The Searchers

I’ve always gravitated towards art that challenges me. Whether that's emotionally or mentally, I really enjoy art that sits with me for awhile. Personally, I think that’s when art is truly at its peak. When a film gives me cause to pause...digest my thoughts and emotions and look inward or outward for a while that's a sign of greatness...at least to me. If that strikes a chord with you, well then you’re in luck; for today’s film does exactly that. It’s a story that is equally as thought provoking today as it was when it debuted back in 1956. A western film that, through its protagonist Ethan Edwards, reveals a picture that many of us are horrified to see. An image rarely seen in the Western genre to that point...one that is unfortunately the dark underbelly of America. An image of intolerance, racism, and obsession...things that are hideous on their own, but extremely dangerous when combined.

So if you’re like me and you enjoy film and the impact and emotions it can convey then grab a glass of your preferred liquid and join me for the next half hour. For me, that’s a glass of Bourbon from our friends down at Buffalo Trace in Kentucky. So sit back, relax, and let’s talk about the love of film. Welcome to “Glazed Cinema“

Westerns are hard to come by these days, but once upon a time they were a staple in Hollywood. The media machine churned them out like pez from a dispenser. In fact the film studios released on average just over one hundred westerns per year from the 30s to the 50s, most of them the same blueprint. Bad guy or gang comes into town, challenges the townspeople, and either the sheriff or another good guy or group deals with them one way or another. While I love certain westerns, I can understand a lot of the criticism around them. There is one movie of the genre however that has always stuck out to me, one that stands out among the rest. A movie told by a master of cinema and arguably the greatest American director of all time, John Ford. For a lot of his career Ford made films on events in America's history and for a long time he was and possibly still is the greatest auteur of films on American History.

In 2010 I had the great fortune of driving cross country with my grandparents from New York to California and back. We saw many places and created unforgettable memories. I had coined the trip “Crossing John Ford’s America” and one of the last stops we made was Monument Valley. I remember driving and driving through desert, which turned into canyon lands and then as the landscape opened up it appeared like a mirage. The red spyres sticking up from the ground seamingly out of nowhere. This was the land where one of my favorite directors dressed his pallet time and again. One of the films depicted there is my favorite western film and today’s subject...The Searchers. Before we get to the film though, let's talk about the man himself to provide some context to the film.

Ford was as respected as he was prolific. For a long time he spoke to the American spirit and entertained millions with his films. He was and is one of the best directors of all time, having inspired other legendary directors to take up the art including Scorsese, Kurosawa, Leone, Spielberg, Welles, and many others. Born at a time when the west was still wild, Ford began directing in 1917, bringing his stories to the masses. For two decades his films were very much about fortitude, bravery, daring, and hopefulness. With movies like Stagecoach, The Grapes of Wrath, and How Green Was My Valley, Ford told of various stories in a unique way. That's one thing I really respect about Ford, you can always tell when you're watching one of his movies, they're as identifiable as a fingerprint.

After How Green Was My Valley, everything changed for the legendary director like it did for every other American. On December 7th, 1941 Pearl Harbor shocked the country and plunged the country into war. In doing so, the government called on the services of five directors to help film the war effort in order to inspire young men to fight. From 1941 to 1944, Ford would follow soldiers, filming the war and bringing stories to the folks back home in another war waged through propaganda. He saw and filmed a lot that deeply affected and changed him from the Battle of Midway to D-Day. After V-J Day he returned to his directing chair with a tribute to the men he served with who had made the ultimate sacrifice, titled "They Were Expendable".

The films after the war are different from those made before it. You can see how the man himself changed and how his vision from that effect was altered. There were still some the same elements before like fortitude and bravery, but the hopefulness was gone and in its place a feeling of loss and a depth of feeling that gives so much more weight and substance.

In 1956, he released our subject today, The Searchers, which would ultimately become his masterpiece. Here we see the aforementioned traits in spades, embodied by its main character Ethan Edwards, played by John Wayne. In this role, Wayne would play a character who he hadn't portrayed before. Always the star, Wayne always played the hero, the defender, entertaining audiences for tears with his roles. Here though, he steps into the role of anti-hero for the first time and in my opinion is his finest performance of his career.

The Searchers tells the tale of a family living in the wild west in a small house overlooking Monument Valley. The family consists of father, mother, two girls, and a boy all of differing ages. One day Uncle Ethan comes home, bringing gifts for the kids from the war. A war of which he fought on the losing side and from which he deserted. One day, while helping local men led by the sheriff track down cattle, his brother's home is raided and burned by Native Americans. The whole family is killed save for the two girls, who are kidnapped. Enraged and pained, Ethan sets out with a friend of the family named Martin Pawley on a quest to find and rescue his nieces.

