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.
No comments:
Post a Comment