Civil War veteran Ethan Edwards spends years obsessively tracking the Comanche tribe that abducted his niece Debbie. As the search goes on, it becomes unclear whether he plans to rescue her or kill her for living among them. John Ford's masterwork is the Western that questions the genre's soul.
The Searchers is a 1956 western and drama film directed by John Ford. This breakdown covers 4 techniques (2 cinematography and 2 narrative), each with the scene where you can see it. If you like how it is made, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly uses several of the same techniques.
Photographing real landscapes like mountains, plains and rivers so they feel mythic and full of meaning. The land becomes a spiritual and moral test the characters have to cross.
How this film uses it
In Ford's film, Monument Valley is the stage where right and wrong get played out. Its red mesas frame every act of violence and every failure of conscience. The landscape is so beautiful that it starts to feel like part of what happens inside it.
Where to see it
The film's iconic closing shot. Ethan is framed in the doorway against the vast landscape. He can't step inside into home life, and the door closes on him.
Using a genre's familiar rules, like its heroes and its violence, to take those rules apart. The film turns your expectations into a political point the genre usually avoids.
How this film uses it
Ford gives the Western's usual hero, the lone, righteous white man, a racial hatred so vicious that he becomes the film's true monster. The genre's mythology gets turned inside out. You see the violence beneath the myth of manifest destiny, the idea that settlers were meant to take the West.
Where to see it
The reveal of Ethan's intent to kill Debbie. The rescue mission turns out to be driven by his fear that living with the Comanche has racially tainted her. Family love has fairly little to do with it.
Setting personal stories against the Civil War or another historical war. The large-scale violence of armies gives context and extra weight to what the individual characters do.
How this film uses it
Ethan fought for the Confederacy and refused to surrender. The film starts from those facts and never explains them. The war has produced a man whose skills are useful and whose values are disastrous. This Western is a story about what the war created.
Where to see it
Ethan refusing to take the oath of allegiance to the Texas Rangers. The film never explains what he did after the war. His history is a wound the story carries and never examines.
Using the full width of a very wide 2.35:1 frame to set small human figures against huge, empty landscapes. All that empty space makes the characters look isolated and insignificant.
How this film uses it
Winton Hoch shoots in VistaVision, which runs 35mm film sideways through the camera for a bigger negative. It uses no anamorphic lenses. It makes Monument Valley look as big as a myth, and it keeps John Wayne's face, weathered and full of hatred, in sharp focus. The wide frame holds both the landscape and the man who can't make peace with it.
Where to see it
The cavalry shots across the valley floor. The frame is wide enough to fit both the riders and the mesas behind them. The people look tiny against the landscape of American myth.
Questions
The Searchers: quick answers
What filmmaking techniques does The Searchers use?
CineCode breaks down 4 techniques in The Searchers (1956): Landscape as Sacred Geography, Revisionist Genre Argument, Civil War as Moral Backdrop and Anamorphic Scope Composition.
Who directed The Searchers?
John Ford directed The Searchers, released in 1956. CineCode also covers The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962).
What films are similar to The Searchers?
Films that share techniques with The Searchers include The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), Django Unchained (2012), Once Upon a Time in the West (1968).
