Thursday, November 15, 2018
6:30-10pm
Belle van Zuylenzaal
University Library
Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam
The western classic The Searchers (1956) is one of the most influential movies of the post-war period. It is a psychological study of a revenge-driven Civil War veteran Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) and his quest to find his kidnapped niece. Its themes are grand—clash of cultures, racism, chaos versus civilization, family and honor—but
what made it so groundbreaking was the intensity and ambiguity of the main character. Filmmakers of the so-called “New Hollywood” were influenced by Wayne’s uncompromising and psychotic portrayal, in particular Paul Schrader’s Hardcore and Martin Scorsese’s chilling Taxi Driver.
George Blaustein (American Studies, UvA) will consider John Ford’s greatest film as the apotheosis of the Western as a genre, but also a unique artifact, remarkable for its afterlife inside and outside the United States. This short lecture will reflect on the workings of the genre that won’t die: what the Western meant, as well as what it might mean now, as new spins on the Western abound.
Marko Petrovic (librarian and cinephile) will give a short introduction about the making of the film and about the contradictory persona of the legendary director John Ford.
Seats are limited, so please register via email to bibliotheek@uva.nl.
One of my favorite texts to discuss in a seminar is James Baldwin’s “Stranger in the Village,” published in Harper’s in 1953. “From all available evidence no black man had ever set foot in this tiny Swiss village before I came,” Baldwin begins. This is where the MA Seminar “America Inside Out: International Perspectives on the United States” starts: Baldwin’s magisterial essay about America, Europe, and the West, because it both typifies and challenges much that we talk about when we talk about the “American Century.” Its last paragraph rewards quotation: