Best in the west: Genre, john Wayne and the American dream in john Ford's 'The searchers'

John Ford's The Searchers (1956) is so rich a film that it is hard to know where to start - or what to include and what to omit, given that this study is of finite length. Some of the matters that seem crucial to consider include: the western as a genre; Ford as perhaps its most famous exponent; the star persona of John Wayne, protagonist of Ford's and other directors' westerns; the film's narrative patterns; and its ideological content in relation to the times of its setting and of its production. It won't be possible to cover all these aspects of the film in detail, but, in thinking further about it, they are all indispensable.