John Wayne Quote About You Dont Ever Ask Me Again
John Ford'south "The Searchers" contains scenes of magnificence, and one of John Wayne's all-time performances. There are shots that are astonishingly beautiful. A cover story inNew Yorkmagazine called information technology the most influential movie in American history. And nonetheless at its middle is a difficult question, because the Wayne character is racist without apology--and then, in a less outspoken way, are the other white characters. Is the flick intended to endorse their attitudes, or to dramatize and regret them? Today nosotros see it through aware eyes, simply in 1956 many audiences accepted its harsh view of Indians.
The film is almost an obsessive quest. The niece of Ethan Edwards (Wayne) is kidnapped by Comanches who murder her family and burn their ranch business firm. Ethan spends five years on a lonely quest to hunt downwards the tribe that holds the girl Debbie (Natalie Forest)--not to rescue her, but to shoot her dead, because she has become "the leavin'due south of a Comanche buck." Ford knew that his hero's hatred of Indians was incorrect, only his glorification of Ethan'southward search invites admiration for a twisted homo. Defenders of the movie bespeak to the famous scene where Ethan embraces his niece instead of killing her. Can one shot redeem a film?
Ethan'due south quest inspired a plot line in George Lucas' "Star Wars." It'due south at the center of Martin Scorsese'south "Taxi Driver," written by Paul Schrader, who used it once again in his own "Hard Cadre." The hero in each of the Schrader screenplays is a loner driven to violence and madness by his mission to rescue a young white adult female who has go the sexual prey of those seen as subhuman. Harry Dean Stanton's search for Nastassja Kinski in Wim Wenders' "Paris, Texas" is a reworking of the Ford story. Even Ethan'due south famous line "That'll be the mean solar day" inspired a song past Buddy Holly.
"The Searchers" was fabricated in the dying days of the classic Western, which faltered when Indians ceased to be typecast every bit savages. Revisionist Westerns, including Ford's own "Cheyenne Fall" in 1964, took a more enlightened view of native Americans, but the Western audience didn't want moral complexity; like the audition for today'southward fierce thrillers and urban warfare pictures, it wanted activeness with articulate-cut bad guys.
The movie was based on a novel past Alan LeMay and a script by Ford's son-in-law Frank Nugent, the sometime motion-picture show critic who wrote 10 Ford films, including "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" and "Carriage Master." It starred John Wayne, who worked with "Pappy" Ford in xiv major films, equally a Amalgamated soldier who boasts that he never surrendered, who in postwar years becomes a wanderer, who arrives at the ranch of his brother Aaron (Walter Coyt) and his wife Martha (Dorothy Jordan) under a cloud: He carries golden coins that may be stolen, and Sheriff Sam Clayton (Ward Bail) says he "fits a lot of descriptions."
It is articulate from the mode Ethan's eyes follow Martha around the room that he secretly loves her. His hatred of Indians flares the moment he meets Martin Pawley (Jeffrey Hunter): "Hell, I could mistake you for a half-breed." Martin says he'due south "one-8th Comanche." Ethan rescued young Martin when his family was killed by Indians, and left him with Martha and Aaron to exist raised, just information technology's clear he thinks one-eighth is too much. When Martin insists on joining Ethan's search for the captured Debbie, Ethan says "I give the orders" and treats the younger man with contempt. In a saloon, Ethan pours out drinks only snatches abroad Martin'south glass, snarling "Await'll you grow upwards." Martin at this point has been a ranch hand, is engaged to be married, has been on the trail with Ethan for years. Does Ethan privately think information technology's dangerous for a "half-brood" to beverage? One of the mysteries of "The Searchers" involves the human relationship between Ethan and Martin on the trail. Living alone with each other for months at a time, sleeping under the stars, what did they talk about? How could they share a mission and not find common cause equally men?
Martin's function on the trail is to argue for Debbie's life, since Ethan intends to find her and kill her. The younger human being also figures in a romantic subplot awkwardly cobbled on to the chief story. He is engaged to ally Laurie (Vera Miles), the girl of friendly Swedish neighbors. Ford goes for cornball sense of humour in scenes where Martin writes to Laurie just once in five years, and in that letter makes light of having mistakenly purchased a "squaw bride." Martin returns on the very day when Laurie, who never expected to see him once more, is scheduled to ally Charlie (Ken Curtis), a hayseed, and the men fight for the women in a sequence that would be more at habitation in "Vii Brides for 7 Brothers" than in an ballsy Western.
