Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) arrives and meets the family. After the family welcomes him, as we entering the house, rapidly and one after another, in Ethan’s communication with each of the family members, multiple matters are being enlighten about him. But also multiple ambiguities are being mooted for us. We see him giving his saber to one kid, his medal of honor to another. We meet Martin Pawley (Jeffrey Hunter) who is rescued by Ethan in his childhood. We realize that his relationship to his sister in law is not an ordinary relationship and is concealing in itself a certain “pause” that raises question. We understand that despite passing three years from the end of the war, Ethan has come to the home today, which causes one of the kids wander and question. A question that is not clear why the sister in law immediately slams the door shut on it and send the kid away with the word “march!”. It’s not clear what Ethan has been doing during the three years after the war. Are his coins -that the brother wonder about their fresh mintage- stolen and he has been stealing? Or he hasn’t? where has he been? Wandering in wilderness? Or maybe he has had a house to reside in? Does he have a share in the brother’s house or he is actually a guest there? The brother mentions Ethan’s intention before the war to “clear out” and that he “stayed beyond any real reason”. He asks “why?” But the same as us, he is not getting an answer. Now that he has returned home, it had been for what reason? To stay? Or to wander in to wilderness again? Does the answers to these questions matters at all to the narrator? The narrator wants Ethan to wander and for that purpose, appoints a singer so that he sings in the opening credits “What makes a man wander? […] and turn his back on home?” does the narrator imagine that it suffices Ethan to become a wanderer or he is worried that more explanation would threat the shaky state of something that has been presented to us as Wander? Now, the one that had turned his back on home has returned to home. The home that is not his home and the sister in law that is not his wife. And the narrator establishes these matters when he pays his way to the brother, and the sister in law, like in order to not to see this moment, with a lantern in her hand –the lantern that Ethan had forestalled and has given it to her with a “pause”- she goes to the bedroom and a moment later the brother also joins her, and the narrator seats down Ethan out of the house, alone on the porch, watching the brother standing in the door frame, carelessly closing the bedroom’s door, like he’s closing it to Ethan, and considering what we’ve seen from the relationship of these three people (Ethan, the brother, the sister in law) we don’t imagine the sister in law in the bedroom yearning for the brother. Why the sister in law is brother’s wife and not Ethan’s? The sister in law who gives Ethan his coat that gloriously and before that, away from the eyes of others, she strokes the same coat in a way which makes the reverend pretend he doesn’t see. Why? Has someone forced the woman in to this marriage? Had she married the brother and then she has met Ethan and has become regretful? Or maybe the woman, between the two brothers, has chosen one of them? The answer, whatever it be, doesn’t matter because it doesn’t matter to the narrator and as a result he doesn’t address it. What “does” matter to the narrator and “becomes” important to us is that the woman is fond of Ethan not the brother. The narrator doesn’t give us any sign of her fondness for the brother and plus that, sends the woman with a lantern to the bedroom and Ethan to the porch and put the brother in charge of closing the door and in the moment of danger getting close, shows us the boy so that he says “I wish Uncle Ethan was here. Don’t you, Ma?” so that the mother leave the question unanswered. These descriptions make you say that it seems like the brother has stolen Ethan’s family from him in secret. The narrator introduces Ethan in relation to and by his kindness toward each and every family member but inversely, what does he show us from the brother’s character? That he accepts the money which Ethan pays to “pay his way” and puts it in his money stash. Versus Ethan’s kindness toward the kids and his special kindness toward the sister in law, what does he show about the brother’s relationship with the kids and his wife? Nothing. Even in contrary to the mother, there isn’t a smallest farewell from him to Debbie. But why Ethan hasn’t let go of the family and gone for some other woman? The narrator does not deal with this matter either and doesn’t care and as a result what “does” matter for the narrator and “becomes” important for us is that Ethan has never got his beloved woman. The beginning chapter of The Searchers is a clear example of a successful Cinematic fraud. It uses the interweaving of fast-paced narrative of events and successive presentation of information to draw the attention toward behaviors that he likes and divert the attention away from questions that he doesn’t like (which here, both of them are a forgery of the Cinematic language) in order to make Ethan a lover who has not gotten his love and a wanderer in wilderness who has been robed of his right and is not clear what the next step can be in his life? Whereas up until today he has lived, and from today on –good or bad- he also will live.
