City of Iron (The Searchers Book I)

---

Glenn Frankel 's study of the film calls it "the greatest Hollywood film that few people have seen. A major theme of the film is the historical attitude of white settlers toward Native Americans.

One thought on “The Searchers: City of Iron”

Ford was not the first to attempt this examination cinematically, but his depiction of harshness toward Native Americans was startling, particularly to later generations of viewers; Roger Ebert wrote, "I think Ford was trying, imperfectly, even nervously, to depict racism that justified genocide. From the beginning of his quest, it is clear that he is less interested in rescuing Debbie than in wreaking vengeance on the Comanches for the slaughter of his brother's family. In a interview with Cosmopolitan magazine, Ford said,.

There's some merit to the charge that the Indian hasn't been portrayed accurately or fairly in the Western, but again, this charge has been a broad generalization and often unfair. The Indian didn't welcome the white man If he has been treated unfairly by whites in films, that, unfortunately, was often the case in real life. There was much racial prejudice in the West.

See a Problem?

Film scholar Ed Lowry writes that "[W]hile the Comanches are depicted as utterly ruthless, Ford ascribes motivations for their actions, and lends them a dignity befitting a proud civilization. Never do we see the Indians commit atrocities more appalling than those perpetrated by the white man. For each son, I take many The theme of miscegenation also runs through the film. Early on, Martin earns a sour look from Ethan when he admits to being one eighth Cherokee.

Ethan says repeatedly that he will kill his niece rather than have her live "with a buck", that "living with the Comanche ain't living". Even one of the film's gentler characters, Vera Miles's Laurie, tells Martin when he explains he must protect his adoptive sister, that "Ethan will put a bullet in her brain. I tell you Martha would want him to. The rape of captive white women by the Comanche is an unspoken theme. An important plot undercurrent is the obvious mutual attraction between Ethan Edwards and his brother's wife, Martha.

Although no dialog alludes to it, there are a multitude of visual references to their relationship throughout the film. Such a situation would add further layers of nuance to Ethan's obsessive search for Debbie, his revulsion at the thought that she might be living as an Indian, and his ultimate decision to bring her home—and then walk away. Beyond the ostensible motivations, it might depict a guilt-ridden father's need to save the daughter he made by cuckolding his brother, then abandoned.

The Searchers has influenced many films. David Lean watched the film repeatedly while preparing for Lawrence of Arabia to help him get a sense of how to shoot a landscape. The film influenced several aspects of George Lucas' film saga Star Wars. Episode II — Attack of the Clones.

In the film, Anakin Skywalker learns that one of his family members has been abducted by a group of Tusken Raiders though it is the character's mother who is kidnapped, rather than a niece. Anakin massacres the kidnappers in vengeance, much like The Searchers' climactic battle in the Comanche camp.

The film served as the inspiration for the name of the British band The Searchers. Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan stated that the ending to the show's final episode, " Felina ", was influenced by the film. The Canadian film Searchers is a partial remake of the film, in which an Inuit man in finds his wife and daughter has been kidnapped. However, co-director Zacharias Kunuk discarded the original's plot about conflicts between white people and indigenous peoples, instead using only Inuit characters. Kunuk explained racism was not an intended theme of his film. Gleich , first produced by Norte Maar for Collaborative Projects in the Arts, was inspired by the film.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

For other uses, see The Searchers disambiguation. Theatrical release poster by Bill Gold. Retrieved December 24, Archived from the original on The Moving Arts Film Journal. Archived from the original on 26 July Retrieved 10 March The New York Times. The Museum of Broadcast Communications.

Retrieved 23 February Wayne State University Press. British Film Institute, , p. Fort Tour Systems, Inc. Open Preview See a Problem? Thanks for telling us about the problem.

Return to Book Page. Preview — The Searchers by Chet Williamson. Their identities are a secret. Their mission does not exist. There is no one they can trust. A trio of uniquely talented CIA operatives, their mission is to explain the inexplicable: But the strange disappearance of an artist in New York, coupled with the discovery of eleven charred bodies in an Adirondack mountain lodge - corpses that forensic evidence indicates are centuries old - suggest to agents Laika Harris, Tony Luciano and Joseph Stein that there is more to their assignment than they've been led to believe, that the truth they seek is rooted in a conspiracy that stretches back countless millennia and is centered around the release of the most powerful prisoner the world has ever known - a conspiracy that could shatter every belief about the origin of man.

Mass Market Paperback , pages. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about The Searchers , please sign up. Lists with This Book. This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Sep 05, Jim rated it liked it Shelves: Over the summer, I managed to get the next two, so the holiday weekend seems a good time to read it again.

CIA operatives get a special, black ops assignment that has them investigating possibly paranormal phenomena. They prove most to be a hoax, but the main story line leads them into a conspiracy that they can't explain in rational terms. Not a bad book, although it has some underlying issues that hurt it. The characters are a little too one-dimensional at times. The weaknesses are played out especially well. The strengths often turn them into caricatures, though. Some scenes read as if they're from a Mac Bolan novel The Executioner. I definitely want to read the next book, but thought I should take a break because the above was beginning to wear on me.

The Searchers: City of Iron

The editor and I agreed that the covers should be very contemporary and edgy, but again, the marketing department had different ideas. Since they wanted the books to appeal to the X-Files and Men In Black fans, what more brilliant method than making the covers look like an actual morph of those two franchises, with the three agents striking poses in front of a star field? And did it work? City of Iron is not a novelization of an existing film or TV show; but it does seem clearly aimed at suggesting a literary equivalent. It most certainly did. And so it goes.

• The Star Garden: A Novel of Sarah Agnes Prine
• Might as Well
• Glamour in Glass (Glamourist Histories Series Book 2)
• Red Riding Hood
• The Cockade City Collection
• Blood Moon