The Searchers is based on Alan Lemay's novel. This film is not only the most beautiful Western movie shot by John Ford, but also a classic highly respected by film critics and directors. The two main characters __ the experienced middle-aged prodigal son Ethan-Ethan (John Wayne) and the newly born young Martin-Martin (Jeffrey Hunter), looking for the niece abducted by the celebrity Debbie -Debbie (Natalie Wood), they traveled through the desert and spent five years experiencing the story of wind and frost.
After the Civil War, a group of tired Ethan retired and returned home. His brother was in the desert. However, the joy did not last long. The Indians tricked him into joining his brother Martin, a mixed-race son of red and white. The leader of Ethan left home to investigate. Unexpectedly, the Indians attacked his brother’s family. Only evidence of the kidnapping of his little niece Debbie was left. So they chased desperately, and the search process was the main axis of the story. Ethan and Martin were convinced that Debbie was not dead. The only ones who stick to this belief are the two of them...
The director described Ethan as a mystical character, a man full of human nature. He has a long history and knowledge, and has resolved the crisis on the journey several times. Is he a hero? Yes, but heroes also have gray areas. After experiencing the cruelty of war, they are no longer as confident as a young man... In the first paragraph, Ethan brought a lot of wealth home, although the end of the film shows that it is unrighteous. Fortune, but it’s actually self-evident. Also, from the vague description of the film, Ethan admires his sister-in-law Laurie. Laurie’s killing makes him full of desire for revenge. This can be seen from his occasional crazy behavior. In the middle, he It is said that the body of the eldest niece Lucy-Lucy was found on the way. The camera did not explain what happened. Everything came from his mouth. This is suspicious. Is it because of the fact that she was once tainted by a red fan? Is it possible that he did it? This is possible, especially afterwards, it was said that he spent five years searching for a long time and found a red-colored Debbie. He decided to kill her without thinking about it. Therefore, in Martin's eyes, Ethan is sometimes as scary as a beast. Fortunately, Martin's sincerity changed Ethan's prejudice. Later, Ethan decided to make Martin his successor to his legacy and sincerely accepted Debbie who returned to civilization.
Martin is another classic form. He is righteous and strong. Ethan tried to get rid of him again and again, but he still followed with a horrible face. After five years, he was transformed from a brave and brave young man to a brave man. The man, in the end, even saved Ethan and got a great relationship, and Ethan, like all the prodigal son would do, walked my way alone again, and finally it was Happy Ending.
Inherent Western movie mode __ white and red race conflicts, white people represent civilization, red fans represent barbarism and killing, but this film does not separate the two ethnic groups, for example, Martin is a red and white mixed race and in white society People who live, the red fan who enjoys killing in the story only refers to the tribe headed by the chief Scar (scar). Scar angers all the white people because of his son being killed by the white people. On the other hand, the film also describes the annihilation of the white people. A whole red fan tribe, and before that, according to the words and deeds of Martin's red fan wife, this tribe was basically harmless, and so on. In terms of details, white people always took the lead, but in 1956 when the film was released. There is nothing wrong with this statement. In any case, John Ford's storytelling skills are extremely high, which can be seen in this wonderful arrangement.
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1. The
Searcher and Dancing with Wolves are two important classic films in the history of American film. The main axis of the film is the interaction between the white immigrants and the Indians in the West at the end of the Civil War. The stories of the two films have the same historical background and the roles of the two films are also very similar, but the directors’ interpretations are different, and the time and space of the film are different, so the historical meaning of the film is completely different. This article hopes to use the concept of "home" in the two films as an entry point to analyze how American films and American society have transformed under the rich traditional genre of Western films.
2. The home of
the searcher In the searcher, this movie tells the story of the United States in 1868. After the Civil War, Ethan Edward, a defeated Southern Army officer, searched for his niece abducted by the Indians. After a long search process, the movie finally rebuilt a happy family, but the main character left alone and left alone.
From the context of the story, we can learn that family is the driving force behind Ethan's search. In the eyes of Ethan, who is alienated from everything, only the interaction with his brother's family members is happy. But cruelly, this family was destroyed shortly after he returned home.
Even though Ethan actually has another family member, his brother's adopted son Martin Pawley, he does his best to exclude Martin who is in front of him. Ethan repeatedly appeared in the movie and said: "I'm not your family." But we can't imagine that Ethan could even be cold-blooded to this relative and use it as a bait to kill the greedy boss.
For Ethan, the pursuit of many years is actually looking for a home that he has lost in his heart. Ethan was unwilling to accept Martin, who was closest to him and had a relationship with him for a while, but he was almost crazy and persistent, struggling to pursue Debby, who he had long forgotten about. Just because there was a blood-related member in the family who was lost but survived, and he had to let her return to the white world. The reason why Ethan excludes Martin abnormally is only because they have no blood relationship and no sacred family fetters, so they do not become family members.