The narrator massacres the family. Now that the family members have been killed, it is possible to dodge from answering the questions and send Ethan wrathfully, to a new war, searching for the assailants. if it wasn’t for the massacre, Ethan would have had to make the next step and decide what is he going to do when the party in the brother’s house is over? The narrator massacres the family members but leaves one alive in order to dispense Ethan with making the next step and extend his wander in wilderness. And the narrator also, doesn’t use the time that the “extended wander” bought him to answer the questions from the beginning chapter and face Ethan with the entanglement of his life; rather after physical elimination of the family, he deletes the memory of them too and till the end, empty the film of them being mentioned. There isn’t any compassion or mourning for the family members by Ethan or others; it’s like “everybody” –even Ethan- has forgotten them. Is it true or this elimination has been made with the choice and interference of the narrator? Is “everybody” aware of the nature of the relationship between Ethan and the sister in law or just the reverend knows? Why nobody is mentioning or doing something -or has done something- for Ethan, about not having wife and family? Neither in his presence or behind his back. As if it’s totally accepted; among people who pull each other back like that, enjoy themselves and et cetera, in order to watch two men fighting over a woman. Everybody talks to Ethan but nobody talks “about” him because with the interference of the narrator, Ethan has been deleted too, similar to the family. But him and the family are not the only ones that the narrator has decided to delete; the narrator also deletes the sense of wander, from Ethan and Martin’s journey. Not that they are not wanderers; the manner of the narrative takes the sense of wander from the film or to be more accurate, dilutes it strongly. It’s not clear how many years, but the narrator narrates the main part of this five-year-long wander, by Martin Pawley’s letter and in this way, gives an illusion of having a destination to a series of abortive adventures. As if these adventures –which a red skin girl who might know Scar makes them connected- are going toward a certain destination. Which they are not. Besides, through a letter it is possible to ignore the time space between events which results in the elimination of captivity in time. By this method the narrator would be able to avoid showing them passing the time futilely, he would be able to avoid showing them going through a path and so on, with the excuse that they haven’t been mentioned in the letter. Whereas these are part of their several-year-long experience. The narrator in a few occasions approaches to show these moments, like the moment Ethan is (probably) busy with drinking and Martin is busy with the red skin girl; until the moment arrives which Martin kicks the girl down and Ethan burst in to horselaugh, tease and et cetera. These moments are so brutal that despite not emphasizing on Ethan’s drunkenness and Martin’s frustration, optimistically they imply an act of “struggling” (and pessimistically, racism). But even in such moments, besides that it doesn’t emphasize on Ethan and Martin’s feelings, immediately a clue to Scar, puts us in the path of moving toward the destination. By the illusion of having a destination and deleting the captivity in time, the sense of wander is being forced back and evaporates. Then all of a sudden we are facing with Ethan who got his hair white, because in relation to time, the narrator is interested in a “transition” which in it, time jumps. As the searching begins, he doesn’t cut to five years later; he shows the transition in time; short, full of jokes, with brief joyous routines and with jumps; because in this way he can hide the elimination of captivity in time and avoid dealing with Ethan’s frustration. The elimination of the family’s memory, the elimination of Ethan and avoid to deal with his frustration, the elimination of captivity in time, plenty of jokes and so on. Where is this masking and refusal of showing coming from?
In the beginning of the film, the narrator begins with the family coming out of the home, going to welcome Ethan, not just from politeness; considering the way they walk it is as if they don’t breathe. The camera also stays with them and every single one of them while they are looking, and does not incorporate the point of view of the one who has went away in to the shots, in order that it doesn’t blemish the awe of these moments. When they (Ethan and the family) are looking toward each other but not in to the eyes of each other, putting the point of view of Ethan beside the point of view of the family members would’ve made an exchange which the meaning of it would’ve been Ethan’s concern (a concern about the incidents to come). But that’s not the way it is. Even if in the eyes of some of the family members, a concern is being seen, the narrator doesn’t enter Ethan in this concern and he finds this opportunity to maybe believe –even if it is for a moment- that he has become one of them and enters the house. The narrator repeats such a welcome (with the same method of placing camera) for the second time in the scene which the family of Laurie (Martin’s fiancée) welcomes Martin and Ethan, and the narrator make a “welcome motif” out of it. A motif which is consisted from the one who has went away, a home and a family. In the first welcome, Martin Pawley -it appears to be deliberate- is not among the family members. He is not a blood kin, but he is like a son to this family and apparently he sees Ethan –the one who has saved him when he had been a baby- as a father figure. Ethan denies and overtly reminds Martin of this matter. The next time, he overtly reminds him that he (Martin) is not a kin to the family either and then Martin is the one who is referencing Ethan, When he tells to him “Yeah, I know what you want me to know. That I got no kin, I got no money, no horse!” the same as Ethan, Martin is not part of the family, but both of them –each one in a way- count themselves as a part of it. The narrator accompanies Martin with Ethan while Laurie (Vera Miles) –Martin’s fiancée- is