The Searchers, directed by John Ford (1956)

Northrop Fry said that “the quest romance is the victory of fertility over the wasteland”. And who are we to argue? What else could it be? John Ford directed The Searchers with John Wayne as anti-hero Ethan Edwards in 1956. A new hero emerges as a vengeful racist and murderer who is existentially isolated from the frontier world he is bound to protect. His surrogate and deputy, Martin Pawley, becomes the symbol of civilization’s victory over the wilderness as he ultimately returns to the society that has no place for its alienated protector Ethan Edwards.
The Searchers is the hobo in search of justice as John Wayne’s character stalks Scar, the ‘bad Indian’ who rapes white women and embodies the savage alter ego that he needs to eradicate. All the characters in John Ford’s mythological western represent the aspects of society that Ethan sacrifices himself to protect.
The Searchers is a road movie that leads to Easy Rider and Taxi Driver as nostalgia turns to disillusionment. It is a film that documents the historical fight for personal liberty and freedom. It is Adam looking for a new Eden, the need for identity, an eccentric, and, at times surreal depiction of frontier life as John Wayne creates a new anti-hero living in a revised quest romance.
The Searchers is a western directed by the genre’s master at the peak of his powers. John Ford and John Wayne are synonymous with the invention of American mythology as the western genre signals a desire to invent origins outside European myths.
The Searchers is ultimately a reminder that the US military is Ethan Edwards and Bin Laden is Scar and comforts like family, love, marriage and home, are provided and reinforced by people who live outside of them. Fertility’s victory over the wasteland isn’t without some defeat.