The most beautiful and ideal plot in the story is to have a traditional white family. This ideal family has a rocking chair, a roof, a heater in winter, and a family gathered by blood in front of the heater. For example, Ethan must find the missing link in the family; Martin must find the members of the family; the episode of the story, Martin goes to Laurie’s wedding scene and regains the heart of the beauty; the crazy Mose said: "Mose doesn’t want much, as long as the roof, Stove and rocking chair"; and Mose, who was disheartened after being beaten by the Indians, could only say the word, rocking chair.
The whole movie revolves around the praise and pursuit of this family image, and all conflicts and beauty stem from the loss and possession of this family image.
And the pursuit of this beautiful family became an absurd and terrible nightmare when they pursued Debby. When Ethan finally stepped into Scar's tent after many years, he discovered that Debby had become one of the wives from different tribes in Scar's family under the polygamy relationship. When Ethan learned that Debby had become Scar's wife and assimilated into an Indian, he brazenly took out his gun and wanted to shoot Debby: there was no joy in searching for success at all, and there was just infinite hatred. Because what Ethan is really looking for is not Debby, a living niece, but a woman who must be placed in the context of a happy family for life to have a positive meaning.
For example, when discussing whether the offensive plan would sacrifice Debby, many whites actually agreed that Debby should be killed. Only the brother of Pauly, who is not related to Debby, advocated saving Debby. Pauly said: "There is a man alive there and we must save her." But Ethan said: "Debby has become a naive barbarian and is no longer alive." It turns out that Debby, a beautiful woman, can live completely as long as she is deemed to be no longer a pure member of a blood family. Obliterated by negation.
The final ending of the film is full of symbolic meaning. The Jorgensons happily accepted Debby as their family member; Debby's god brother Martin married the Jorgensons' daughter Laurie. Every member finds a place and sacred bond in this happy family with roof, stove and rocking chair. Only Ethan was alone, walking from Jorgenson's house to the long western desert alone.
What Ethan pursues is a ridiculous and crazy dream. When the dream ends, what he gets is the emptiness and embarrassment of loneliness. This homeless and homeless cowboy iron man took revenge on the Indians and snatched his family back from the barbarians. Finally, everyone was reunited and happy, but he was lonely and completely a homeless person.
3. The race among
the searchers The movie "Searcher", the whole film revolves around the theme of "home": the beauty of home, the incompleteness of home, the pursuit of home, and the reappearance of home. And the external factor that made this beautiful family broken is racial conflict: Indians and whites.
There is almost no description of the Indians in this movie. There is no multi-faceted personality, no personal ideals of thinking, and only the "stereotype" of a thin and one-sided tablet. The Indians in this movie are hardly "human beings", just a representation of the image. It is the incarnation of brutality, the tool of destruction, and the sum of stupidity, childishness and evil.
As destroyers of American beautiful families, Indians are endowed with all the negative characteristics and evil images relative to family defenders. The director does not describe and explore the family, culture, and values of the Indians themselves, but simply and one-sidedly depicts the horror of the Indians as white family destroyers.
We can get a glimpse of the director’s position by censoring the images of the characters in the play:
White Indians
Sacred family view: Loyalty and romantic chaotic family relations: Fornication and polygamy
Martial, brutal,
handsome men, beautiful women, brutal men, women Ugly
Men are determined, women are wise, men are cunning, and women are stupid.
In the story, there are many conflicts between Indians and whites and differences in personalities, but the difference is to emphasize the positive characteristics of whites and the negative characteristics of Indians. . This standard of race as a distinction divides the personality and quality of whites and Indians. Attempt to create an image in which whites are excellent and Indians are savage. In the movie, Laurie Jorgenson, a beautiful white woman who has been working for Martin for many years, is the contrasting image of the Indian woman Wild Goose who appears at this time: fat, ugly, and stupid. Other characters in the film also brazenly laughed at Wild Goose's nickname "Fat Boy", as if the ugly Indian woman deserves to be the laughing stock of white people. And Wild Goode is here as a contrast of loyal and romantic love: casually, without discipline, whatever you like, just throw in your arms.
And through the dialogue between the Jorgensons and the Jorgensons in the play, it may be the epitome of fighting, fighting, and defending the family with the Indians from the perspective of white American history:
"Now, Lars, It's Just so happens. We're Texans.
Texans is nothing but a human man.
Way out on a limb this year and next.
Maybe for 100 years more.
But I don't think it'll be forever.
Someday this country will be a good place to be.
Maybe it needs Our bones in the ground.
Before that time can come."
The beauty of white American families, like Texans, can only be won by fighting against the fierce and evil Indians. The searcher represented by Ethan may be a symbol of the American people; the process of searching for Debby may be a copy of the white Americans looking for their relatives. In the end, there is a happy picture of winning the integrity of the family, but there are also lonely individuals who are lost and mutilated because of this.
4. Home in Dancing with Wolves
Dancing with Wolves tells the story of the North Army's war hero John Dunbar voluntarily stationing at the frontline base in the west after the Civil War. Unexpectedly, the white garrison had all been evacuated at this time. Standing alone at the border, he gradually interacted closely with the Sioux Indians, even fell in love with Indian culture, and fell in love with Stands With A Fist, a white woman who was assimilated into an Indian. At the end of the film, John fully agrees with and truly becomes a Sioux, leaving the white world as Dance With The Wolves.
