“Ford was fond of telling how he played a bespectacled Klansman in The Birth of a Nation, fell off his horse, and woke up with Griffith bending over him. ‘Are you all right, son?’ ‘I guess so.’ Griffith called for some whiskey, Jack objected that he did not drink, and Griffith replied, ‘It’s for me.” —Tag Gallagher, John Ford: The Man And His Films, University of California Press, 1988
“[A]s you may well know, director John Ford was one of the Klansmen in The Birth of a Nation,so I even speculate in the piece: Well, John Ford put on a Klan uniform for D.W. Griffith. What was that about? What did that take? He can’t say he didn’t know the material.[…] [H]e put on the Klan uniform. He got on the horse. He rode hard to black subjugation. As I’m writing this – and he rode hard, and I’m sure the Klan hood was moving all over his head as he was riding and he was riding blind – I’m thinking, wow. That probably was the case. How come no one’s ever thought of that before?”—Quentin Tarantino, “Tarantino ‘Unchained,’ Part One: ‘Django’ Trilogy?”, interview with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., The Root, December 23, 2012
“[Ford] only became angry when [French critic Samuel Lachize] told him some people thought [wrongly, added Lachize] there were racist aspects in his work.
“ ‘The people who say that are mad, insane. I’m a Northerner. I detest segregation and I’ve employed hundreds of blacks at the same wages as whites. I got the production companies to pay a tribe of Indians, who were starving, at the same rate as the highest paid Hollywood extras and I saved them. Racist, me? My best friends are blacks. Woody Strode and my servant who’s lived with me for thirty years. I’ve even made a picture exalting the blacks…No. I’m not a racist.I consider the blacks as completely American.’
“He came back to the subject a number of times, and we had immense difficulty trying to calm him down.”—Bertrand Tavernier, “John Ford à Paris,” Positif, issue 82, March, 1967, translated by and cited in Gallagher, 1986.
“Tarantino has a point, but it’s certainly a surprise to see him publicly attack a filmmaker who’s so often named as one of the very greatest in the history of the medium. We certainly wouldn’t dispute the points that Tarantino raises here, but we’d also perhaps suggest that Ford’s views may have evolved over time; one of his final films, Cheyenne Autumn, was described by Ford as an ‘elegy’ to Native Americans, and something of an apologia for the way they’d been treated in his earlier pictures. We wonder what Spike Lee thinks of the whole thing…”—Oliver Lyttleton, “Quentin Tarantino Planning ‘Inglousious Basterds’ Spin-Off ‘Killer Crow,’ Says He “Hates” John Ford,” The Playlist, December 27, 2012.
This is the third or fourth time I’ve seen “Cheyenne Autumn” held up as proof of Ford’s non-racism. Is “Fort Apache”, where Cochise is an honorable man betrayed by the military and the Indian agent belongs to “the dirtiest, most corrupt political group in our history”, really that hard to read? And if Tarantino hates John Ford so much, why does he quote “The Searchers” in “Kill Bill, Vol. 2”?
Tarantino’s welcome to open his ignorant yap just as soon as he makes a flick as good as Ford’s *seventh* best movie…
Ford’s final film is “Seven Women” a masterpiece of melodrama whose attitudes towards race(the bad guys are Mongol looters and rapist played by such disparate actors as Mike Mazurki and Woody Strode) is far from “polite.”
Ford’s most racist film is “The Searchers.”
Quentin Tarantino is a fraud, not worthy of tending Ford’s Honeywagon.
The Searchers strikes me as a very interesting, nuanced, at times uncomfortable film, with ideas of race in play throughout in often surprising ways. The way Ethan is eaten up by hatred of the Indians is clearly shown as destructive to him and to society. On the other hand, there’s a fear of miscegenation and the idea that white women can become sub-human and non-white by contact with their Indian captors. And yet at the end this is rejected. So if that’s Ford’s most racist film, he was still a progressive by the standards of his time.
You have to do some serious cherry-picking to call The Searchers racist. You can point at Marty kicking Look down the hill, but then you also have to explain Marty’s anger and the mournful tone when she turns up dead–even Ethan’s taken aback by it. (It also always comes as a surprise how wrenching the moment is when Laurie starts spouting Ethan-like crap about Debbie–she’s a vision of ugliness in her wedding dress. But even her speech is prompted by Marty saying he has to follow Ethan.)
