The Jesus Story

"... the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city..." - Acts 20:23

he first time it happened it was in the classroom.  I was pickin’ trash up off the floor after all the students had left at the end of the day.  For no particular reason I happened to turn a scrap of magazine over in my hand before droppin’ it into the garbage can an’ low and behold what do you figger I saw?  Yup.  Jesus.

I don’t know how it got there.  Probably some student used the cut-out on his or her presentation board and it flaked off and got left on my classroom floor.  But there it was in my hand, a ragged scrap of paper with a photographic-image of Jesus hanging on the cross printed on it in brilliant grayscale.  I stood there for a long moment, my hand poised over the trashcan.  Then I realized I just couldn’t do it.  I just couldn’t throw Jesus in the trash.  Not even a scrappy magazine cutting of Jesus.

Above the dry-erase board in my classroom there were some clips so I reached up and slipped Jesus into one of the clips.  And there he stayed for some time.  I’m not quite certain when he disappeared (probably during interim cleaning or some such occasion) but it wasn’t before students on numerous occasions made audible inferences about me and my spiritual positioning based soley on the Jesus cut out hanging there.

Before Jesus disappeared from the dry-erase board clip, however, there was another incident.  This time it was behind the Atomic Cycles bicycle shop in Van Nuys.  I had ridden in to participate in the Tuesday Night BMX cruise the shop’s owner, Paul, coordinates.  We all waited in the parking lot behind the shop while Paul closed up and lo and behold what do you suppose transpired?

Let me tell you.  As I was loitering in the parking lot, its disintegrating asphalt layers broken by weed-choked cracks, I noticed a reflective flash from amongst the blades of green.  I leaned over and withdrew a tiny object from the crack’s resident clump and found myself in possession of a tiny redwood necklace-style cross adorned with a simple metal frame.  Now, I’m not much for simple crucifixes, bein’ leary of Tamus an’ all that, and I was ready to toss the jewelry back down into its parking lot hiding place but then a notable event happened.  I rolled the cross between my thumb and forefinger and, as the charm rotated, guess what was revealed to me that was adorning the side that had been hidden from me?  Yup.  Jesus.

There he was, in extreme miniature, cast out of some shiny metal, arms outstretched across the tiny cross I had picked up from the parking lot.  Again I stood there for a long moment, my hand poised to flick the object back into the weeds pressing upwards from the cracked parking lot.  But I just couldn’t do it.  I couldn’t toss Jesus away like that.  The other BMXers chided me when I told them what was going on, of course, but I slipped Jesus into my bicycle bag and carried him there until that bag was lost years later.

However, my story ain’t finished.  Jesus showed up yet again.  One day some students in my classroom, boys, were attempting to operate a below the radar ruckus but their stifled giggling and frantic gestures between one another quickly brought down my wrath.  I saw they were passing a piece of paper between each other, placing it back and forth on one another’s desks where the recipient would quickly attempt to bestow it upon another participant in the fracas.  I confiscated the missive without breaking teaching stride, much to their curious glee I noted, and when I looked into my hand to determine what I had picked up, guess what I saw?  Yup.  Jesus.

The young fellers had been passin’ back a forth a Catholic prayer card.  You know, one of them Jesus, the Divine Mercy “Jesus I Trust in You” type cards.  And there on the card, in full brilliant color, were Jesus descendin’ from the clouds, his heart shootin’ forth them beams of spiritual illumination.  The boys had obviously been passin’ it back-and-forth because none of them were comfortable hangin’ onto it but none of them had the nerve to dispose of it in some way either.  And so it came to be in my possession.  And I don’t have a very good track record with these things as you’ve probably noted.

The culprits eyed me with humorous anticipation, obviously waitin’ to see what I would do with the object that they themselves had been hard pressed to deal with in what felt to them an appropriate manner.  And again I stood there, this time with the Jesus card in my hand, considering what to do with it myself.

Finally, I looked up at them and rolled my eyes, sayin’, “Sorry, gentlemen, but I just can’t throw away Jesus” and I slipped the card into my breast pocket and continued with class.

Driving home that day I found that card in my pocket and, for lack of any better solution, I slipped it into the molding on the dashboard of my car.  Where it still sits, Jesus eyeing me speculatively every time I drive, his hand raised in holy gesture and the Heavenly beams of comfort shining forth from his heart.

