The Searchers (2 Viewers)

[UKReb]

There was a movie a few years ago called " A history of violence" I thought it was pretty much the Shane story remade to the contemporary world.

The narrative premise of a stranger protecting vulnerable family units from brutal bullies has become a useful basis for popular movies that have all derived directly from George Steven's Shane. Homages have been paid to the movie by a plethora of filmmakers ever since its release and continues to this day. Our favourite movie The Searchers is an obvious one to start the discussion with. Ford borrowed the underlying theme from Shane where both Shane and Ethan Edwards disrupt the delicate deficient family balances which exist before they arrive. In each case, the tragic lone wanderer loves a woman who is ultimately unavailable.

Another example comes to mind when Leone introduces Lee Van Cleef as "il cattio"-the Bad in The Good, The Bad and the Ugly for he recycles the beginning of Shane but in reverse. A young farm boy looks up from his chores and spots the silhouette of a rider in the far distance. Leone holds the shot as the stranger rides into the farmyard and very very slowly dismounts-exactly as Jack Palance did in Shane.

Clint Eastwood who has done more than anyone in Hollywood to resurrect the western for modern audiences is another good example. In Pale Rider he essentially remakes the original Shane but elevates his gun fighting hero "The Preacher" to biblical proportions. Adjusting his film to update the action for a contemporary audience by employing environmental issues to blacken the capitalist villains who are destroying the land through hydraulic mining.

If you get a chance take a look at the splendid 2011 noir thriller Drive starring Ryan Gosling and ponder awhile on what the story reminds you of. For me it's as plain as "Call me Shane".

Bob

 

[damian]

Will look it up.
Just got a copy of the blu-ray version of Southern Comfort so that is this week's scheduled viewing.

 

[Harper (aka Spitfrnd)]

Excellent movie, and you are right, the remake isn't nearly as good. -- Al

It is hard to beat Glenn Ford and I think Russell Crowe can be a tour de force. Conversely Van Heflin was never one of my favorites, which is about how I feel about Christian Bale. I also think Ben Foster was excellent. So in comparision, I rather think the remake holds up quite.

 

[larso]

I found myself reading a few accounts of Indian raids last night. There was the one which inspired the film but also others. The one that made a mark was the case of two small boys who were kidnapped. One boy, Tommy, apparently - according to the later testimony of the other, could not stop crying. The first night then, several of the Indian 'warriors' killed him and mutilated him to the point he could only be recognised by his shirt, when his father found him the next day.

The point I've wondered is this, the rage I'd have felt at seeing that makes it easy to relate to the John Wayne character. I never thought of it as rascism though? Jack, much earlier in this thread alluded to my missing that point in my university essay a decade-plus ago. The reason I didn't put it was I didn't see it in those terms. Sure it's easy to say fighting the Japanese had strong racist elements, but it seems less accurate to write of it as a motive in fighting the Germans in Europe. When is holding a hatred rascist and when is it not?

 

[GICOP]

Check out this

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...s-butchered-babies-roasted-enemies-alive.html

Cheers

Martyn

 

[larso]

That's a cracker of an article.

 

[lancer]

Check out this

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...s-butchered-babies-roasted-enemies-alive.html

Cheers

Martyn

Great article. the Apache and Geronimo get the publicity but it was the Comanche that were the most feared and fought the hardest. The fight for the Texas frontier was unbelievably vicious. -- Al

 

[UKReb]

I found myself reading a few accounts of Indian raids last night. There was the one which inspired the film but also others. The one that made a mark was the case of two small boys who were kidnapped. One boy, Tommy, apparently - according to the later testimony of the other, could not stop crying. The first night then, several of the Indian 'warriors' killed him and mutilated him to the point he could only be recognised by his shirt, when his father found him the next day.

The point I've wondered is this, the rage I'd have felt at seeing that makes it easy to relate to the John Wayne character. I never thought of it as rascism though? Jack, much earlier in this thread alluded to my missing that point in my university essay a decade-plus ago. The reason I didn't put it was I didn't see it in those terms. Sure it's easy to say fighting the Japanese had strong racist elements, but it seems less accurate to write of it as a motive in fighting the Germans in Europe. When is holding a hatred rascist and when is it not?

