From John to Marlon

'The Searchers': How the Western Was Begun

A.O. Scott in the Times: ... Especially in his westerns, [John] Ford loved to create bustling, busy interiors full of life and feeling, and he was equally fond of positioning human figures, alone or in small, vulnerable groups, against vast, obliterating landscapes. Shooting from the indoors out is his way of yoking together these two realms of experience — the domestic and the wild, the social and the natural — and also of acknowledging the almost metaphysical gap between them, the threshold that cannot be crossed. ...

Ernest Hemingway once said that all of American literature could be traced back to one book, Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn," and something similar might be said of American cinema and "The Searchers." It has become one of those movies that you see, in part, through the movies that came after it and that show traces of its influence.

The Searchers is one of my favorite films, mainly because of its second half.

The first half is good--sets up the story of Ethan Edwards (John Wayne), who returns to his family in Texas after the Civil War only to go back on the warpath after his niece is kidnapped by nearby Indians. It's got the usual great cinematography, conflicted characters and interesting plot of Ford films.

But the second half adds in Hitchcock, with psychological twists and scenes that at first seem like they're from another film. In particular there's a sequence set on an Indian reservation, Wayne's encounter with Natalie Wood, and that famous last scene with its shot of Wayne on the outside looking in. It's just one of those films where afterwards you shake your head and wonder what you've just seen, there's no feeling of satisfaction or closure, and you don't think about Westerns the same way again.

As Scott notes, the film's been quoted so many times, consciously and not, that it's embedded in our filmgoing mind even for people who haven't seen it. It's interesting how little respect many intellectuals give Westerns; makes me wonder how many Westerns they've actually seen.

In my opinion it's a great film genre--the perfect canvas to explore the age-old issues of man vs. nature, man vs. man, man vs. society. Some of my favorites are:
-The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach and Lee Van Cleef in Sergio Leone's lyrical epic

-Seven Samurai/Magnificent Seven, Akira Kurosawa's original may be my favorite film of all time with its great characters, plot, cinematography and sountrack; Hollywood's remake is a worthy echo

-The Big Country, Gregory Peck and Burl Ives are two people you'd never think of in tandem but in this underated movie they're definitive in their respective roles

-High Noon, the Gary Cooper/Grace Kelly classic as-the-clock-ticks exploration of McCarthy-era issues

-Once Upon a Time in the West, another Leone film that's the definition of brutal, purpopseful violence, with an unforgettable performance by Charles Bronson as Harmonica

-Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Paul Newman and Robert Redford in a totally original and screwy Western for the hippie generation

-Giant, with James Dean--another unconventional Western but one that has all of the genre's hallmarks, as the wide-open is encroached upon by civilization

-One-Eyed Jacks, with a smouldering Marlon Brando and a pitch-perfect Karl Malden in a rarely-seen California setting.

The Western really was the genre where Hollywood's greatest actors during its Golden Age went to give their most memorable performances. It's almost like in this carefully-structured field, sneered at by critics and where nobody expected anything more than a good yarn, they were more free than any other to experiment with character and overarching themes.

Ken Ringle in a Washington Post article about One-Eyed Jacks includes some astonishing facts about that film, as well as some lines that you could apply to all the other films on this list:

It cost the then-staggering sum of $6 million -- three times its original budget -- in part because of Brando's insistence on filming hundreds of takes, improvising dialogue and fight scenes, and firing the original director, Stanley Kubrick. Brando never forgave Paramount for re-cutting the picture to 141 minutes and not letting it run the five hours he wanted. ...

Whatever demons were unleashed during its production, it remains today a film of mesmerizing dramatic power and one of the most beautifully filmed westerns ever made. It was shot in Death Valley and on the Monterey Peninsula, and Charles Lang Jr. was nominated for an Oscar for his color cinematography. Lang captured stunning horseback scenes against the thundering surf and pine-shaded sand hills of Big Sur country. When was another western ever filmed on the beach? ...

Brando is never less than mesmerizing in his on-screen journey from charming rogue to explosive avenger, and there is nothing in his career, not even "Viva Zapata" or "On the Waterfront," to match the savage power of his fight scenes or the cold fury of his resolve. Near the climax of the film, he sneers out one of the great lines beloved by all Brando impersonators: "Get up, you scum-suckin' pig!" ...

As much as it toys with the conventions of the western, "One-Eyed Jacks" transcends the genre to become a cinematic meditation on human character. There is no other film remotely like it.

Warners Brothers image of John Wayne in The Searchers via the Times.

Photofest image of Marlon Brandon in One-Eyed Jacks via the Washington Post.