayne's son, Patrick Wayne, a co-producer of the film and a co-star. More important, you will get an audio commentary by Peter Bogdanovich, who is always a joy to listen to. In fact, Bogdanovich along with Roger Corman are probably my favorite film commentators because they never fail to entertain as well as enlighten. These people are filmmakers through and through, who have not only studied film but practiced filmmaking. Bogdanovich is a writer, director, producer, actor, biographer, and film historian; listening to him talk about folks he knew and worked with is a pleasure.

In addition the HD-DVD contains three documentaries. The first is "The Searchers: An Appreciation," a new, 2006 feature, thirty minutes long, in which filmmakers Curtis Hanson, Martin Scorsese, and John Milius comment on the film. The second documentary is "A Turning of the Earth: John Ford, John Wayne and The Searchers," a 1998 feature, thirty-three minutes long, that takes us behind-the-scenes of the film's shooting. And the third documentary is a vintage piece hosted by Gig Young, twenty-one minutes long, called "Behind the Cameras," which includes segments on "Meet Jeffrey Hunter," "Monument Valley," "Meet Natalie Wood," and "Setting Up Production."

Finally, there is a trailer for a new WB release "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford"; plus the usual pop-up, on-screen menus; zoom/pan gimmick; and elite Red HD case. Remember, though, that the special features are in standard-definition; it's a little discouraging after watching the movie in high-def.

Parting Thoughts:
John Wayne said that of the many films he made with director John Ford, "The Searchers" was his favorite. Maybe it's because of the relative complexity of the character he played. Certainly, Ethan Edwards is a conflicted individual with a dark side, much less the straight-arrow hero that Wayne often played. In any case, "The Searchers" remains a much more multi-layered Western than most other such examples of the genre, and it is surely a classic of its kind, made all the better by its appearance on this HD-DVD.

The fact is, there is almost nothing about standard-definition DVDs that isn't improved in high-definition DVDs: Better picture, better sound, more convenient access to special features, and the contents of two regular DVDs on a single HD disc. Yes, an HD player does take a little more time to boot up than an ordinary SD player, and there are the costs involved and the Blu-ray/HD-DVD format war to consider. But if a person already has a high-definition television, the high-definition disc medium is at the very least something to consider.

---

Connect to Facebook/Twitter, recommend via email and much more.

---