Racism is a tricky question to answer on the forum and might be better to reply by PM. However, just recently I had to write a review on the Bluray release of Little Big Man which is perhaps a good comparator-albeit the opposite of the spectrum-to The Searchers. Part of my research on the making of the film was to re-read Thomas Berger's novel from which the movie was adapted. Parking the parody of the novel (which was heavily embellished in the movie) the Indian in Berger's book are depicted as being extremely violent to both other tribes and the whiteman which aligns very much with the link Martyn posted. Whereas Arthur Penn's movie- playing on the revisionist spirit of the cinema in the 1970s- prefers to depict the Indian as very spiritual and kind "human beings" the very opposite of Scar's Comanches in The Searchers

I have studied Custer and the Indian Wars for as long as I have the American Civil War but in the film version of Little Big Man Custer is depicted as an egotistical and deranged lunatic. Egotistical most definitely but mad as a rabid dog? Not a chance. But the scenes in the movie of the massacre of Black Kettle's camp are the most disturbing and horrific ever put on celluloid and more importantly pretty darn authentic even down to the killing of all the Indian ponies whilst the 7th cavalry band played the "Gary Owen". Powerful cinematic scenes that stay in the memory so that when we come to the finale at The Little Big Horn the movie audience is almost relieved that at last Custer and his murdering troopers get their come-uppance.

I believe that Penn by depicting his Indians as perhaps "too nice" painted himself into a corner on exactly why Custer exterminated the Indian camp on the Washita and therefore had to falsely portray Custer as a complete lunatic as his raison d'etre for doing so. The truth as we know was based more on Sherman and Sheridan's campaign of extermination of the Plains Indian if they couldn't be rounded up and placed on reservations. This campaign was vehemently supported by practically every settler/farmer/prospector in the West as most of them had either witnessed or had been weaned on the many mutilations and rape performed on white men, women & children carried out over decades by the Indian. Question is which version is racism?

Bob

 

[jazzeum]

Bob,

How does one subscribe to your new reviews as I find navigating that mag a little tricky?

Brad

 

[larso]

I was chatting about this in the Staffroom today. It seems rascism applys when the people you 'hate' look different and that you apply it blanketly. As to my mention of the Germans, I did speak once with an eldely British lady whose hatred of the Germans was based on family experiences from WW1 and reinforced by her own in WW2. That seems a bit racist?

I think my missing the issue of rascism in The Searchers stemmed from it downplaying the full horror of the raid (it's much clearer in the book) and I was too young to pick up on the clues. Also, many movies showed positive depictions of Indians (and negative images of some whites). The horses, war-paint etc all made them seem almost romantic, especially when considering that they were fighting for their land and they lost, giving them an under-dog quality. They seemed to be the victims and sympathy for them is a long way from hatred of them.

The harsh reality of living on the frontier in terror of a raid is several generations behind us. Perhaps a more realistic comparison is knowing the Manson family might come by.

 

[Jack]

I think my missing the issue of rascism in The Searchers stemmed from it downplaying the full horror of the raid (it's much clearer in the book) and I was too young to pick up on the clues.

There is another, less kind interpretation of why you missed so obvious a point.

 

[Jack]

Racism is a tricky question to answer on the forum and might be better to reply by PM. However, just recently I had to write a review on the Bluray release of Little Big Man which is perhaps a good comparator-albeit the opposite of the spectrum-to The Searchers. Part of my research on the making of the film was to re-read Thomas Berger's novel from which the movie was adapted. Parking the parody of the novel (which was heavily embellished in the movie) the Indian in Berger's book are depicted as being extremely violent to both other tribes and the whiteman which aligns very much with the link Martyn posted. Whereas Arthur Penn's movie- playing on the revisionist spirit of the cinema in the 1970s- prefers to depict the Indian as very spiritual and kind "human beings" the very opposite of Scar's Comanches in The Searchers

I have studied Custer and the Indian Wars for as long as I have the American Civil War but in the film version of Little Big Man Custer is depicted as an egotistical and deranged lunatic. Egotistical most definitely but mad as a rabid dog? Not a chance. But the scenes in the movie of the massacre of Black Kettle's camp are the most disturbing and horrific ever put on celluloid and more importantly pretty darn authentic even down to the killing of all the Indian ponies whilst the 7th cavalry band played the "Gary Owen". Powerful cinematic scenes that stay in the memory so that when we come to the finale at The Little Big Horn the movie audience is almost relieved that at last Custer and his murdering troopers get their come-uppance.

