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The Searchers and Unforgiven — The Ends

For seventy years, the Western has been defined by two actors: John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. Each physically defined what a Western hero should be - tall, handsome, rugged. They are on the Mount Rushmore of the cowboy, with no room for any others. For Wayne, Stagecoach turned the Western from a Saturday matinee filler into a complex drama, and for Eastwood, A Fistful of Dollars changed the Western from make-believe to a pop culture art form.

Two of their Westerns, however, stand out as so dark and different as to set the genre back. In The Searchers, director John Ford used Wayne in a dramatically different fashion. Rather than the All-American hero, playing a friend to all men and a protector of all women, Wayne played a bigoted, former Confederate soldier, who had turned into a criminal with a romantic relationship with his brother's wife. Ethan Edwards' hejira was basically to kill his niece who had been captured by Indians because she had become one of "them." The movie was not lauded at the time, though it is now considered to be one of the best Westerns of all time.

After The Searchers, Westerns became formulaic, almost resorting to the Saturday afternoon serials. No one was willing to use the movie as a platform, and the path it led to was not taken. Even Wayne's movies, such as McClintock and Big Jake became variations on a theme. Wayne, in many ways, became a movie caricature of himself, which is what made his portrayal of Rooster Cogburn in True Grit so incredibly entertaining.

Not until Eastwood and director Sergio Leone grabbed the Western by the throat in A Fistful of Dollars was the genre reborn. Clean cowpokes were replaced with sweaty, unshaven outlaws. The spaghetti westerns resurrected the cowboy as a cinematic star, but one that was not so pure and not so simple, much like Wayne's Ethan Edwards. From Sam Peckinpah's bloodbath in The Wild Bunch to the Paul Newman-Robert Redford classic Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the complexities of the dark side were explored.

And then Clint ended it all, sort of like one of his Dirty Harry movies. Unforgiven took the Western to yet another place. Unheroic, almost incompetent "heroes," and a sheriff played by Gene Hackman that was downright horrific. Unlike The Searchers, it did receive critical acclaim at the time, including several Academy Awards. But like The Searchers, it represents an enigmatic look at the genre, and in its aftermath the Western has lost its way. Following Unforgiven, the movie Western has been barely entertaining, and even Eastwood has not done another. Perhaps he recognizes that it will take another to take the next step, just as he had to do so following Wayne.