That all said, one thing I’ve never been clear on is how much American audiences in the ’50s actually translated attitudes toward movie Indians to real-life black people. Did they see the connection, or care about it? Intruder in the Dust was one thing, but did the average moviegoer sitting through Devil’s Doorway or Broken Arrow bother to translate what he was looking at? There’s a way of accepting the idea “Ethan realized Debbie is worth saving” without any thought of the black civil rights movement; it would’ve been no skin off even a KKKer’s nose since it didn’t overtly advocate for black rights.
Not at all, Tom. The entire film is about John Wayne searching for his niece, Natalie Wood, IN ORDER TO KILL HER. And why does he want to kill her? because she has had carnal knowledge of a non-white.
Fans of the film, especially marty Scorsese, have been fascinated by what “Debbie’s” life with “Scar” might have been like. In fact arty rafted a scene in “Taxi Driver” in which Harvey Keitel’s pimp gets downright romantic with his udnerage hooker Jodie Foster tht Marty calls “The Scar scene.”
Wayne’s treatment of “half-breed” Jeffrey hunter is alos interesting.
At least to those of us who aren’t white and have survived the past 60 or so years.
“I’ve never been clear on is how much American audiences in the ’50s actually translated attitudes toward movie Indians to real-life black people. Did they see the connection, or care about it”
“The Searchers” was made in the immediate wake of Brown v. Board of Education.
YOU DO THE MATH!!!!!!
I get the sense this is an explanation of Glenn’s disdain for the “know-somethingish” element among certain sectors of the film world.
Um, David, you did notice that Ethan’s conviction that carnal knowledge of a non-white makes a woman worthy of death is quite clearly presented as psychotic, right? Or do you also think that Orson Welles would happily accept twenty thousand dollars to make a dot stop moving?
TWO RODE TOGETHER answers the racism in THE SEARCHERS. The Spanish woman has been living with the Indians, but she is not considered “ruined” – at least not by James Stewart’s character who ends up with her.
Oh, good lord, *The Searchers* “answers the racism of The Searchers”.
David, what the hell do you think it means when Ethan DOESN’T kill Debbie–chooses instead to swoop her away to a place called “home”?
Agree with Tom Block that the racist attitudes of Ethan and Debbie in THE SEARCHERS are placed in perspective (answered) by the film itself.
Excuse me, I meant Laurie, not Debbie.
That Ethan doesn’t kill Debbie is presented as a thoroughly irrational event. There is no reason for it other than Ford “choking” at the last minute perchance realizing that the moviegoing public wouldn’t stand for John Wayne killing Natalie Wood (who had no fun at all during the shoot btw, particularly because of Ford.)
Compare and contrast with the ending of Demy’s “Bay of the Angels”
and get back to me.
What mainstream blockbusters were produced in response to Loving v. Virginia? To Lawrence v. Texas? To Scalia’s insistence that Alabama should retain the right to outlaw onanism within its borders? Conspiratorial minds want to know.
“The Spanish woman has been living with the Indians, but she is not considered “ruined” – at least not by James Stewart’s character who ends up with her.”
She’s “Spanish” therefore pre-ruined.
“What mainstream blockbusters were produced in response to Loving v. Virginia? To Lawrence v. Texas? To Scalia’s insistence that Alabama should retain the right to outlaw onanism within its borders? Conspiratorial minds want to know.”
When did Sidney Poitier marry Joanna Shimkus. When “Loving” arrived he was the biggest star in America – whcih greatly enjoyed “Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner” precisely because there was no sex.
When Petula Clark touched Harry Belafonte’s ARM on a TV special of the period the CBS switchboard lit up with demands for both their deaths.
As for “Lawrenc v. Texas” I trut you’re familiar with “Cruising.”
I *was* familiar with ‘Cruising’, at least until Friedkin got his color-retiming-and-needlessly-revisioning hands on the 2007 DVD release, but I digress…
Wasn’t David Ehrenstein once a knowledgeable and respected film critic? Jesus man, you’ve lost your freeking mind. You’re like the weirder Ray Carney.