The film dances with wolves, which is unusually similar to the searcher. The background of the story is also the postwar America. The protagonists of the two films are both a lonely man who lost his home after the war; the two films also use a white woman abducted by an Indian as the key to the symbol of "home." The difference is that in order to pursue a fantasy family, Ethan searched and retaliated against Indians; while John found and established his real family in the Indian Sioux culture.
At the beginning of the movie, John lost any sense of identity and participation in life and war, so he sought death on the battlefield and then voluntarily exiled to a remote place. But as the plot continues to advance, we gradually see the loneliness in John Dunbar's heart, which still needs comfort and exit. The disguise of indifference may work in the white world, but in the vast grasslands of the west, this inevitable loneliness becomes huge and real. In loneliness, John establishes a friendship with Two Socks, a wolf, and becomes friends with Cisco. Finally, by receiving the hand of friendship from the Sioux people, slowly, the lonely and alienated white lieutenant became cheerful, straightforward and full of innocence.
Yes, John Dunbar laughed more and more often, when the Sioux gave him valuable fur to help him through the winter, when he danced with the socks, when the socks first took food from him, and when he fell in love with Stands With When A Fist was unable to extricate himself, when he got his Indian name "Dance With The Wolves"...
In the narration, dancing with wolves often said that he admires the harmonious life of the Sioux people without contention with the earth. And when he became an Indian, he said very clearly: I don't want to live the same life as before. He denied the value of being a white man and turned to embrace the value of Indians.
In the movie Dancing with Wolves, the Indian talent is the home of the soul, redeeming the homeless John Dunbar. The Sioux people gave John the name Dancing with Wolves, as well as his wisdom in life, true love of loyalty, and selfless friendship. At this time, the white people became the murderers who destroyed the Hele family and harmonious tribe. These images are exactly the opposite of the white society among the searchers as the home of the family, and the Indians as the brutal and barbaric family destroyers.
Furthermore, Stands With A Fist in Dancing with the Wolves and Debbie in the Seeker are both women who were taken away and married by Indians at a young age. But in the two contexts, Debbie’s Indianization symbolizes the missing link in a happy family; and Stands With A Fist, after Indianization, not only gets a complete life and family, but also completes the family that John Dunbar yearns for. . Two deprived men who were both Civil War officers also went after a kidnapped woman. One cherished hatred, and saw the ugliness of the Indians and the broken home; the other cherished love, and saw the wisdom of the Indians and the completeness of the family.
5. The race
in Dancing with Wolves, the Indian culture lost in the movie searchers, finally has a relatively deep depiction in Dancing with Wolves. The families and tribes of the Sioux people have a strict and reasonable distribution of power; the status of wizards is not established by borrowing mysterious witchcraft or rituals, but is based on calm, experienced, well-versed, and decisive wisdom for the tribe; Indian People's marriage and family are loyal, simple and sacred; the Indians and dancing with the wolf are sincere and not deceiving; after accepting the dancing with the wolf, the Sioux treats him kindly and generously. It's like Dancing with Wolves and wanting to propose to Stands With A Fist, suffering from pennilessness, and Wind In His Hair said, I will help you find a way. Later that evening, all the families of the Su ethnic group selflessly piled their precious belongings in front of the tent where they danced with the wolves, and the whole family sincerely blessed them.
When dancing with wolves and gradually falling in love with the Sioux culture, the film also exposed the atrocities of the whites step by step. After the wedding, Kicking Bird invited to dance with the wolves into the holy land of the Sioux, as a symbol of accepting him as a member of the Sioux, and to think about the future of the Sioux with him. But what caught the eyes of the two in the Sioux Holy Land was the unbridled pollution and destruction of the white people. At this time the narrator said: I am ashamed and angry for the white man. But Kicking Bird always tries to communicate with white people calmly and without hatred.
In the movie Dancing with Wolves, the image of white people and the images of Indians are collated as follows:
White Indians
deceive hypocrisy, sincere, not deceive,
destroy nature, respect nature,
greed, ignorance, temperance, wisdom,
power, and interests. The interpersonal relationship is harmonious and harmonious. Friendly interpersonal interaction
strong and aggressive defense of the homeland
of Indians in Dancing with Wolves reasonably , no longer a flat and unitary image among searchers; Indians here are multi-faceted, rich and complete People and the important roles that appear also have their own personalities and characteristics. Indians are no longer silent harlequins who are only negative images; on the contrary, the Indians here are a collection of various virtues, but the ignorant and cruel negative role is white.
The same abducted woman, the same symbol of a complete family, the same time and space background of the story, but in different movies, there are very different performances. The inheritance and reversal of Hollywood genre films strongly echoes the pulse and reflection of the times, and people can't help but envy the ability of American filmmakers' art to reflect and shape contemporary culture.
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