Customer Reviews

The Searchers (BFI Film Classics)

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4 star:		(1)
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This book is even better than Buscombe's book on "Stagecoach." It is clear this movie has a stronger emotional hold on him than the earlier film. Buscombe does a very thorough job, comparing where the film deviates from the novel and the script.

He does something I have seen no other writer on "The Searchers" do, and that is to discuss the film's music, which is based on the 19th Century song "Lorena," which has a theme about separated lovers that reflects the Ethan-Martha relationship.

The book concludes with the changing critical reception of "The Searchers." Frankly, I think this is a fine, and fair assessment of the movie, one free from a lot of cant and academic jargon. I wish Buscombe would write a major book about the Western genre.

The Searchers is a detailed film book about one of the best movies with John Wayne directed John Ford. Full of wonderful insight, background on Western films, the use of the landscape and behind-the-scene information about the crew this is a must for any fan of the movie or Westerns in general. Well organized and with a good bibliography.

This is a good introduction to the study of John Ford's films and it highlights one of his greatest, but I still believe that no-one has come close to fully analysing his retelling of the Herculean Myth. In an age where race issues were beginning to divide the country, Ford used a broad brush western to show the dangers of hysterical racism. Ethan Edwards is the most complex hero, Ford ever produced and he defies analysis. After his efforts to reunite a family, he sees he has no place at all. Buscombe has written a very good and learned book on the searchers, but I still want more.