THE SEARCHERS is probably the best example of a man (Ford) dealing with his feelings OF racism. He starts off wanting to kill Debbie and Scar once he finds them but (in my estimation) realizes he’s wasted his life obsessed with a fanatical, hateful dream. The world has passed him by on this pointless, close minded quest. The film starts of racist but Ethan comes to terms with these issues much as I imagine Ford did.Even if I’m reading too far into Ford’s perspective, I think Ethan has come to grips with the error in his thinking.
That being said, Ford’s quotes above are hilarious. Like the homophobe at the bar who says “I don’t hate gays! I have a gay friend!” But again, much of that is a sign of the times I think. When’s the last time someone was accused of being racist and responded with “you’re damn right I am!”
Also- does it surprise people that QT isn’t a Ford “fan?” It’s not his wheelhouse at all. He’s very similar to the geek faction out there who love film but only THEIR idea of film. It’s shortsighted but hey, no one likes everyone. I am annoyed that he throws Ford under the wagon but quotes him in KILL BILL (as noted above) and also in INGLORIOUS BASTEREDS.
“TWO RODE TOGETHER answers the racism in THE SEARCHERS. The Spanish woman has been living with the Indians, but she is not considered “ruined” – at least not by James Stewart’s character who ends up with her.”
Yes but TWO RODE TOGETHER (also written by Frank Nugent) is still full of fascinating thematic contradictions. While the Mexican born Elena (Linda Cristal) is ultimately redeemable, the white boy turned Comanche brave (David Kent as Running Wolf) is beyond reintegration into polite society. There’s also an argument that Richard Widmark’s and James Stewart’s characters condone the frontier (kangaroo court) justice lynching resulting from the cold blooded murder of a naïve old woman who in the midst of her good intentions had lost her wits.
“The entire film is about John Wayne searching for his niece, Natalie Wood, IN ORDER TO KILL HER. And why does he want to kill her? because she has had carnal knowledge of a non-white.”
How is this in any way a valid claim for THE SEARCHERS as racist? Yes, this is the plot, but Ford time and again takes an entirely critical eye towards Ethan’s attitudes and violent impulses. THE SEARCHERS is about turning the racist myth of the western inside out; you don’t achieve this by casting some typical heavy, you put good olé’ Duke in there for the audience to gleefully identify with (at the outset at least) and then slowly expose the grotesqueness of his psychology, and the utter isolation that it ultimately produces.
>That Ethan doesn’t kill Debbie is presented as a thoroughly irrational event. There is no reason for it other than Ford “choking” at the last minute
How’s this for a reason, David: IT’S IN THE SCRIPT. For better or worse, Ford cut the line “You sure do favor your mother” right before Ethan changes his mind, but even without the line I wouldn’t call his decision “irrational”. (THAT’S a word I save for people who ignore evidence that’s right in front of their eyes, like, for instance, you’re doing here. It seems unthinkable now but before finding this blog I’d actually forgotten how insanely tenacious you can be…)
“Wasn’t David Ehrenstein once a knowledgeable and respected film critic?”
I still am, but here I’m Rodney Dangerfield
“Jesus man, you’ve lost your freeking mind. You’re like the weirder Ray Carney.”
I haven’t stolen copes of Ford’s or Quentin’s or John Cassavetes or Mark Rappaport’s films so I have no diea what you’re talking about.
“How’s this for a reason, David: IT’S IN THE SCRIPT.”
Well DUH! Ihave no doubt Ford read it in pre-production
“For better or worse, Ford cut the line “You sure do favor your mother” right before Ethan changes his mind”
Interesting. I’m surprised he didn’t fuck Debbie – then kill her.
“before finding this blog I’d actually forgotten how insanely tenacious you can be…”
Call me Tenacious D.E.
Scar’s piercing blue eyes seem to me to point towards a somewhat more complicated treatment of race in that film than anyone here has put forth so far.
Mr. Ehrenstein, I’m not familiar with your work outside of this blog, but here you’re a buffoonish troll.
