In class yesterday I asked you to select some particular detail from one of the frames in John Ford's The Searchers. The example I chose for myself was the chair that appears in the foreground of the shot shown below.
I didn't read any particular significance into the chair when I made this selection--and that's very much the point here: Grab yourself some incidental item from a corner of the frame (rather than an image possessing obvious meaning, whether directly or symbolically). Don't worry about why you might choose a given object--just choose one. What we're after is a piece of cinematic "rind" or "husk": some part of the shot that could just as easily be thrown away (not because it's a mistake, but simply because the detail in question is not particularly central to the scene--the action and/or dialogue in the script could have been shot without the detail in question).
Your task in this week's rush is to use whatever detail you selected for yourself from The Searchers as a means of prompting new lines of inquiry into the overall movie (including the movie's surprisingly complex handlings of racial and sexual identity). The result might be a connection of some sort, but it could just as easily be a new question or problem (a "line of inquiry," as I say).
How to proceed:
- Recall what you can about your chosen object, including its immediate contexts at the point in the film where you found it. If you weren't in class yesterday and you wish to do this week's rush, select your object from the above frame.
Here's an example of the kind of contextual circumstances that might be noted: I'm noticing now that my object is actually a rocking chair, and thus linked to the character Mose (as we now know). I'm also noticing that the chair is shot facing the hearth, its back to the camera.
- Do a bit of associative thinking. Where else does your object (or equivalent objects) crop up in the film? (Remain attentive to entirely different settings and contexts.) Also, what kinds of meanings are associated with your chosen object (or even with the word or sound that signifies your object)?
In my case it would be overwhelming to start cataloging the recurrences of my object across the entire film. (Let's just say we see a lot of chairs....) And the link to Mose is too obvious to prompt any interesting connections at this point. (We know the chair functions for Mose as a symbol of security and acceptance--he pretty much tells us this himself.)
So I find myself thinking about the various connotations bound up with the word "chair." And what comes to mind is the question of whose in charge (of the family, the situation, etc.) A "chair" can be the head of a committee or organization (like the corporate equivalent of a head of family); the word "chair" has multiple connotations in English. And because the question of "whose in charge" does in fact turn out to be relevant to the movie at many levels, I've got a new line of inquiry. So my response to this rush topic might look like this:
I took as my object the chair sitting in front of the family hearth about five minutes into the film. By way of homology (or pun), this detail prompts questions about the family relationships depicted in The Searchers (including the question of whose actually "chairing" the family). Aaron Edwards is Martha's husband, and the family dynamic generally appears solid--but the longing looks that Martha sometimes gives Aaron's brother Ethan (John Wayne) suggest a different story (a story that "keeps its back" to the family at large).
- For full credit, post your response on your blog by 11:59pm Monday, Feb. 13. E-mail if you have questions.
CS