I believe that Penn by depicting his Indians as perhaps "too nice" painted himself into a corner on exactly why Custer exterminated the Indian camp on the Washita and therefore had to falsely portray Custer as a complete lunatic as his raison d'etre for doing so. The truth as we know was based more on Sherman and Sheridan's campaign of extermination of the Plains Indian if they couldn't be rounded up and placed on reservations. This campaign was vehemently supported by practically every settler/farmer/prospector in the West as most of them had either witnessed or had been weaned on the many mutilations and rape performed on white men, women & children carried out over decades by the Indian. Question is which version is racism?

Bob

Bob

I love this thread. Many thanks!

I suppose any imagery of burning villages used in a film in the seventies could not help but reference Vietnam. Do you think this played a part?

Jack

 

[UKReb]

Bob

I love this thread. Many thanks!

I suppose any imagery of burning villages used in a film in the seventies could not help but reference Vietnam. Do you think this played a part?

Jack

Jack most definitely.


The American people during the turbulent 1960s had really been jolted awake by scenes beamed into their living rooms of Bull Connor's horrendous treatment of African Americans in Birmingham, Alabama, which strengthened the Civil Rights Movement. They then- during that decade- witnessed via the media not one but three high profile assassinations on their home soil and soon after the new decade began were asking themselves whether their resident president was a crook or not. Tough times for the Stars and Stripes.


Hollywood took note of the increasing concerns of the public and American filmmakers used a sub genre to debunk the conventions of traditional westerns and questionably challenged American society and its values during the general mistrust of the Nixon presidency. The Native American had frequently been treated sympathetically and depicted as a noble and proud race by Hollywood long before the 1970s. Delmer Daves' Broken Arrow (1950) and Sam Fuller's Run of the Arrow (1957) are just two that immediately come to mind. But in 1970 two movies were released that completely revised the western genre forever by presenting a much more savage vision of the West. Soldier Blue and Little Big Man were the first to highlight the extreme American military action against the North American Indian that also reflected the very unpopular war in Vietnam and in particular the Mai Lai massacre. No one in Hollywood at the time dared to make a movie that truthfully portrayed that horrific war in the Far East but instead used the savagery of those revised westerns as a disguise for a more modern story.

Bob

 

[jazzeum]

Could it have anything to do with that we didn't -- and still don't -- really know our past whereas the Vietnam War was beamed into our living rooms every day. Who needed films depicting what happened when you get it on the Six O'Clock news in full living color. It's not for nothing that the demonstrators at the 1968 Chicago Convention yelled at the Police "The Whole World's Watching."

 

[Jack]

Jack most definitely.


The American people during the turbulent 1960s had really been jolted awake by scenes beamed into their living rooms of Bull Connor's horrendous treatment of African Americans in Birmingham, Alabama, which strengthened the Civil Rights Movement. They then- during that decade- witnessed via the media not one but three high profile assassinations on their home soil and soon after the new decade began were asking themselves whether their resident president was a crook or not. Tough times for the Stars and Stripes.


Hollywood took note of the increasing concerns of the public and American filmmakers used a sub genre to debunk the conventions of traditional westerns and questionably challenged American society and its values during the general mistrust of the Nixon presidency. The Native American had frequently been treated sympathetically and depicted as a noble and proud race by Hollywood long before the 1970s. Delmer Daves' Broken Arrow (1950) and Sam Fuller's Run of the Arrow (1957) are just two that immediately come to mind. But in 1970 two movies were released that completely revised the western genre forever by presenting a much more savage vision of the West. Soldier Blue and Little Big Man were the first to highlight the extreme American military action against the North American Indian that also reflected the very unpopular war in Vietnam and in particular the Mai Lai massacre. No one in Hollywood at the time dared to make a movie that truthfully portrayed that horrific war in the Far East but instead used the savagery of those revised westerns as a disguise for a more modern story.

Bob

Bob

Thank you for taking the time to reply in such depth. Any nation looking at its own history can be painful and I suppose those making movies in the seventies would have been well aware of the shadow cast by McCarthyism.

Thanks again

Jack

 

[Jack]

Could it have anything to do with that we didn't -- and still don't -- really know our past whereas the Vietnam War was beamed into our living rooms every day. Who needed films depicting what happened when you get it on the Six O'Clock news in full living color. It's not for nothing that the demonstrators at the 1968 Chicago Convention yelled at the Police "The Whole World's Watching."