And the moral to this story is that “you never know what it is you’re going to pick up.”

Okay, okay.  It’s probably more something along the lines of “when Jesus is trying to get yer attention, it’s unmistakable.”

Yup.

THE SEARCHERS - Touchy Ideology in John Ford's Epic

THE SEARCHERS TO CELLULOID

Touchy Ideology and Audience Conditioning

The Searchers (John Ford 1956)

by Squeezebox Sam

          What makes a man to wander?

          What makes a man to roam?

          What makes a man leave bed and board and turn his back on home?

          Ride away… ride away… ride away…

  

                                                - Stan Jones

John Ford, as director of the 1956 film adaptation of Alan Le May’s book The Searchers (published serially in 1954 as The Avenging Texans), maintains the western formula he himself established with Stagecoach in 1939.  But operating on a deeper level is a careful balance between upholding the main character as the monumental hero the story demands while denouncing the ideology that drives his actions.  This balance is achieved by Ford’s manipulation of audience point of view at crucial moments.

Michael Wood, in his book America in the Movies, suggests that Hollywood may often have set out with every intention of providing a text in social history but came up with snappy entertainment at best.  He calls it a “veritable school of evasion,” a way for Hollywood to play it safe on almost any issue: “why drive off customers by treading on their prejudices?”  The “problems” addressed in films are actually an “intrepid indictment of a situation about which there would already have seemed to be some consensus.” (Wood, pp. 126-127)

George Bluestone makes similar observations in Novels Into Film.  His discussion concerning the film code and strictures of acceptability (restraints affecting Hollywood production long after a standardized system) suggests suppression of artistic and social vision by audience demands. (Bluestone, pp. 34-43)

It is tempting, then, to view The Searchers as a film handicapped by this presentation funny-business because, at first, it appears that the film is carefully constructed to protect and shield the audience from its controversial content.  A good example is the combination of the opening and closing sequences, the most audience orienting scenes in the whole film.

The opening moments present a sort of glass through which the rest of the film is to be viewed and the end scene reinforces that original vision.  By using the camera to give the audience a specific vantage point of the situation, and aligning a specific ideology with that vantage point, the audience will take up that ideology and view events in that specific manner.  In this case the audience begins and ends its journey in a settler home, the abode of right, the residence of wholesome, traditional values.

In the opening scene, the audience ventures out of the safety of this homely archetype where they meet Ethan Edwards, a character of questionable ethics.  He is a decorated war veteran of the Confederacy, an Indian skeptic, and quite possible a criminal.  He is also a product of the outside world: a dangerous, unrighteous place.

In the final scene the audience recedes into the Jorgensen house, again the abode of what is right.  John Wayne, however, even in his position as redeemed hero, is not allowed to assimilate.  He is not permitted to enter into the viewer’s space.  When our harrowing experiences at his side should be resolved, Ethan Edwards is kept as far from us as possible.

According to Wood, it could be said that the film never really asks the audience to question where their loyalties lie.  As a viewer, once begins and ends inside the innocence of a settler home, the side of right.  That which is questionable appears firmly locked out, untouchable, impermissible.  The film seems to avoid addressing its controversial content by orienting the audience on the “right” so that it will not be required to confront the possibility that its loyalties might very well be sympathetic to the “wrong” ideology.

However, in accepting such a shallow interpretation an injustice is done to such a texturally rich film.  Upon closer examination, The Searchers yields up much to defend itself against accusation of insufficiently addressing its issues.  It reveals itself as a complex and thought provoking endeavor and acts as a scathing denunciation of its main character’s driving ideology.  Its premise is indeed commentary on the complex isolation and bitterness in the character of Ethan Edwards.  We cannot discard The Searchers as a film handicapped by the prejudices of its times.  It is laden with perpetual meaning carefully woven into its rich tapestry.

About halfway through Alan Le May’s book there is a description of the Southwest as a “never-never country of song and illicit love, with a streak of wicked bloody murder interestingly hidden just under a surface of ease and manana.”

The words are those of Amos Edwards, the Ethan Edwards of the written page.  His descriptive poetry is a little contrived when historical reality is held up for comparison but it is a fairly accurate description of the fictional tale itself.  The book, as does the film, centers around the consuming nature of retribution, how it destroys everything involved, including those who perpetuate it.