against it and between these two -Ethan and Laurie- only two encounters happens. The first time, Ethan enters the room which Martin and Laurie are alone in there and Laurie’s father calls Laurie to leave the room, so that Ethan and Martin can prepare themselves to sleep. With the intention of leaving the room, Laurie moves, but while she is staring at Ethan, she stops moving; she is staring at his presence in the room; a presence that is a trouble for her relationship to Martin. Finally, while she is ignoring Ethan, she goes to Martin and in front of Ethan gives him her love. Laurie is against Martin going along with Ethan and this companionship, makes Martin similar to Ethan. A wanderer in wilderness, that after he returns, he sees that his beloved woman belongs to some other man. But why does it not happen? Why Ethan and Martin has to arrive exactly during the wedding ceremony so that Martin would be able to win Laurie back? Because the difference in their reactions in regard to what Debbie (Natalie Wood), the only person who survived the massacre, says? But Ethan would eventually Retreat from his first reaction and this is he himself who brings Debbie back and apart from that, Laurie is also on Ethan’s side. The narrator doesn’t have an intention to define a same conclusion for men of Ethan’s kind. The second encounter between Ethan and Laurie is during Martin’s fight with Laurie’s new fiancée, which Laurie asks Ethan to stop them and Ethan says “Why? You started it”. And in this way, by blaming Laurie, it is as if Ethan is blaming the sister in law. It is an excuse to make Ethan and Martin similar. The narrator rejects with hand and pulls with feet. He doesn’t use the opportunity that the “extended wander” provides to illuminate the entanglement of Ethan’s life and to confront it; the narrator refuses this confrontation and rejects it. He makes an excuse out of searching, in order to hide his frustration and hopelessness toward any kind of deliverance, then he sits down and by the elimination of captivity in time, beholds the gulp of Ethan’s lifetime. At the same time, the narrator makes Martin Pawley the stepchild of Edwards family in order to make him Ethan’s counterpart with a similar fate. The narrator wants somebody that through him, it would be possible to rebuild and review the circumstance of the entanglement of Ethan’s life while he is refusing to illuminate it. But in the last second throw Laurie in Martin’s arms, because the narrator doesn’t want a copartner for Ethan. Either the act of making Ethan and Martin similar or the search to find Debbie is an excuse; an excuse to hide frustration. An excuse that it itself, is a bigger frustration. When the narrator by an excuse, refuses to show the frustration and withholds the opportunity of confronting it, he eliminates the most essential quality of it: instability. If through showing frustration, the narrator would have had it examined by the test of time, he would have faced a living factor that modulates. Time, by its transition, is able to draw off the preoccupation and the engagement of mind and heart from its highest point and replace it with a search for engagement and the continuation of life. So the highest points become meaningful and important in company with the other points. In a nutshell, this is the diagram that matters and takes heart and mind to the highest point or draw them off from it, and being at the highest point or being away from it is not what matters. The elimination of this captivity in the diagram is a sort of stubbornness in regard to time and the modulating power of it. When Debbie is found, Martin and Laurie are together and everybody enter the house, when the excuse is lost, the cover is being removed and the utter frustration becomes evident. In the banal final shot, the characteristic of the film which is its refusal (of showing), is being trampled, because there is no excuse any more to hide Ethan’s frustration behind it. We are in the moments of the “welcome motif” which the narrator has built and developed with repeating and here, he has the intention of misusing it. In this welcome, Laurie’s mother and father whom we have no background memory of the relationship between them and Debbie, on the narrator’s order, take Debbie from Ethan, together, they enter the house. Martin and Laurie are also engaged, so they have to enter the house together. “The family” goes out and dissolves the two “traveller” –Debbie and Martin- in itself and enters the “house”. The single and the misfit element who doesn’t have a place in the motif stays behind: Ethan, the one who stands outside alone. He even is being forced to move a little so that he get out of the way of Martin and Laurie, who are so busy with each other that they don’t see him; it’s like he still doesn’t fit in and he is still a burden or sees himself as one. But that’s not the way it is. He is like a father to Martin and unlike him, aside from money and horse, he also has a “relative”. For the first time, the next step in Ethan’s life is clear; he is Debbie’s only blood kin and guardian. He has to be and he has to stay. But when everyone enters the house, after being indecisive for a few seconds, Ethan turns around, turns his back to the house and turns his face to the wilderness, and he goes away. Where is he going? Wherever he goes, wouldn’t he himself comes back a few seconds later? And if he doesn’t, wouldn’t they go outside after him from inside and take him in? Would he mount on his horse and really go? Or maybe he is going to a corner to commit suicide? Asking such questions about such a ridiculous scene is irrelevant because the narrator “closes the door”. If the house’s door had not been closed, it would have become clear where Ethan is going and what he intends to do. But now, the narrator who has no excuse anymore, so that by appealing to that excuse he would be able to make Ethan a wanderer, by closing the door, he makes Ethan a wanderer forcefully and symbolically. With a singer who has come from the opening credits here, to sing “What makes a man wander? […] and turn his back on home?” The Searchers is a crying out in the narrator’s self-pity for his frustration; the frustration which by refusal of showing, fraudulently has turned in to a dead end.
