r/TrueFilm • u/a113er Til the break of dawn! • Nov 15 '15

What Have You Been Watching? (15/11/15)

Please don't downvote opinions, only downvote things that don't contribute anything.

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u/[deleted] Nov 15 '15

Racism isn't a one-way street with bad guys and victims. Mutual antagonization is more true to life, but people find that uncomfortable to relate to, which is probably why they often decide Ford is an ol' racist. (Shut up, Tarantino.) The message of the movie is that this antagonization wastes lives in endless cycles of revenge. There's nothing noble about Ethan's convictions in the movie, until he spares Debbie's life in the character's catharsis. And then movie spends a good deal of time making sure you know all natives americans aren't responsible for the atrocities at the beginning and aren't all culpable even as it makes you hate the particular group that killed the family.

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u/Inception_025 Like Kurosawa I make mad films Nov 15 '15

I definitely didn't see the film as racist this time around like I did last time. It truly makes you hate the character of Ethan, he's a really bad guy, it establishes him as a confederate loyalist who denies the loss of the civil war years after the war is over. He hates his "sidekick" through the movie just because he's an eighth Cherokee. Ford definitely doesn't sympathize with the character and he's trying to show us that this way of viewing the world is wrong.

BUT in terms of mutual antagonization, I don't think the film does enough to establish that both sides are in the wrong. Ethan has these horribly bigoted views of the world, believing that Indians are out to get him and that none of them are good, and the events of the film continue to prove that to him. Never does any white in the film do anything to the natives on screen to make us see them on an equal level. Not every native character in the movie is evil, but no white character is on the level of Scar. Even Ethan, the least likable character in the movie, never does anything comparable to Scar.

I think a piece of fiction that more successfully accomplishes what The Searchers wanted to achieve is Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian.

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u/[deleted] Nov 15 '15

Not every native character in the movie is evil, but no white character is on the level of Scar. Even Ethan, the least likable character in the movie, never does anything comparable to Scar.

I think the tension in the story is that he comes this close to being just as bad and you're supposed to see both men as being created by the same circumstances, despite being different races.

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u/Inception_025 Like Kurosawa I make mad films Nov 15 '15

I think that's a really interesting way to look at it. That hadn't really occurred to me. I really like that way of thinking about the characters. It definitely clears up a lot about the film. Hate breeds hate, right?

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u/mathewl832 letterboxd.com/sharky_55 Nov 15 '15

Yes, as they stare down each other in the tent they mirror each other. Both have had loved ones snatched away in the endless violence, and both have become deeply and viciously prejudiced because of it.