88 Lothian Road
Thu 10 Sept · 17:50
The screening on Thursday 10th September, 5:50pm will have a short introduction by Tony McKibbin, who teaches at the Centre for Open Learning at the University of Edinburgh, and he will lead a ticketed discussion afterwards in Room 3.5 - click here for more information and to book tickets. The screening on Saturday 12th September, 5:30pm will have a short introduction by Jim Dunnigan, Chair of the Edinburgh Film Guild. These screenings will be shown on 70mm film. John Ford's most revered Western, for its visual richness (on full display here from 70mm film in its 70th anniversary) and profoundly ambiguous critique of the genre's (and America's) racism. Ford pushed John Wayne's archetypal Westerner into the realm of antiheroism, as his character Ethan's five-year quest to rescue his niece from Comanche chief Scar mutates into something more sinister. Shot on location in Colorado and Monument Valley, Ford's vividly arid Technicolor vistas render Ethan a man of the magnificent and punishing landscape, unable to reconcile his inner savagery with domestic constraints. Greeted in America as just another quality western, the film was first reclaimed by French critics for the unresolved tensions and evocative style of Ford's narrative, elevating it to the status of cinematic art. With US cinephiles following suit, The Searchers deeply influenced the 1970s 'film school' generation (Martin Scorsese and Paul Schrader transformed it into Taxi Driver in 1976) and has since taken its place among the greatest westerns ever made.
88 Lothian Road
17:50Thu 10 Sept
Western
Not the same tradition as the lineage above — a genuinely different thread to pull, if you want one.
20:30Fri 11 Sept
Western
17:30Sat 12 Sept
Western