Just for example, Lawrence v. Texas was 2003 and Cruising (made ‘in response to it’) was 1980.
Jason- because Hollywood wouldn’t hire non-white actors typically?
Certainly that’s one aspect. But Ford chooses to make those blue eyes visually central in so many shots, and they’re such a particularly electric blue that they seem to me to hold a subtext all their own. It doesn’t have to be as direct an interpretation as Scar being the product of interracial union (most likely a white rape of an Indian woman), but something along those lines thematically.
“As everyone knows Whites feel no guilt about America’s racist history whatsoever. All they care about is the appearance of politesse – the slimy veneer of ‘good manners.’ ” – David Ehrenstein, 2007.
And I thought Tarantino liked to make ridiculous, over-the-top comments!
Anyone who thinks “The Searchers” is racist is living in his own private world, and not on planet Earth.
OK, how about Brokeback Mountain? That was 2005.
http://www.laweekly.com/2005–12-29/film-tv/horsefeathers
WORKS FOR ME!
My “private world”?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBFwYTOc3‑w
Jason- I was being a smart ass, I can’t help myself. Sorry dude.
I actually agree with Mr. Ehrenstein’s comment about racism, it’s a sad fact. Racist people don’t even realize they’re being racist which is a huge issue and makes the topic difficult to broach. I bet Ford doesn’t even think he might have racist traits or thoughts. He did mention how he’s not racist because he has a black servant. Reminds me of the “Porch Monkey” discussion in CLERKS 2. Yes, I can go Ford to Kevin Smith in one move. Anyway…
I agree with virtually nothing else Mr. Ehrenstein says.
Don,
No worries on smart assery. I’m a too-regular practitioner myself, even if yours did whiff past me and prompt a more serious response.
Re: racism, I definitely didn’t mean to imply that The Searchers and Ford aren’t racist, just that they aren’t just racist…I think Ford’s relationship to and interaction with race through his films is fairly complex, with marks on both sides. But, yeah, the “my best friend is my servant” bit was, uh…hmm…oof!
Servants are paid, and I’m guessing Ford didn’t have the guy picking cotton. So there’s that.
In the context of his time, Ford was fairly progressive. Some of his attitudes wouldn’t be considered overly enlightened today, but the Civil Rights movement was in its infancy when THE SEARCHERS came out. I have no problem grading some of the folks back then on a curve. 20/20 hindsight, and all that. As I said before, he was one of the few filmmakers dealing with racial issues AT ALL in the 50s, just not in the earnest, preachy manner of a Stanley Kramer.
In regards to “The Searchers,” the scenes involving Look are pretty cringe-inducing. On the one hand, it’s obviously a movie about a racist character and the movie in no way endorses either Ethan’s desire to kill Debby or the cavalry attack on the Comanche village in which Look is killed. But, apart from Martin (the half-breed who was raised by whites), its only significant Native American characters both lack humanity: Look is an one-dimensional stereotype and Scar is a speechless, quasi-mythical figure. It’s not an unambiguously racist movie like “The Birth of a Nation,” but it does contain some racist elements. In other words, the movie a product of its time, and to me that makes it more interesting, not less.
Just to bounce off Don’s comment, the worst thing Mr. Ehrenstein has done to this thread is to half-raise a couple of serious ideas, then demolish the potential for actual discussion of them acting like an especially unlikeable bull in a china shop.
If Ford the actor played a Klansman and Ford the director demonstrated less racialist sensitivity in the 50’s than is common today then of course he is a racist and must be denounced. All actors are what they play. If they put on a Nazi uniform in a WWII film, then they are obviously Nazis in real life. If in the 50’s – be they 1950’s, 1750’s, or 1350’s – someone acted in a way that we now recognize as wrong, then we must condemn them now and for all time. Are those truth’s not self-evident? If you don’t believe me, ask Morgan Freeman or Alanis Morissette or any of the actors who have played God.
“I think Ford’s relationship to and interaction with race through his films is fairly complex, with marks on both sides.”
No reasonable comments such as this are permissible in this thread, Jason.
As penance, say three thousand hail mary’s and denounce Tarantino to the HUAC.
