Morgan Adams-Fromer
Bob Winters
Film 110
The Searchers: A Departure from the Classic Western
Since the dawn of cinema, the mythos embodied by westerns have maintained a hold over many a captivated audience, containing magnificent vistas, glorified violence, and the age old struggle of man vs. wild. As do many westerns, John Ford's 1956 masterpiece The Searchers, opens with a lone rider set against the backdrop of a vast, unknown wilderness. Settling into your seat, you might expect more of the tried and true formula that defines a western in this era, a well defined hero to be aspired to, acting as the last bastion of culture against the encroaching chaos that is the wild, untamed frontier. While The Searchers conforms to the conventional western theorem, the film ponders issues of race, integration, and interracial relationships as seen through the eyes of a man living beyond the era he knows. Breaking ground for future films to investigate and criticize current social issues through the medium of film.
Ethan returns to his brothers farm after serving in the confederate army for an extended period of time. Given a warm welcome, Ethan greets his “blood kin” in kind, while dismissing the presence of their adopted, part Indian son Martin Pawley. Ethan's snub towards Martin is just the first indication of underlying issues in Ethan's psyche. Not long after Ethan's return, he and Martin are recruited to temporarily join the Texas Rangers to pursue supposed cattle rustlers. Upon finding the cattle dead, Ethan immediately realizes the stolen cattle was just a diversion to lure the men and Rangers away from settlers homes. Making great haste to return, they find the homestead has been raided by Comanche Indians, burning the home a...
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...le, bigoted and will likely always be an outcast looking from the outside in, to cultured society. Martin on the other hand is not the initiate, but the true hero, son of an interracial couple, protecting those who cannot protect themselves, nobly sacrificing his own wants, and upholding the concept of purity in women, but not to the extent that he will destroy it to achieve that preservation. Ultimately, Ethan momentarily turns his back on the hatred, and instead of destroying that which he views as having been sullied, he opens his arms to her, welcoming Debbie back into the white society. For Martin's part in the saga, he is accepted as a full member of community as well as being able to marry into it. Through this outcome, Ford manages to undermine many of the traditions ensconced in the western, while addressing pressing cultural issues of the time period.
Bernstein, Matthew. “The Classical Hollywood Western Par Excellence.” Film Analysis: A Norton Reader. Eds. Jeffrey Geiger and R.L. Rutsky. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2nd edition, 2013. 298-318.
Ethan was an intelligent man, he had high dreams for himself as an engineer, and he wanted to have a life away from the ceaseless drudgery of life in Starksville. When his mother died leaving Zeena without a place to go, Ethan, being the kind man he was, offered to marry her because he felt obligated to do so. This decision however shut out his hopes for a better life. In order for Ethan to get an education he must have money. In order for Ethan to get money he must sell the farm. And with a new wife to take care of he could not possibly manage it. Ethan's decision to marry Zeena had fettered his social mobility and had brought about the backlash of Zeena's discontent.
Due to Mattie's injuries, and Ethan's inabilities to leave Starkfield, he remains at his home in an uncomfortable relationship with Mattie and Zeena. Even though he still had Mattie at his side, he was not living the life he wanted in the "west" with Mattie. There was no real "difference between the Fromes up at the farm and the Fromes down in the graveyard." Ethan gave up his life to stay at the farm with the woman he loves, and the woman he does not, resulting in him being subconsciously tied to Starkfield. Ethan's "father's accident" and his mother's falling "ill" results in Ethan's sacrifice of his career "to be an engineer" and makes him stay in Starkfield to marry Zeena. Even with opportunities that come along to change Ethan's continuous cycle of his life, he still ends up sacrificing everything to fulfill his duty and obligation to his wife
Though too intelligent for rural life, Ethan finds himself stuck in an average man's shoes. Leaving any opportunity he had to become someone in life, Ethan moves back to Starkfield to take care of his ailing mother and attend to their farm(Wharton 29). Rather than living a lonesome life after his mother passes away, Ethan asks Zeena to stay with him, which turns out to be his first mistake (Wharton, 29). As soon as his mother passed away, Ethan should have asked Zeena to leave and sold his farm. His love for learning and keenness for engineering could have led Ethan to a much better life. Unfortunately, he feels obligated to stay with Zeena, thus ending all hope for a better life.
Being one of the world’s most popular art forms, it was inevitable that these archetypes would find their way into film as well. In this essay I will argue that the films Pulp Fiction, Taxi Driver, Watership Down, and Trainspotting are all versions of The Hero’s Journey, consequently demonstrating just how prevalent these archetypes have become in modern cinema. And that mythology and storytelling are important parts of each culture because they prevent the darkness in our hearts from spreading.
Divided between the two women, Ethan Frome is a highly confused man. He seeks to find some “ease and freedom” represented by Mattie, but society would not allow him to do so. Society instead compels him to accept its burden represented for him in the shape of Zeena, although it means the ruin of his life. The social pressure, whether it takes the form of conventional morality or any other forms, offers Ethan blind opposition at every turn, leashing his actions “like the jerk of a chain” (p.3). Aware that he has not even the money to take Mattie with him to the West, for instance, Ethan starts on foot for Starkfield to ask Andrew Hale, the village carpenter, for an advance on some lumber. In this episode, he is soon intercepted on the way by Mrs. Hale, who, appealing to his sympathy by a few kind words, baffles his attempt at the very moment when his is about to revolt.
