The Searchers (1956)– How do you review a film that was in the inaugural class of the National Film Registry? It’s hard to believe that this is only the second John Wayne movie I’ve seen in my life, or that it’s roundly considered a classic and I’ve only just gotten to it with more decades of birthdays under my belt than I’d care to admit. But maybe it’s a good thing that I’ve only just seen The Searchers, because so much of what I enjoyed about the film was the level of deliberate craft on display, which has to be appreciated before it can be enjoyed. Take the starring performance of John Wayne, deliberately self-conscious in a world that doesn’t quite have room for him – reflected in the way other characters treat him, but also in the number of doorways he has to stoop to enter. As Ethan Edwards, Wayne is notable as a character whose moral center the film clearly endorses – he is, after all, the hero – but his narrative arc isn’t contingent on the other characters in the film coming around to his way of seeing things. Director John Ford is not interested in that kind of metaphorical harmony; he is instead interested in surprisingly long takes, harsh and unforgiving landscapes, and all the ways that Ethan bristles against the world he inhabits. The Searchers is the kind of film that I am sure I will need to see more than once to fully comprehend it, now that I know the basic shape of it, but on first viewing it looks pretty good to my eyes.That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you next week!
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