Ford’s Southwest, as in Le May’s book, is sweeping pastels and adobe, indifferent to the delicate balance of civilization and savagery within its bounds.  Ford continually challenges us with this savagery.  From the moment the audience leaves the Edwards home in the opening sequence, Ethan’s quest reveals the delicate balance of savagery within the man himself.

Even so, it is the changes between the film and book that reveal the depth of Ford’s adaptation.  Some differences include changing the Mathisons into the immigrant settler Jorgensens and making Martin Pauley 1/8 Cherokee.  However, probably the most prominent, and most important, changes are those made to the Edwards character himself.  Le May’s Edwards is not a dedicated Confederate, nor is there an innuendo of criminality.  Most evident is his lack of blind hate for Indians.  He seeks vengeance for the death of his brother’s wife, but his wrath is not distributed over the entire indigenous population.

When it is discovered that Le May’s Edwards is far less incendiary than the one portrayed by John Wayne, suspicion abounds.  It leads to speculation that increasing the fiery nature of a tale is no way to tame it to satisfy audience prejudice.  The question arises, then, that if Ford was playing it safe with controversy, as Michael Wood suggests filmmakers do, why heat it up with these potentially explosive elements?  Unless the intention was indeed to make commentary on an already blazing situation.

Many times over the course of the film we are tempted to side with Ethan, the horror of the situation seeming to render acceptable his desperate measures.  Whenever it is in question, though, Ethan’s ideology is always degraded, loud and clear, for the audience.  A good example is when Ethan encounters the “crazy” white girl refugees at the military encampment.  Wayne’s final glare, his steely eyes peering from the deep shadow cast by his black hat across his soul, is a most forbidding image.  This is not a man that invites the audience to his side.

Judgment on Ethan’s character is also accomplished by deriding commentary.  In both the buffalo slaughter sequence and when Ethan makes the decision to kill Deborah, Martin Pauley’s voice denounces Ethan’s actions.  The stubborn façade Ethan assumes at these moments also alienates the audience.

Careful examination of audience placement, whether it is how Edwards is portrayed to them, where they view him from or what other characters say about him, reveals that the production is a deliberate attack on Ethan Edwards’ convictions.

“Prodigal brother,” as Ward Bond puts it, is an apt description for Ethan Edwards.  He is indeed the hero of the film but he is a hero with a looming dark side.  We can never fully appreciate Edwards’ efforts because of our own uncertainty about his true nature.  Because the ruthlessness that lurks within him almost went too far, we cannot be sure that he has actually redeemed himself.  Even in saving Deborah and returning her to where she will be cared for, we cannot help but feel that she is safe not just from Indians or enemies, but from Ethan Edwards himself.

So, the end sequence becomes a powerful denunciation of what lurks inside Ethan.  Even with his heroic actions, the message to the audience is that he cannot be condoned.  Unlike the prodigal son of the Bible, the prodigal brother cannot be brought back into the fold.  If he was shown as the assimilated hero, forgiven, his past would be submerged and forgotten.  But the image the audience retains will always be that of him standing outside the door of the settler home, exiled as a judgment for those past actions for which he may never be reconciled.

Something else noteworthy in Ford’s crafting, however, is that Ethan denies himself entry into the Jorgensen home.  While not justifying him, his decision does give deeper insight into who he may be.  It hints at a richness of character that has not been examined here, and while Ford will not permit us to side with or condone Ethan, neither are we as an audience permitted to truly judge him.

Perhaps, if the tears in his eyes at the sight of his brother’s burnt homestead were our own, we might better understand his words: “I don’t need you for what I’ve got to do…”  It is this final amount of self-realization for Ethan, that he cannot be part of the audience’s world, that Ford leaves us with, and perhaps the director’s greatest accomplishment in The Searchers is putting the audience in a position to receive an unsettling glimpse of “what makes a man to wander.”

Works Cited

Bluestone, George. Novels Into Film. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California             Press, 1957. Print.

Le May, Alan. The Searchers. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1954. Print.

McDougal, Stuart Y. Made Into Movies: From Literature to Film. New York: Harcourt             Brace Jovanovich College Publishers, 1985. Print.

The Searchers. Dir. John Ford. Warner Brothers, 1956. Film.

Wood, Michael. America in the Movies. New York: Dell Publishing, 1975. Print.