Last night we watched John Ford's "The Searchers". It's a strange, not totally successful movie, based on a real incident in Texas, where a child was abducted by Commanches, and later recovered. It has John Wayne as the uncle searching for his niece, and he's racist and bitter. There is not a lot of background and historically it is inaccurate, but it does bring up important points: is girl, now "sullied" only fit to be killed as her uncle thinks, or should be be saved and valued? Is a child responsible for her own abduction and rape? We are still grappling with this issue. Do we blame and devalue the victim, for surviving?
I prefer "Stalking of the Moon" and "Unforgiven", the former with Gregory Peck and Eva Marie Saint, and the later with Burt Lancaster and Audrey Hepburn, but there is something in Ford's movie that is even stickier than in those two. John Wayne relents in the end, but what will happen to the girl is unknown. In "Unforgiven" we know they will have to leave and seek out a new place, hiding from the fact of the girl being Indian. Only in "Stalking" can they live out their lives, partially because they are so isolated, and also because they have killed everyone who knows or cares. These scenarios were real, and with all kinds of outcomes. Some captives wanted to stay with their Indian families, some were treated like whores if they tried to live in the white world again, and an Indian girl living with a white man was in danger. Yet there were thousands of mixed bloods from these willing or unwilling unions. I recommend all three of these movies.
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