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Go Home,
Debbie:
The Matter
of Blood
Pollution,
Combat
Culture, and
Cold War
Hysteria in
The Searchers
(1956)
By Sue Matheson
The Searchers (1956). Directed by John Ford. Shown from left: Jeffrey Hunter (as Martin
Pawley), Natalie Wood (as Debbie Edwards). Photo courtesy of Photofest.
John Fords 115th movie has lingered in Americas memory.1 As Arthur M. Eckstein
observes, The Searchers, which critics consider socially and psychologically profound, is also Fords most influential work (3). References to the movie have appeared
in the works of other filmmakers again and again: to name but a few, South Pacific (1958), Lawrence
of Arabia (1962), Major Dundee (1965), The Longest Yard (1974), The Wind and Lion (1975), Jaws
(1975), Taxi Driver (1976), Star Wars (1977), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Hardcore
(1979), Paris, Texas (1984), Dances With Wolves (1990), Unforgiven (1992), Saving Private Ryan
(1998), O Brother Where Art Thou? (2000), Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of The Clones (2002), and
Dog Soldiers (2002). Even Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004) offers its audience what has become a standard compositional riff in Hollywood filmmaking: Uma Thurman is framed in the door of a chapel
like Ethan Edwards is in the final shot of the door of the Jorgensons ranch house in The Searchers.
It is this closing shot of Ethan that also makes The Searchers one of Fords most troubling films:
Abstract: As Curtis Hanson points out in A Turning of the Earth: John Ford, John Wayne and The Searchers
(1998), The Searchers is not about violence. Ten years after World War II, The Searchers showcases the
effects of violence on the individual, in general, and the returning hero, in particular.
Keywords: blood pollution, cold war, combat culture, John Ford, post-traumatic stress disorder, Western
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The Searchers (1956). Directed by John Ford. Shown on the set from left: John Wayne, Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, Director John
Ford. Photo courtesy of Photofest.
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It has been suggested that the troubling nature of Ethans rejection of human society could be due, in part, to
our expectations of John Ford himself.
A very puzzled Lindsay Anderson asks,
[W]hat is Ford, of all directors, to do
with a hero like this? (Roth 65). One
of Hollywoods most Catholic directors, Fords sensibilities tended toward
introducing subjects such as the uniting
of family and the reintegration of the
individual into his or her community at
the conclusion of his films. However, as
Eckstein so capably demonstrates, Ford
went to infinite trouble to develop Alan
Le Mays Ethan Edwards as a mentally
unbalanced and highly antisocial character. Ford made significant changes to
the script that he had coauthored with
Frank Nugent very late in the production process, on location in Monument
Valley and on the soundstage in Hollywood, to create the dark and disturbing protagonist who turned his back on
hearth and home at the movies end (3
4). Fords choice of such a hero, however, is not so puzzling when one considers the historic moment out of which
The Searchers was made.
As Curtis Hanson points out in A
Turning of the Earth: John Ford, John
Wayne and The Searchers (1998), The
Searchers is not about violence; it is
about the effects of violence on individuals. Released ten years after American
troops who fought in World War II returned to the United States, The Searchers showcases the effects of the violence
of war on the individual, in general,
and the returning hero, in particular.
Thus, the subject of Fords inquiry explored via the character of Ethan Edwardsthat of blood pollutionis not
limited to the unpleasant subjects of
incest and racism, even though those
topics are crucial in recognizing and
understanding Fords view of Ethan as
a negative, psychologically shattered,
and tragic figure (Eckstein 1). A thief,
a predator, a murderer, a racist, and a
sociopath, Ethan is, as Eckstein notes,
semi-psychotic (16), but Ford was
not solely concerned with the plight of
an extremely damaged individual when
darkening the character of Ethan. Ford
told Bogdanovitch that he meant The
Searchers to be a psychological epic
Shared by every
character in this
movie, Ethans
dysfunctions are
always related to a
much broader, general
dysfunction at work in
The Searchers and,
arguably, in American
culture in 1956.
(Eckstein 3, my emphasis). When one
watches The Searchers, it becomes apparent that Fords concern with epic
was not with an epic figures individual
psychology. Ethans undesirable and antisocial tendencies are not epic in themselves but epic in terms of scaleafter
all, the American Civil War was the first
conflict to approach the state of total
war. Shared by every character in this
movie, Ethans dysfunctions are always
related to a much broader, general dysfunction at work in The Searchers and,
arguably, in American culture in 1956.
Every character in The Searchers is
psychologically scarred by his or her
involvement in some sort of warby
the Civil War, by the Texicans war
with the Comanche, or even by the war
waged between the Edwards brothers
over Martha within Nathans home. At
the beginning of The Searchers, Fords
attention to mise-en-scne painstakingly
identifies Ethan as a war veteran who
has just returned home. Wearing a long
Confederate overcoat, Ethan jogs into
the yard on a horse sporting a Mexican
saddle. Strapped to his saddle roll is a
saber with its scabbard wrapped in the
gray silk of the Confederate Army. To
further the impression of a Civil War
veteran returning from the Mexican
War, Ethan carries a folded serape in
place of a Texas poncho. Later, he gives
Debbie a beribboned medal that appears
to have been won in Mexico.
Perceptions of (and attitudes toward)
returning war veterans have varied
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The Searchers (1956). Directed by John Ford. Shown from left: John Wayne (as Ethan Edwards), Beulah Archuletta (as Wild Goose Flying
in the Night Sky), Jeffrey Hunter (as Martin Pawley). Photo courtesy of Photofest.
roamed as hobos on the fringes of society because they were unable to adjust to civilian life, Ethan wanders for
three years, spending some of that time
in Mexico, before returning to the Edwardss homestead.3 At the beginning of
The Searchers, the gap between the returning killer and his community could
not appear to be greater. Still carrying
his cavalry saberyears after Lees surrender at AppomattoxEthan is living
and thinking like a combatant. Unlike
the Reverend Captain Samuel Johnston
Clayton (Ward Bond), an ex-soldier
whose sword has become a plowshare,
Ethan, uncleansed, continues to identify
himself as a member of the Confederate
Army. He tells Clayton, I dont believe
in surrenders. I still got my sword.
Here it is important to note that the importance of the Civil War as a backdrop
against which The Searchers takes place
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Fords treatment of
survivor guilt in
The Searchers
is also extensive
and graphic.
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also used the nineteenth-century frontier for allegories on social and political issues that they could not treat
elsewhere: in 1956, John Ford chose
Monument Valley as the backdrop for
his veterans narrative. Released while
Hollywood blacklisting was still being
enforced, The Searchers played to audiences composed of veterans and their
families when all Americans were living
and coping with the effects of social readjustment, PTSD, and Cold War hysteria. Placed in its cinematic moment, The
Searchers recontextualizes the returning
World War II veterans experience and
haunts Americans with the proposition
that it is impossible for the American
war veteran to ever be able to return
home. Simply put, Ethans inability to
return home did not necessarily puzzle
his audiencesgiven their combat experience, highly ambivalent social status, and the chilly Cold War climate in
which they lived. Fords viewers would
have recognized Ethans dilemma as
their own.
Given the similar situation of veterans who have returned home from more
recent conflicts like the Vietnam War,
the Persian Gulf War, the Iraq War, and
the Afghanistan conflict, it is not surprising that The Searchers continues to
be as relevant a film to audiences today as it was when it was first released.
Post-9/11 viewers rate this movie as one
of the greatest films ever made, and The
Searchers is considered by the National
Film Preservation Board and National
Film Registry of the U.S. Library of
Congress as culturally important.5 Audience and industry responses to Fords
115th movie indicate that Americas
attitude to its returning veterans has
changed since the end of the World War
II; however, the cultural transformation
that such a change heralds is not yet
complete. PTSD has been recognized
by the medical profession as an official
diagnosis after the Vietnam War, but
veterans themselves indicate that they
continue to fear being stigmatized in the
military today if they admit to symptoms of severe depression, PTSD or
other problems (Welch).
In part, The Searcherss relevance today is attributable to John Ford, himself
a veteran of the World War II, creating
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4. See McBride and Wilmingtons argument that Scar mirrors Ethans desires
throughout.
5. Named the Greatest American Western
ever made by the American Film Institute
in 2008, The Searchers has been placed on
Sight and Sounds list of the greatest films
ever made since 1972.
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Combat Stress: The War Within. CNN.com
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