The Searchers is unlike any western I’ve ever seen as it challenges a lot of the things we know about westerns. The main character, played by John Wayne is an anti-hero and an antagonist and through him the movie tackles difficult and complex subjects head on. Subjects that the genre itself had been criticized for were now shown in its main character, brilliantly flipping perspective on its head. Unfortunately, for years many westerns, including some of Ford's previous works portray Native Americans in a negative light. They were often depicted as brutal savages and were rarely sympathized with. In the Searchers though, I feel that Ford made Ethan as a commentary on that. The way he acts and thinks toward Native Americans instead portrays him as the savage and flips the script.

Another thing that makes this film all the more interesting is that John Wayne plays such a different character than any of his other prior roles. To fully comprehend that, you must consider how larger than life he was at the time. Wayne, nicknamed "The Duke" always played the protagonist in the films he starred in and was a major box office draw. In fact, he was among the top draws for three straight decades, from the 30s through the 60s, during which time he became a symbol of heroism for many Americans. For young men he was someone to look up to, a symbol of strength and masculinity. In fact for a long time Wayne was a symbol of America, especially in those days when news was still largely consumed in print media. Usually Wayne played the strong hero who swoops in to save the day, which is where that relationship in our culture derived.

However in The Searchers Ford cast him in a very different character in the lead role. He plays a highly flawed man named Ethan Edwards. Any traces of heroism are hard to make out here as they're stained from the muddy waters of which the character morally resides. It was quite a courageous choice to cast him in such a role with him being such a beloved figure back then. I can imagine that for audiences at the time this film must have been quite jarring. You go in expecting a usual Wayne and Ford film and are greeted with a much more uncomfortable movie. What unfurls is a tale of determination, conflicting interests, and obsession led by a character who we don't like or agree with. All of it is purposefully done, meant to awaken a consciousness that had long been ignored.

Ethan is a man who is the embodiment of the dark underbelly of America. He is intolerant, racist, spiteful, and hateful. A man who fought for the Confederacy and refused to surrender with them, he's been unaccounted for for years before turning up on his brother's doorstep. He is a man who not only hates, but acts on that hate. To be clear, Ethan hates Native Americans and as the film unfurls, so do the depths of that hatred. When he first meets Martin Pawley who has darker skin Ethan says “I almost mistook you for a half breed”. To which Martin exclaims that he is ⅛ Cherokee. Worse of all, when Ethan and company are in the beginning of their search they find a buried Native American. While the other men consider what to do Ethan shoots out the eyes of the dead man, exclaiming that he won’t be able to go to the afterlife and will wander the earth forever between the winds. His hatred is so deep and disturbing that he even wants the man to suffer in the afterlife. A good majority of what he does and says is appalling and as he gets worse, so does out view of him.

Despite that layer of darkness in the main character however The Searchers has a great balance to it overall. One of the biggest contributing factors to this is Martin Pawley, the man accompanying Ethan in the search for the girls, played by Jeffery Hunter. Martin is optimistic and lends a voice of reason and counter-argument to his older and more ornery companion. There are also some great subplots that do well to provide light-hearted moments including the love story between Martin and his fiancé Laurie Jorgensen, played by Vera Miles. There are also several minor characters who help add to the plot, my favorite maybe being Old Moes who just wants his rocking chair by the fire.

The Searchers is a highly influential film and you can see it’s effects on many directors films including Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese. I can see some comparable in this film to other works of art, like Dostoevsky’s The Underground Man and Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver to name a couple. In fact I find a lot of similarities between Travis Bickle and Ethan Edwards. Scorsese takes a lot of inspiration from Ford, but in Taxi Driver we can see a lot of parallels. In both films, Taxi Driver and The Searchers the filmgoer has similar experiences. We as an audience are forced to follow and sympathize with a man whose moral compass is far different from our own and live through their decisions and the consequences of them.

Another thing this film has a lot of is cinematic beauty, led by the cinematography of Winton C Hooch. Hooch was a man who knew how to work with color and it shows in The Searchers. In fact, Hooch had a hand in developing Technicolor, which was the premier way to film in color for decades, but because of the expense it was used sparingly. With Hooch's eye for color and Ford's cinematic vision this film is visually delightful, of the best looking films in Ford's impressive filmography.

From its opening shot you can tell that it is quite unique and catches our attention immediately. If you've never seen it, I won’t spoil the reveal, it’s quite fantastic, but I chose one shot from it as the hint for this episode. The movie's vision and voice are also complimented by the vibrant technicolor it was filmed in. I don't know if Monument Valley, one of Ford's favorite filming locations ever looked so breathtaking as it does here. I can only imagine it’s splendor when it was initially released in theaters. This was helped further because it was released in VistaVision, which was a higher resolution format which only debuted two tears prior.

