page_title: The Searchers
section_title: Ethan and Martha
hierarchical_section_title: The Searchers / Critical interpretations / Ethan and Martha
caption_attribution_description: English: The Searchers is a 1956 Western film directed by John Ford which tells the story of a man who spends years looking for his niece who was taken by Indians. This image is a screenshot from a public domain trailer for the film. Trailers for movies released before 1964 are in the Public Domain because they were never separately copyrighted.
context_page_description: The Searchers is a 1956 American Technicolor VistaVision Western film directed by John Ford, based on the 1954 novel by Alan Le May, set during the Texas–Indian wars, and starring John Wayne as a middle-aged Civil War veteran who spends years looking for his abducted niece, accompanied by his adoptive nephew.
  The film was a commercial success. Since its release, it has come to be considered a masterpiece and one of the greatest and most influential films ever made. It was named the greatest American Western by the American Film Institute in 2008, and it placed 12th on the same organization's 2007 list of the 100 greatest American movies of all time. Entertainment Weekly also named it the best Western. The British Film Institute's Sight & Sound magazine ranked it as the seventh-best film of all time based on a 2012 international survey of film critics and in 2008, the French magazine Cahiers du Cinéma ranked The Searchers number 10 in their list of the 100 best films ever made.
context_section_description: An important plot undercurrent is the obvious mutual attraction between Ethan Edwards and his brother's wife, Martha. Although no dialogue alludes to it,  a multitude of visual references to their relationship are seen throughout the film. Some critics have suggested that this unspoken passion implies that Debbie—who is specifically described as eight years old, as Ethan returns from an eight-year absence—may be Ethan's daughter. Such a situation would add further layers of nuance to Ethan's obsessive search for Debbie, his revulsion at the thought that she might be living as an Indian, and his ultimate decision to bring her home—and then walk away.  Beyond the ostensible motivations, it might depict a guilt-ridden father's need to save the daughter he made by cuckolding his brother, then abandoned.
caption: The unspoken love between Wayne's Ethan and his brother's wife Martha and his obsession with avenging her drive the film.
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