"The Searchers" indeed seems to exist ii films. The Ethan Edwards story is stark and lonely, a portrait of obsession, and in information technology nosotros can see Schrader's inspiration for Travis Bickle of "Taxi Driver;" the Comanche chief named Scar (Henry Brandon) is paralleled by Harvey Keitel's pimp named Sport, whose Western hat and long hair crusade Travis to call him "master." Ethan doesn't like Indians, and says so patently. When he reveals his intention to kill Debbie, Martin says "She's alive and she'southward gonna stay alive!" and Ethan growls: "Livin' with Comanches ain't being alive." He slaughters buffalo in a shooting frenzy, maxim, "At least they won't feed any Comanche this wintertime." The film inside this pic involves the silly romantic subplot and characters hauled in for comic relief, including the Swedish neighbor Lars Jorgensen (John Qualen), who uses a vaudeville emphasis, and Mose Harper (Hank Worden), a half-wit treated like a mascot. At that place are even musical interludes. This 2d strand is without interest, and those who value "The Searchers" filter information technology out, patiently waiting for a return to the main story line.
Ethan Edwards, fierce, alone, a defeated soldier with no role in peacetime, is i of the nigh compelling characters Ford and Wayne ever created (they worked together on 14 films). Did they know how vile Ethan's attitudes were? I would debate that they did, because Wayne was in his personal life notably gratuitous of racial prejudice, and because Ford made films with more than sympathetic views of Indians. This is non the instinctive, oblivious racism of Griffith'southward "Nascency of a Nation." Countless Westerns have had racism as the unspoken premise; this i consciously focuses on information technology. I think information technology took a certain amount of courage to cast Wayne as a character whose heroism was tainted. Ethan's redemption is intended to exist shown in that dramatic shot of reunion with Debbie, where he takes her in his wide hands, lifts her up to the sky, drops her down into his arms, and says, "Let'south get dwelling, Debbie." The shot is famous and beloved, but minor weigh to his views throughout the film--and indeed, at that place is no indication be thinks whatsoever differently about Indians.
John Ford (1895-1973) was Hollywood'southward greatest chronicler of American history, and at that place was a period when his "The Grapes of Wrath" (1940) and not "Citizen Kane" was cited as the best American picture show. He worked on his first motion-picture show in 1914, and was directing by 1917. He had an unrivaled middle for mural, and famously used Monument Valley as the location for his Westerns, camping ground out with cast and crew, the visitor eating from a chuck railroad vehicle and sleeping in tents. Wayne told me that making a Ford Western was similar living in a Western.
Ford's center for limerick was bold and sure. Consider the funeral early in the film, with a wagon at low right, a cluster of mourners in the center left, then a diagonal up the colina to the grave, equally they all sing Ford's favorite hymn, "Shall Nosotros Gather at the River" (he used it once more in the wedding scene). Consider one of the nigh famous of all Ford shots, the search party in a valley as Indians ominously ride parallel to them, silhouetted against the sky. And the dramatic first sight of the developed Debbie, running down the side of a sand dune behind Ethan, who doesn't see her. The opening and closing shots, of Ethan arriving and leaving, framed in a doorway. The poignancy with which he stands alone at the door, one hand on the opposite elbow, forgotten for a moment subsequently delivering Debbie abode. These shots are amidst the treasures of the movie theatre.
In "The Searchers" I think Ford was trying, imperfectly, even nervously, to depict racism that justified genocide; the comic relief may be an unconscious attempt to soften the message. Many members of the original audition probably missed his purpose; Ethan's racism was invisible to them, because they bought into his view of Indians. Eight years afterward, in "Cheyenne Autumn," his last film, Ford was more than clear. But in the flawed vision of "The Searchers" nosotros can run into Ford, Wayne and the Western itself, awkwardly learning that a man who hates Indians can no longer exist an uncomplicated hero.
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Lord's day-Times from 1967 until his decease in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.
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The Searchers (1956)
119 minutes
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