John Ford<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\nI could write a hundred thousand words on the subject of John Ford and still do not do him justice, so I\u2019ll just stick to the issue in hand.\u00a0<\/span>Ford is obviously known for his Westerns, even though the majority of the films he made in that genre were actually produced during the silent era. <\/span><\/p>\nHe made his first sound Western, Stagecoach, in 1939 and along the way helped elevate Wayne to star status. In my humble opinion nearly all of the Westerns Ford directed from 1939 onwards qualify for classic status, apart from the occasional box-office misfire such as Two Rode Together, which is almost a virtual remake of The Searchers. <\/span><\/p>\nFor me, one of the aspects of The Searchers that sets it apart from the cowboy films Ford made prior to this is the way in which he depicts the plight of Native Americans. I feel this is the real turning point in the director\u2019s onscreen attitude towards America\u2019s indigenous natives. Some of the images from the sequence in which Ethan Edwards and Martin Pawley (Jeffrey hunter) chance upon a Comanche village that has been devastated by the cavalry bears comparison with some of the late 60s \/ early 70s liberal Westerns such as Soldier Blue and Little Big Man.<\/span><\/p>\nThis is Ford finally questioning the role of the military in \u2018settling\u2019 the West and he doesn\u2019t pull any punches. The cavalry regiment that arrives in the nick of time at the end of Stagecoach, flags flying gloriously in the wind, is now transformed into a ruthless band of cutthroats who kill those that came before them. <\/span><\/p>\nI would therefore argue that The Searchers is indicative of a real turning point in the life of Ford himself, with particular regards to his own attitude towards the plight of the Native Americans, and it\u2019s up there on the big screen for all to see. <\/span><\/p>\nBy the time Ford made his last Western, Cheyenne Autumn, in 1963, the Native Americans are no longer depicted as ciphers or silhouettes on the horizon. They are shown as real people with real lives and emotions, the characters in the film elevated in the storyline and sharing equal screen time with the white protagonists. Ford made a lot of other films that were deemed to be close to his heart, such as The Quiet Man, They Were Expendable and The Wings of Eagles but for me The Searchers is about as personal as it gets. <\/span><\/p>\nAs an aside to the question of the settling of the West as referenced in The Searchers, one of the essays in the book mentioned at the beginning of this article raises an intriguing point regarding the Comanche raid on the home of Ethan\u2019s brother. The author of the essay, Tom Grayson Colonnese, is a Native American himself and he calls the siege on the cabin a counterattack against those who had themselves earlier appropriated the land by force. <\/span><\/p>\nThis doesn\u2019t take into account of course the fact that whoever lived there before the settlers arrived had also probably done exactly the same thing, but it\u2019s a worthy point of discussion. <\/span><\/p>\n