The Searchers

Description

John Ford's masterpiece The Searchers (1956) was voted the seventh greatest film of all time in Sight & Sound's most recent poll of critics. Its influence on many of America's most distinguished contemporary filmmakers, among them Martin Scorsese, Paul Schrader, and John Milius, is enormous. John Wayne's portrait of the vengeful Confederate Ethan Edwards gives the film a truly epic dimension, as does his long and lonely journey into the dark heart of America. Edward Buscombe's insightful study provides a detailed commentary on all aspects of the film, drawing on material in the John Ford archive at Indiana University, including Ford's own memos and the original script, which differs in vital respects from the film he made, to offer new insights into the film's production history.

Edward Buscombe is a writer and critic based in London, UK. Former Head of Publishing at the British Film Institute, he is the editor of The BFI Companion to the Western (1988) and the author of Stagecoach (1992) and Unforgiven (2004) in the BFI Film Classics series, and 100 Westerns in the BFI Screen Guides series.