Film Essay: The Searchers - Clashing ideals and old-world apologetics

The Searchers opening scene

The final shot of John Ford's The Searchers is arguably its best. Ethan Edwards stands alone on the front porch, framed through the door, against the vast wilderness of the canyon. Forgotten by everyone, he casts a sad, heavy look towards the house, then turns around and steps away as the door closes behind him, separating our world from his. Over time critics and analysts have made the case that Ethan's character is redeemed when he finally picks Debbie up in his arms, deciding not to kill her. I claim that it is instead this, the final shot of the film, that truly redeems Ethan Edwards, and the film as a whole.

I've often found that underneath their immediate plot, many John Ford films have a 'Faulknerian' quality to them. The true conflict isn't as much about cowboys and Indians, but a clash of characters torn between different ideologies, the old and the new, the past and the future.  Sometimes it's covert, sometimes it's central, and in the case of The Searchers, essential. This conflict lingered about in the late 50s when the eve of the civil rights movement was just around the corner, as it did in the 19th century when the movie is set.

Here John Wayne plays Ethan Edwards, a civil war veteran who returns home after a three year absence, which he presumably spent in Mexico. He was a proud member of the Confederacy, and still considers himself to be. "Figure a man's only good for one oath at a time; I took mine to the Confederate States of America -" he says; and he's not shy to live up to the part - his prejudices against the Native Americans of his region are unabashed, even when it comes to his 'nephew' (a 1/8 Cherokee he rescued as a toddler, and now constantly abuses).  He will often commit illogical acts of violence (like shooting a dead Indian's eyes, or a herd of buffaloes) fueled solely by the desire for revenge. His quest in the beginning is to rescue young Debbie, but as the movie progresses it becomes unclear whether he ever intended to get her out alive. He considers white women raped by Native Americans as, 'no longer white,' and holds them in contempt. Yes, Edwards is a racist alright, and the film makes no attempt to hide his prejudices. 

The film, however, unlike its main character, is not unabashed. It tries to make a point, a rather nuanced one, distanced from cliché black-and-white, good-vs-evil moralities. It's trying to reach a compromise, to explain, to justify.  As the search for Debbie continues, the character's begin to learn more about each other and themselves. In contrast to Ethan, Marty (played by Jeffrey), who accompanies Ethan during this journey, represents the other side of the coin. He's a product of intermarriage between Indians and whites, and thus stands for a better, more understanding, less discriminating future. He loves Debbie as a sister, and wants to rescue her, and his goal eventually becomes to prevent Ethan from killing her. He also understands the natives, and doesn't want to kill them. In one of their early confrontations with the native tribe, he becomes terrified at the idea of shooting them, and has to do so only because he has no other choice. He strives for the least violent resolution.

As such, the antithesis between Ethan and Marty is clear. They don't belong together, and even though they come to understand one another in their shared odyssey, their respective worlds are doomed to be separate. John Wayne is the old, and Jeffrey Hunter is the new. "Some day this country's gonna be a fine, good place to be. Maybe it needs our bones in the ground before that time can come-" Mrs Jorgensen says to her husband and Ethan sometime in the middle of the film, and she's right. In order for this country to be great, her generation, or rather everything that it represents, must die. It cannot change or conform. By the end of the movie Ethan understands that he's an obstacle to the new ideal, a savage.  He's a Confederate and can only survive in the desert. He cannot enter the house because it represents a world he can never be part of. Therefore he peacefully retreats. That's what the last shot is about.

Closing shot of The Searchers

There's little doubt that The Searchers is one of the best movies ever made. It's a visual masterpiece, released at a time where the popularity of westerns had began decline. I hope that current generations will give the film its deserved attention, and won't readily dismiss it as an old-time racist picture that doesn't know what it's talking about.