Throughout the John Ford film The Searchers (1956), there is a constant highlight of the bipolar extremes that the landscape of the American west embodies. The traditional American west landscape on one hand, has always been a majestic natural gem of unimaginable beauty and vast magnitude. However, on the other hand, the west, and also in most cases, the Western film, embody another completely polar quality to this beauty and natural wonder; the landscape and surroundings can also embody sheer struggle and challenge. This challenge is one of the essential elements to every Western, including The Searchers. For it is indeed ironic that in many cases, the landscape, which represents such magnificence, inspiration, openness, and opportunity, also plays a significant role in the struggle and the adversity of the plot.
Jane Tompkins, author of West of Everything, makes several assertions about how the landscape interplays with the traditional Westerns. Many of these assertions can be seen in Ford's The Searchers. Tompkins makes many direct remarks about the elements of the landscape, its elegance and its dire challenges to the typical Western hero. She describes the nature being, "one transcendent thing, the one thing larger than man" (72); The Searchers very much had the setting of sheer grandness. In fact, it opens just as Tomkins generalizes all Westerns to open; with a large, impressive landscape shot. Tomkins even cites the opening of The Searchers in her observation about the typical Western opening shot.
While Tompkins mentions the grandness and impressive expanses of the Western landscape, she also mentions the hardship and struggle of nature. Tomkins states, "nature makes it obvious, even to the most benighted, who her chosen are..." (73) the necessities of the west's landscape call upon a "heroic" character to exhibit a, "[control of] the external world through physical strength and force of will" (73). Such hardship is demonstrated in the natural challenges that the land presents to Ethan (John Wayne), Martin (Jeffrey Hunter), and company. Throughout the film, nature manages to throw the obstacles of extreme expanse coupled with extreme heat that leads to the death of Martin and company's horses. Later, nature presents difficult navigational routes in battle, such as the river (that helped the company of Americans against the Apache), sand dunes, and valleys. Finally, nature even threw snow at the characters; further requiring their adaptation and ability to demonstrate the strength against the elements of a Western hero.
Tompkins also makes several assertions with regards to the sexless nature of the Western hero. She mentions how "the hero almost never has sex... denial of sex being central to the kind of deprivation the Western finds essential for the exemplary life" (84). This aspect of a sexless cowboy is portrayed by Ethan and Martin throughout The Searchers as nowhere through the film do either present any desire for sex in the five years that they spend away from home, town, and humanity all together. However, I disagree with Tomkins at a level on this assertion of sex being something intentionally omitted from Western fims. I do not feel that sex is "given up" in films to create another hardship and demonstration of the difficulty of the Western hero. I feel that the omission may more be in the creation of the film; in order to make the film more acceptable to the time period and audience it was created for. Furthermore, I feel that the film more focuses on the challenges and missions at hand rather than the unspoken and lack of sex.
Overall however, the landscape struggle and the landscape beauty Tomkins discusses are very much reflected in Ford's The Searchers.
BLOG REVISION (9/26/10)
ReplyDeleteJane Tompkins, author of "West of Everything", makes several assertions about how the landscape interplays with the traditional Westerns. Many of these assertions can be seen in Ford's "The Searchers". Tompkins makes many direct remarks about the elements of the landscape, its elegance and its dire challenges to the typical Western hero. She describes the nature being, "[o]ne transcendent thing, the one thing larger than man" (72); The Searchers very much had the setting of sheer grandness. In fact, it opens just as Tomkins generalizes all Westerns to open; it opens with a large, impressive landscape shot. Tomkins even cites the opening of "The Searchers" in her observation about the typical Western opening shot. The fact is, as demonstrated in the film, nature is also a direct reflection to the alpha male cowboy.
The cowboy is a direct link to the land; his constant dedication to duty and hard work are reflected in his work to dominate the land. As Tompkins puts it, "[T]he necessities of the west's landscape call upon a "heroic" character to exhibit a, [control of] the external world through physical strength and force of will" (73). Furthermore, the alpha male cowboy is called to the land. Ethan spends all of his time that we know of living in the land. His inability to cross the threshold of to domestic life at the end of the film reflects his deep roots and dedication to living off the brutal land. He knows no other way to be a man.
Throughout "The Searchers" Ethan avoids town. Being an alpha male cowboy, Ethan must demonstrate his ability to go without the comforts of town. He gives up easily attained comforts of town such as food, shelter, and sex. He is instead forced to struggle for food and shelter and go basically with no sex at all. As mentioned by Tomkins, "[T]here is a tremendous tension in Westerns between the landscape and town. The genre pulls toward the landscape" (85). This is certainly true in "The Searchers". Ethan spends years before the film, five years during the film, and an unknown length of time after the film avoiding town for the struggles and duties of the land. This is what the alpha male cowboy must demonstrate, his direct duty to the land itself.
*Italics are not available in "Comments", therefore certain italic voids have been filled with quotation marks.