Brad

So you feel that John Wayne's 'The Green Berets' was not real history? Say it ain't so{sm4}

History is always about viewpoint. Most of my postgraduate study has dealt with the Press, Censorship and War, particualrly with regards to the reporting from the Western Front during WW1. One of the things that I found interesting was that even though after 1918 people were more aware of the link between the Press and propaganda they could be remarkably accepting of moving footage. A 15 second piece of footage with sound was accepted as hard evidence of a wider truth when in fact it was as carefully selected as any heavily censored report from the Somme in 1916.

Jack

 

[jazzeum]

Jack,

Afraid so. Pretty bad. However, I thought Sgt. Barry Sadler's was great. I still hum it when I hear it although obviously the movie didn't reflect my point of view.

Do you really think that people started to see that connection after 1918. My perspective (which may be incorrect) is that it wasn't until Vietnam that the press didn't really start to reject the message that the military wanted them to project, e.g., "the light at the end of the tunnel."

Brad

 

[Jack]

Jack,

Do you really think that people started to see that connection after 1918. My perspective (which may be incorrect) is that it wasn't until Vietnam that the press didn't really start to reject the message that the military wanted them to project, e.g., "the light at the end of the tunnel."

Brad

Brad

I think some people certainly did. There was some disquiet when a number of the British war correspondents accepted knighthoods at the conclusion of the conflict. Some felt that it was a reward for their silence. Philip Knightley argued that more lies were told between 1914 and 1918 than in any other period of history and he felt that the correspondents must bear most of the blame. That is an exaggeration, but there is an element of truth to it. As the war progressed there was a shift from the Rupert Brooke 'If I should die ...' to what was later identified as a soldier's rhetoric. This soldiers' rhetoric was evident in the great novels of the late twenties by men such as Remarque and Graves. How much the work of the novelists and soldier poets like Sassoon and Graves reflected the views of the working class is open to argument. It received its modern articualtion in the Blackadder series which gave voice to these attitudes in one of TVs great comedies.

As for the Press you are probably quite right about the rejection of the official line not coming until later but the interesting thing, as least for the Empire, was that though strict laws were in place (Australia's were some of the strictest) it was, as one writer observed, a dog that did not need to bite. The correspondents were generally middle aged patriots who were not conscripted into the propaganda war. They were volunteers. They saw reporting as their contribution to the war effort. They accepted censorship as just in principle and only complained at the often petty manner in which it was enforced. From memory JE Edmonds, who may have written some of the Brit Official history (which is not a touch on the Australian official history, which is not an opinion but an objective fact!) worked with the correspondents and to amuse himself he used to pass incorrect information to them just to laugh at how gullible they were. The following section is part of a longer discussion I wrote for Uni.

The English journalists were the servants of an organisation which supported the war from the outset. This support was ‘openly arrived at … (and despite) Party differences…the press leaders reached unanimity by individual routes.’ This was in direct contrast to the German experience, where unity was imposed hierarchically from above, a contrast which reflected profound differences between the two countries. Various attempts at a heavy handed official censorship which were not dissimilar to the German method were stillborn. Instead, what evolved was a very English style of control relying heavily on self censorship, one strangely suited to both the political system and public sensibilities. It was broad, but unobtrusive, based as it was on a close control of the news at its source combined with a tight knit group of press lords. Newspaper owners and editors were part of the ruling elite, and regularly mixed socially and professionally with leading politicians. Members of the same clubs, guests at the same dinner parties and active members of the same political parties, they offered their support freely, without need of coercion. Their restraint and their belief in ‘loyal opposition’ somehow became identified with ‘gentlemanliness’ and doing the right thing became a matter of fulfilling obligations to fellow members of the club, rather than meeting a professional responsibility for informing readers. As Koss observed, what might have appeared from a distance as an adversarial relationship between press and politics was in effect a ‘network of uneasy and transitory alliances.’ If this network failed to control dissent, there was the additional safeguard of the Defence of the Realm Act which was enacted on the fourth day of the war. It granted the State unlimited power to control the dissemination of information. Any opposition to the war, in any form, potentially became a criminal offence.

 

[larso]

"

I think my missing the issue of rascism in The Searchers stemmed from it downplaying the full horror of the raid (it's much clearer in the book) and I was too young to pick up on the clues.

There is another, less kind interpretation of why you missed so obvious a point."

Yes, I see you are referring to my kind disposition. It has caused trouble in the past. By the way, I passed on your address to Mr Manson and advised him you would take him in as a lodger when he gets out. You can discuss your shared interest in 60s music!