Ethan is not happy with his life and feels that it is his obligation to stay on the farm and work like his parents had “readers discover a man who feels overwhelmed by family responsibilities and who cannot free himself from what he believes to be family expectations.” (Witkosky). This obligation, and what Ethan believes to be his family expectations, ultimately helped lead to his decision in staying in Starkfield and not pursuing a happier life with Mattie elsewhere. Ethan also feels that even though all of his family members had died a long time ago, he still senses their presence, and he feels pressured to continue the family custom “Ethan senses their presence; in his eyes, the headstones on their graves, located near his farm, are like sentinels who guard and enforce family custom.” (Witkosky). Lastly the location of the Frome household in rural Massachusetts did not help the fact of Ethan’s isolation and his inability to socialize with others. Wharton symbolizes this loneliness and isolation by giving the town of Starkfield a cold and frozen setting, which is symbolic towards Ethan’s inability to move forward in his life “, the lack of social mobility in rural Massachusetts plays a role in Ethan's acceptance of the idea that he has no chance for advancement.” (Witkosky). Ethan’s ability to not being able to move forward
The road movie embodies the human desire for travel and progression. The vehicle of journey is a contemporary metaphor of personal transformation that oftentimes mirrors socio-cultural desires and fears. Thomas Schatz believes that one “cannot consider either the filmmaking process or films themselves in isolation from their economic, technological, and industrial context.” This statement is especially applicable to the independent American films of the late sixties, a time of great political and social debate. Easy Rider (1969) was considered a new voice in film that was pitched against the mainstream. In the 1960s, there was a shift to highlight the outsiders or the anti-heros in film. This counter-cultural radicalism seems to have also influenced the 1991 film, Thelma & Louise. The characters of both films act as figures of anti-heroism by rebelling against the conventional and unintentionally discovering themselves at the same time. Despite their different backgrounds, the protagonists of Eas...
The White Savior Complex is a damaging subconscious underlay of the Hollywood system, and more broadly all of western society. It is used to further separate the notions of “us” and “other” by creating a firm separation fueled by self-righteousness, and a sense of entitlement. Hollywood attempts to address race relations, but fails because of this trope. Kingsle, from the article “Does My Hero Look White In This?” described that both racism and colonialism are acknowledged, but not without reassuring that not only were white people against the system of racist power dynamics, but also were actively fighting against it in leadership roles (2013). In the remainder of my essay I will be commenting on many modern films and their use on this trope, and why subscribing to this filmmaking strategy is problematic.
..., even as a victim of the psychological reach of the expansionist credo. Clearly, revealing the damage done by the capitalist ideology, whether individual or social, in the frontier society of 1868, or in the "separate but equal" context of 1956, was important to the director. Fortunately, Wood's theory, examining the new meaning created by the juxtaposition of the thesis of a preexistent text with the antithetical views of the auteur, reaffirms Ford's success, and the potence of the genre film.
Brower, Sue. ""They'd Kill Us If They Knew": Transgression and the Western." Journal of Film and Video 62.4 (2010): 47-57. Web.
In “The Thematic Paradigm,” Robert Ray explains how there are two vastly different heroes: the outlaw hero and the official hero. The official hero has common values and traditional beliefs. The outlaw hero has a clear view of right and wrong but unlike the official hero, works above the law. Ray explains how the role of an outlaw hero has many traits. The morals of these heroes can be compared clearly. Films that contain official heroes and outlaw heroes are effective because they promise viewer’s strength, power, intelligence, and authority whether you are above the law or below it.
In “The Thematic Paradigm,” University of Florida professor of film studies, Robert Ray, defines two types of heroes pervading American films, the outlaw hero and the official hero. Often the two types are merged in a reconciliatory pattern, he argues. In fact, this
Few Hollywood film makers have captured America’s Wild West history as depicted in the movies, Rio Bravo and El Dorado. Most Western movies had fairly simple but very similar plots, including personal conflicts, land rights, crimes and of course, failed romances that typically led to drinking more alcoholic beverages than could respectfully be consumed by any one person, as they attempted to drown their sorrows away. The 1958 Rio Bravo and 1967 El Dorado Western movies directed by Howard Hawks, and starring John Wayne have a similar theme and plot. They tell the story of a sheriff and three of his deputies, as they stand alone against adversity in the name of the law. Western movies like these two have forever left a memorable and lasting impressions in the memory of every viewer, with its gunfighters, action filled saloons and sardonic showdowns all in the name of masculinity, revenge and unlawful aggressive behavior. Featuring some of the most famous backdrops in the world ranging from the rustic Red Rock Mountains of Monument Valley in Utah, to the jagged snow capped Mountain tops of the Teton Range in Wyoming, gun-slinging cowboys out in search of mischief and most often at their own misfortune traveled far and wide, seeking one dangerous encounter after another, and unfortunately, ending in their own demise.
In the article “The Thematic Paradigm” exerted from his book, A Certain Tendency of the Hollywood Cinema, Robert Ray provides a description of the two types of heroes depicted in American film: the outlaw hero and the official hero. Although the outlaw hero is more risky and lonely, he cherishes liberty and sovereignty. The official hero on the other hand, generally poses the role of an average ordinary person, claiming an image of a “civilized person.” While the outlaw hero creates an image of a rough-cut person likely to commit a crime, the official hero has a legend perception. In this essay, I will reflect on Ray’s work, along with demonstrating where I observe ideologies and themes.