There are so many scenes that are fantastic that it’s hard for me to choose which ones to talk about, especially without spoiling anything. There are some scenes that I can’t neglect though. One scene that I absolutely adore is in the beginning of the film. Ford was a master director, but he had a knack for framing a scene and letting the actors take over. So many of his scenes almost act like moving paintings where the camera frames the scene and the actors play inside that frame. The scene I’m referring to is much like that. The sheriff, played by the great Ward Bond comes to the Edwards’ homestead to recruit men and is surprised to see Ethan there. After his arrival while, the camera becomes nestled overlooking the room. It‘s almost as if we as an audience are sitting at the far end in a chair watching. The camera doesn’t move or zoom in while people walk around the room, eating breakfast at the table, and some being sworn in as deputies for the trip ahead. It’s just an absolutely wonderful shot and just makes you feel like you’re apart of the entire exchange.

Also, I know this is slightly off topic, but I have to sing an actor’s praises here. An actor who I feel is criminally underrated. That is one of Ford's refulars, Ward Bond. Bond almost always played a supporting role, but he was so prolific. In my opinion, he is not appreciated for how good he was. He played in so many great movies throughout his long career and I don't know if he ever had a bad performance. If you look at his filmography, it is insane. He plays the sherrif in The Searchers and chances are good that you'll recognize him immediately. He played in great films for terrific directors like Fleming's "Gone With the Wind", Huston's "The Maltese Falcon", and of course, Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life". Anyway, all that to say that I don’t think he gets the love he deserves.

Another of my favorite scenes is when Martin and Ethan return home to rest for a bit before heading back out. Laurie is about to wed the postman, Charlie McCorry played by Ken Curtis when they roll into town. When Martin learns of the wedding he is offended and interrupts the festivities, leading to a fight between both men. This one reminds me of the donnybrook from The Quiet Man in that there is plenty of humor mixed in to make it less serious. It starts off cordial with both men helping each other take off their jackets and setting aside their hats, but soon one tackles the other. The fight is adolescent with rolling around and biting, but there's some great humor in it, like when they stop to pick up someone's fiddle, asking whose it is. By the end the two shake hands and become friends once again. It's one of my favorite bits of the film and for some reason I always chuckle when Charlie says "He Marty, that ain't fair!"

This movie impacted me in many ways. I watched westerns at a young age. My grandpa loved westerns and when I would stay over at my grandparents there was always a western on at some point. I saw a lot of great westerns with him and this was one of them. There is a lot going on in this movie, so many layers to unpack, and beautiful sights to behold. Ford had a lot to say with this movie and the performances in it are all spectacularly done. In my mind John Wayne has the performance of his career portraying the lead of Ethan Edwards, showcasing a complicated and dark individual expertly as Robert de Niro did in Taxi Driver.

Wayne himself was a complex man outside of his roles and as he got older he became more outspoken. He too said some things that were and still are quite appalling and indefensible. Unfortunately, I feel like in the past decade alone we've had plenty of examples of that happening with other celebrities.

Regardless of what you think of the man himself, within his filmography reside some great performances in great roles. I do think he did a phenomenal job in the role of Ethan Edwards. We see a lot of emotion and depth in his acting and I think without that performance The Searchers isn't what we know it as today.

The Searchers is widely regarded as one of John Ford's best films and routinely appears on the Top 100 movies of all time lists from respected sources. In fact, just this year The British Film Institute or BFI published their Sight and Sound Top 100 List, an annual publication. The Searchers resides at number 15. It has also inspired several filmmakers to create other great art including Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver, Wim Wenders' Paris, Texas, and several others. It even, inspired a classic song by Buddy Holly, who wrote "That'll be the Day" off the famous recurring John Wayne quote from the film.

When The Searchers was released, the western was in decline and by the time the 60s came around there were very few being made and fewer western films made each year. Still, the impact of The Searchers can be traced through Hollywood since its release in 1956 in both big and small ways. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend watching it.

Hate is the most negative emotion we as human beings can involve ourselves with and one that harms everyone including ourselves. Before telling you where you can find The Searchers, I'd like to leave you quotes from great people whom I respect about combating hate and intolerance.

Those quotes are:

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot wipe out hate, only love can do that." Martin Lutger King Jr.

One of my all-time favorites:

"We don't need to escalate, you see, war is not the answer for only love can conquer hate. You know we've got to find a way to bring some loving here today" - Marvin Gaye

And Lastly:

"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference." - Ellie Wiesel

If you'd like to understand more about Native American culture, you can learn more at

If you’d like to watch this movie you can find The Searchers on streaming services like YouTube, Vudu, Google Play, Prime Video, Apple TV, and Redbox for $3.99 to rent.

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