John Ford’s groundbreaking western marks the end of the genre’s classic period and presages later revisionist interpretations of American history. Shot in a refined style and with an emphasis on the captivating natural scenery, The Searchers tells the ambiguous story of a Civil War veteran who sets out to free his niece from Comanche captivity. Jean-Luc Godard compared his wandering through the stark landscape of Monument Valley to Homer’s The Odyssey: “When John Wayne finds Natalie Wood and suddenly holds her up at arm’s length, we pass from stylized gesture to feeling, from John Wayne suddenly petrified to Ulysses being reunited with Telemachus.”