Add it to the litany of standard cultural tropes that I somehow missed out on: John Wayne is huge! Obviously The Duke casts a broad shadow across film history. But that is hardly what I mean. Now, I am not an expert on floor design and foundation planning on the Texas frontier, but unless there is a detailed historical record explaining how farmhouses maintained drastically tiered floors, then Wayne absolutely towers over other cast members. Some light research indicates that Wayne's stature played no small part (get it?) in his role as an American icon of masculinity. Huh. So there's that.
That being said, this is not the place to discuss the problematic nature of traditional models of masculinity, of which Wayne may have been the pinnacle, and its potentially pernicious effect on estimations of the self-worth of the American male in an increasingly depersonalized, industrialized, fluorescently-lit, perhaps even effete, modern society. I am sure that has all been done. We are nothing if not original.
It just so happens that I recently read a history that John Ford's The Searchers was at least partially based upon. The raids of the Comanche on the Texas frontier were legendary for their pugnacity and brutality. No embellishment is required to convey the terror with which the horse tribes kept settlers and soldiers along the edges of Llano Estacado. Likewise, the tales told upon the return of those few who were taken captive and survived gained permanent place within American cultural mythology. Foremost among these was the life of Cynthia Ann Parker, who would be sought-for by her uncle for some 24 years. The rub, perhaps hardly fit for Hollywood, is that Parker's eventual return to 'society' was marked with a deep unhappiness for the rest of her life. She had lived longer in the highlands of Comancheria than with the, long-since massacred, Parkers. Cynthia Ann, or Nadua, felt a deep and abiding kinship to her adopted Comanche family. She had married, had children (her son Quanah was to become a, perhaps the final, great chief of the Noconis band) and lived within a close-knit community that welcomed her as one of their own. Knowing this history, though the film departs greatly from its actuality, deepens what is already an exceedingly rich accomplishment.
Upon my first viewing I will simply say that the film does much, and seems to do it all very well. While John Wayne's character may seem like another case of the (formative) traditional masculine paradigm come to life on the silver screen, in truth he suggests a personage that is much deeper. For as black and white as the politics and ethos at work appear, the film does much with a studied subtlety that, upon first view, seems slightly incongruous. In its seeming celebration of a certain type of heroism, history and politics, The Searchers works suitably as a celebration of American mythos. But, if you will allow it space, the quieter moments reveal that much else is at work, that motivations and actions are rarely so simple. Relationships between enemies are as complex and fraught as those among loved-ones. How we make sense of our own responsibilities, towards ourselves and others, is rarely, if ever settled. The strength of Wayne, and the movie, is that it allows us to make much or little of the story. We will find only what we seek for.
Upon my first viewing I cannot hope to convey all there is on-hand. Thus, I will watch it again.
