This classic tale of one man’s obsessive quest to find a young girl taken by the Comanche is a surprising mixture of new and old, intimate and epic. Considered Ford’s greatest film, its unsettling ambiguity results in a more modern feel than many of Ford’s 1930s and 1940s classics, which were characterized largely by their sincerity and their central focus on family and community. The Searchers, in contrast, derives its startling force from its exploration of loneliness and racism as family and community’s darkest counterparts. Ford often evokes the deep human necessity for community and its attendant pleasures, while just as often viewing the world from the perspective of an outsider never able to join. The greatness of The Searchers is its ability to do both.

Followed by a screening of Directed by John Ford.