Landscapes of Myth: Westerns After The Searchers

January 10–February 28, 2025

Bookended by John Ford’s The Searchers and Zacharias Kunuk’s Maliglutit (Searchers), the mythic, elemental, and spiritual significance of landscape provides a throughline in this diverse selection of Westerns, including films made by Robert Altman, Charles Burnett, Jane Campion, Kevin Jerome Everson, Sidney Poitier, Kelly Reichardt, Glauber Rocha, and Quentin Tarantino.

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The Searchers
Maliglutit
Buck and the Preacher © 1971, renewed 1999 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Meek’s Cutoff

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Past Films

The Searchers
John Ford
United States, 1956
4K Digital Restoration
Repeats Saturday, January 25, 7:00 PM, without the preceding short
Friday, January 10 7:00 PM
Introduction by Leila Weefur
An essential reflection of American myths and prejudices that have yet to be overcome, starring John Wayne as a racist confederate veteran searching for his kidnapped niece. Screens with a fragment from the 1899 Kidnapping by Indians, the first Western.
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Antonio das Mortes
Glauber Rocha
Brazil, 1969
Saturday, January 18 6:30 PM
Introduction by Leila Weefur
As much a revolutionary cultural expression as a political allegory, Glauber Rocha’s color sequel to Black God, White Devil deals with the coming to political consciousness of the mercenary jagunço Antonio das Mortes, a paid killer of rebels and bandits in the backlands of Brazil.
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Buck and the Preacher
Sidney Poitier
United States, 1972
4K Digital Restoration
Thursday, January 23 7:00 PM
Introduction by Leila Weefur
Sidney Poitier’s daring directorial debut, Buck and the Preacher, challenges notions of freedom for African Americans in the post–Civil War West in its depiction of the relentless pursuit of Black settlers by racist bounty hunters.
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The Searchers
John Ford
United States, 1956
4K Digital Restoration
Also screened on Friday, January 10, 7:00 PM with a preceding short
Saturday, January 25 7:00 PM
Introduced by Leila Weefur
An essential reflection of American myths and prejudices that have yet to be overcome, starring John Wayne as a racist confederate veteran searching for his kidnapped niece.
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The Hateful Eight
Quentin Tarantino
United States, 2015
Friday, January 31 7:00 PM
Introduction by Leila Weefur
Quentin Tarantino’s post–Civil War whodunit entangles a group of strangers in a tense, claustrophobic racial standoff in a snowbound stagecoach lodge in Wyoming.
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McCabe & Mrs. Miller
Robert Altman
United States, 1971
4K Digital Restoration
Friday, February 7 7:00 PM
Introduction by Leila Weefur
Far from the open plains of the classic Western, Robert Altman and cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond created a radical and ravishing vision of the turn-of-the-century Pacific Northwest, capturing the sodden grit of frontier life with impressive authenticity.
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Meek’s Cutoff
Kelly Reichardt
United States, 2010
BAMPFA Collection
Saturday, February 15 6:30 PM
Introduction by Leila Weefur
Three strong women and an assortment of men head west on the Oregon Trail in Kelly Reichardt’s feminist Western, starring Michelle Williams and Zoe Kazan. Screening with Charles Burnett’s The Horse.
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The Power of the Dog
Jane Campion
United Kingdom, Australia, United States, Canada, New Zealand, 2021
Closed Captioned
Saturday, February 22 6:30 PM
Introduction by Leila Weefur
From the rawhide to the stark reverberance of footsteps and banjo plucks, everything in The Power of the Dog works in concert to uncover the simmering shame and resentment seated within the deep histories of a Wyoming family ranch.
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CANCELED: Gaucho Gaucho
Michael Dweck, Gregory Kershaw
United States, Argentina, 2024
Wednesday, February 26 7:00 PM
Introduction by Leila Weefur
These two films document contemporary cowboy culture on two continents. Gaucho Gaucho chronicles the everyday life of Argentine cowhands, while Ten Five in the Grass captures the preparations for a calf roping event on the Black rodeo circuit.
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CANCELED: Maliglutit
Zacharias Kunuk
Canada, 2016
Friday, February 28 7:00 PM
Introduction by Shari Huhndorf
Maliglutit continues in the breathtaking vein of Canadian Inuk filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk’s unforgettable Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner with a story of cruelty and cold revenge inspired by John Ford’s The Searchers and spoken entirely in Inuktitut.
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Landscapes of Myth: Westerns After The Searchers

January 10–February 28, 2025

The genre-defining opening scene of countless Westerns—an ultrawide shot that reveals an expanse of land so vast that the actors, riding on horseback, seem to inch along the horizon like tiny ants in a tunnel—establishes that the true protagonist is not the cowboy, bounty hunter, or outlaw, but the land itself. This distinctive narrative approach contributed to a cinematic language adaptable to landscapes far beyond the American frontier.

In Westerns, land becomes a powerful symbol, embodying both promise and peril, scarcity and wealth. More than just a backdrop, it has a spiritual dimension, imbued with myth and elemental significance, containing dark colonial histories and a fundamental connection with Indigenous Americans through their ancestral territories.

In John Ford’s The Searchers, the iconic Monument Valley casts an imposing presence over the unfolding narrative of colonial violence against the Comanche on the American frontier. Here the landscape transcends its role as a mere setting; it is a spirited character, timeless and expansive, standing as a monument to feminine power in a narrative world persistently striving for remasculinization. This film series provides an opportunity to consider The Searchers alongside the diverse selection of Westerns that have been made since.

These films—including works by directors Charles Burnett, Kevin Jerome Everson, and Kelly Reichardt—offer intergenerational, anti-colonial, and transnational perspectives on the Western genre. The series is bookended by Zacharias Kunuk’s Maliglutit (Searchers), an Inuit reclamation of the revenge Western set against the frigid expanse of the Arctic that reimagines the genre within which Indigenous voices have historically been marginalized.

—Leila Weefur, Guest Curator

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Thanks to Hannah Prouse, British Film Institute; George Schmalz, Kino Lorber; Elisa Ximenes, Cinemateca Brasileira; Beth Rennie, George Eastman Museum; David Jennings, Sony Pictures; Derek Coughlan, Lionsgate; Alexandra Fredricks, Oscilloscope Laboratories; Steven K. Hill, Todd Weiner, UCLA Film & Television Archives; Madeleine Molyneaux, Picture Palace Pictures; Cristina Hodgson, Beautiful Stories Told; Wanda vanderStoop Vtape; and Victor Garcia, Netflix.