. . . a classic American film that has as much complexity, beauty, and resonance as any great work of art. And it looks utterly fantastic in Blu-ray.
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John Ford and John Wayne forged one of the great director-actor partnerships in American cinema. From "Stagecoach" (1939) to "How the West Was Won" (1963), the pair collaborated on many Westerns now regarded as classics, including "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," "The Three Godfathers," "The Horse Soldiers," "The Searchers," and Ford's so-called cavalry trilogy, "Fort Apache," "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon," and "Rio Grande." Fans and film historians might be hard-pressed to pick a favorite out of this bunch, but for the Duke it was no contest: "The Searchers" was his all-time favorite.
It's hard to tell who's the star of this revenge-themed Western, Wayne or Monument Valley. The establishing shot all but favors the land. Ford shoots the back of a woman standing in a doorway in silhouette, gradually expanding the shot to reveal the whole glorious landscape--and in Blu-ray, those rock formations look as stunning as our first glimpse of Oz. Ford was the first director to take Westerns out of the Hollywood back lots and film on location, and there was no land more dramatic or rugged than this territory near the Arizona-Utah border that was farther from a railroad than any other place in the U.S. When you see behind-the-scenes footage of the two Johns at Goulding's Trading Post, the only permanent structure in the area, you begin to realize that the harsh conditions weren't just on-screen. This was the real American West, and both director and star were in love with it. Ford was also such a realist that he chose supplementary locations in Alberta, Canada and Gunnison, Colorado because of their snow levels and cold. In Blu-ray, these scenes--like cavalry crossing an icy river--are surprisingly striking.
On one of the bonus features, director Martin Scorsese calls "The Searchers" a "very disturbing film," but also "one of the most beautiful films every filmed." That's a good way to put it. Ford's use of the land in his Westerns (he filmed nine of them in Monument Valley) goes beyond simple appreciation. There's a connectedness between the land and the characters and the cinematographers that borders on lyricism. As a result, it's a drop-dead gorgeous film to watch. And yet, Ford's themes are often dark. The director was fascinated by essentially good characters like Ethan Edwards (Wayne) who are capable of doing bad things in "The Searchers," of bad men (like those in "The Three Godfathers") who find a streak of goodness within them that allows them to take care of a baby entrusted to them.
Like just about every Western, the plot of "The Searchers" is set in motion when a lone horseman rides into town. In this case, "town" is just a lonely homestead in the middle of Texas, and the rider, we quickly learn, is Uncle Ethan, back from the war. In the tradition of the Western hero, there are mysteries surrounding the stranger, and with Ethan it's the question of where he's been since the end of the Civil War, and why he didn't show up at the surrender to turn in his saber. Questions like these continue to pop up throughout the film, as do chances for Ethan to prove his superior knowledge of the land, the Indians, their languages, and all things related to survival in the West. Like most Western heroes, Ethan has one foot in society and one foot outside of it. He's the one-person vigilante who sets things right and defeats the forces that threaten to destroy society. But because his methods aren't always acceptable, once that job is done, there's no place for the Western hero in the society he's stabilized.
"The Searchers" was adapted from a serialized Western later published in novel form by
Alan Le May. The plot is a simple one that embraces one of the main (and least attractive) themes of the Western: a hatred of Indians. When Ethan's brother and the sister-in-law he secretly loved are killed along with some of their children, he's as devastated as the rest of the settlers. But what starts out as a posse of deputized Texas Rangers to recover his nieces who were taken captive quickly turns into a White Whale that threatens to wash away Ethan's humanity. In relentlessly pursuing Comanche war chief Scar to try to recover the girls, Ethan does things that place him on the same level as Scar (Henry Brandon).
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[release]20141[/release]