If you knew anything about African-American history, jbrynat, then you’d know that the civil rights movement was NOT “in its infancy” when “The Searchers” was made.
“I definitely didn’t mean to imply that The Searchers and Ford aren’t racist, just that they aren’t just racist…”
IOW,“It’s a floor wax AND a dessert topping!”
Two points about ‘The Searchers’, both of which require fuller discussion than I can do here in a blog:
1) Nobody has mentioned Mose Harper who is actually the only black man in the film. The emphasis of this character is his being ‘mentally challenged’, but in general he is treated with respect and as a member of the community.
2) More than pure racism, I believe sexual frustration/jealousy is a driving factor in Ethan’s behavior. For him, Scar is a sexual rival and a sexually active man compared to the monastic existence of Ethan. I have come to see the scalping of Scar as a castration. Once he has neutered Scar, than it makes sense that he can take Debbie home. To repeat, there is more to this than I can say here: the sexual undercurrent plays a large part of the motivation of the Wayne character which is mixed up with the racism. This mixture of sexual jealousy and racism remains part of the American psyche to this day.
Mose is supposed to be black? I thought Ford just left Hank Worden out in the sun too long.
Tom,
Could be – that is just the way I have always seen that character.
Goes to show that we all see these films from our own point of view.
David E: This is all I meant by “infancy”: “The African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955–1968) refers to the social movements in the United States aimed at outlawing racial discrimination against black Americans and restoring voting rights to them.”
It’s from Wikipedia, so it must be true!
If you knew anything about typing, you’d know it’s “jbryant.” 🙂
The film clearly presents Ethan as a psychotic bigot – the judge is even disgusted at Ethan for shooting out the dead Native American’s eyes. And the final shot so signifies that Ethan’s era is coming to an end that anybody thinking he’s being celebrated.…
And what should Ford have said? If somebody asks if you’re a racist, is there any answer that wouldn’t be deemed ridiculous? It’s a bullshit question without serious evidence.
“The film clearly presents Ethan as a psychotic bigot” A psychotic bigot we’re encouraged to admire.
“The African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955–1968) refers to the social movements in the United States aimed at outlawing racial discrimination against black Americans and restoring voting rights to them.”
Thereby writing off everything that came before.
Cozy.
“The film clearly presents Ethan as a psychotic bigot” A psychotic bigot we’re encouraged to admire.
Eh, now you are just trolling. I’ve never once felt an once of admiration for him and I don’t think, formally, the film forces the viewer to identify with him. At best it doesn’t outright condemn him. Compared to most of John Wayne films of the time, he isn’t exactly a triumphant character.
Even if we’re encouraged to admire (or at least understand) Ethan at first because he’s trying to avenge a great loss, the film complicates our reaction to him in the ways others have noted.
DE: Seems to me one can narrowly define a particular historical movement without “writing off everything that came before.” Obviously, major strides were made prior to the 50s (including Dred Scott, the Emancipation Proclamation, the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments, formation of the NAACP, etc.), but it still seems to me that what is popularly known as the Civil Rights Movement was ignited by such mid-50s events as Brown vs. Board of Education, the Emmitt Till murder and the Rosa Parks incident. Ford made THE SEARCHERS in the thick of all this, and THE SUN SHINES BRIGHT even predates it.
The latter film is a truly transitional one: Judge Priest may be paternalistic toward blacks, but he single-handedly defuses a lynch mob and insists that a black man should have as fair a trial as a white man. The story is set in antebellum Kentucky, and the Judge is already an old man, but one bound equally by the traditions that shaped him and the duty to do the right thing. Even with Stepin Fetchit on board and no roles for blacks other than devoted servants and smiling banjo-pickers, there’s much in the film to rile a racist heart, and Ford is to be commended for it, IMO.
Ford’s efforts may amount only to baby steps in the film industry’s attempts to handle racial issues with sensitivity, but they’re forward steps. Few other filmmakers were taking them at the time, certainly not at Ford’s age and career level.
“I’ve never once felt an once of admiration for him and I don’t think, formally, the film forces the viewer to identify with him. At best it doesn’t outright condemn him. Compared to most of John Wayne films of the time, he isn’t exactly a triumphant character.”
HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN THE LAST SHOT???!!!!!
Ethan is a Tragic Anti-Hero of posiively Wagnerian propotions.
“Ford’s efforts may amount only to baby steps in the film industry’s attempts to handle racial issues with sensitivity, but they’re forward steps. Few other filmmakers were taking them at the time, certainly not at Ford’s age and career level.”
jbryant – agreed. But George Stevens’ (only 10 years Ford’s junior and certainly, in 1956 terms, at Ford’s career level) GIANT deserves some mention for handling sensitive racial issues (although we are talking sub-plot territory). Though certainly with more of a Stanley Kramer styled approach – with far less complexity and contradictions as in the Ford(s).
“HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN THE LAST SHOT???!!!!!
Ethan is a Tragic Anti-Hero of posiively Wagnerian propotions.”
I don’t see the tragedy in this. It expresses that Ethan is outmoded and a thing of the past. He’s shut out by history. That is why I wouldn’t call the film racist or anti-racist (And really I think it’s a problem to demand the film be either) Like the Mann/ Stewart Westerns before it, or some of the Walsh and De Toth Westerns before it, The Searchers is conflicted about the notion of the myth of the great white cowboy who has come to bring civilization.
Not outmoded at all. He’s “Th Gallant Knight” who serves the society but (sob!) can’t truly be part of it because of his violence.
This is the way “polite society” works. It depends upon violence but is always in denial about that fact.
This is the reason so many otherwise intelligengt people were so put out by “Zero Dark Thirty.” They didn’t want to see the torture at all – even though they knew it took place.
Wagner? Gallant Knight? How about treating it like a Western or even (sob) comparing the opening to the closing?
The thing is you are exactly like those in the “Zero” debate who have arrived at a moral position not clearly supported by the film. You know actual evidence on screen. Then you troll others who disagree so you can stake out your moral superiority. Eventually that makes for dull conversation.
IOW, your moral superiority is better than my moral superiority.
Talk about “dull conversation.”
What’s at issue is racism – which you’re loathe to acknowledge much less deal with.
Oh get off your high horse. Most Westerns have racism baked in their myths. Point is “The Searchers” is conflicted about the myths and its ending isn’t as simplistic as you suggest. But you prefer to troll and make trite declarations.
I’ve written about “The Searchers” in the past. My observations aren’t new. What’s new is the notion that anything you see in an internet forum that you disagree with is “trolling.”
No trolling is thinking someone is loathe to acknowledge racism. I have read your piece on “The Searchers.” In any case I will blame it all in QT.
What nobody has commented on is the absurdity of Tarantino’s attacking Ford for having played a role as an extra in a film.
The great irony, so far as I understand it, in “The Searchers” is that it is Wayne’s Ethan, the most virulently bigoted character in the film, who understands the Comanche the best, and that ultimately it is he, and not Jeffrey Hunter’s half-breed, who transcends the racism of his community by sparing rather than killing Natalie Wood’s Debbie.
Most of the white characters in the film evidence casually, and callously, racist attitudes. None more so than Vera Miles’s character when she tells Hunter that Debbie deserves to die in a selfish attempt to keep him from going away again. In this context, Ethan’s own racism is viewed as more emotionally valid than the rest of the characters, because it emerges from actual firsthand experience of guerrilla atrocities – genuine personal trauma – rather than religious or imperialist condescension. Ethan and Martin’s search for Debbie is presented against the backdrop of the US military’s ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing against Indian tribes, which Ford condemns in no uncertain terms in the scene where Wayne and Hunter come upon a massacre of an Indian camp. I’ve always felt this sort of indifferent, reflexive racism was the true evil in “The Searchers”, where Ethan’s racism is something more troubling and harder for Ford to dismiss. It’s a complex film. It really is. It’s both racist and about racism. The closest analog I can think of is “Moby-Dick”.
»What nobody has commented on is the absurdity of Tarantino’s attacking Ford for having played a role as an extra in a film.
It’s so absurd and half-baked that there is nothing really to say except to point out that by Tarantino’s logic Leonardo DiCaprio is a crypto-racist for playing a slave owner in his film.