The Searchers

The Searchers falls into a genre of movie that is unique to American culture: the western. The style of barren deserts, unkempt cowboys, and epic “gunslinger” moments, has taken a great deal of influence from the history of America and its western fronts, however often they may change. For the most part, the arc of a Western movie rarely changes: stranger rolls into town, a rivalry brews, trouble over a girl starts, good guy beats bad guy, happy ending. It rarely changes. This is where The Searchers finds its most redeeming quality.
Directed John Ford, who is hardly new to the genre of Western at this point in his career, delves deep into a character’s psyche, exploring his motives, history, etc. For what I imagine is one of the first times in the western genre, there is a flawed hero who does not quite fall into the mold of “good guy.”
The Searchers tells the story of Ethan, played by none other that John Wayne himself, a loner who strolls into town only a day before his whole family is either killed or kidnapped by a group of hostile Indians. Ethan swears vengeance, as if it was necessary to even swear, and spends the rest of the movie searching for the remaining members of his family who might have been kidnapped. He is accompanied by a inexperienced Martin Pawley, played by Jeffery Hunter, who wants so badly to find the closest thing to a family he has ever known. Here is where the psychological stuff comes in. Martin is one quarter Indian; Ethan is incredibly vengeful and racists towards all Indians, no matter the background – tension is immediate. As the movie rolls on, we witness more and more of Ethan’s imperfection, his craziness, highlighted by an otherwise static personality. One scene that truly exemplifies just how crazy Ethan can get, is when we see Martin and Ethan come across a herd of buffalo and decide to kill one for sustenance; Ethan shoots one, and then another, and then another, under the explanation that there will be “fewer for the Comanche {indians}.”
So despite a brand of acting which could not be more fake and unbelievable, The Searchers has a redeeming facet in being a new step in the genre of westerns. By taking that extra moment to actually establish the mindset of its characters, The Searchers distinguishes itself from all others in its field.