Searchers - Meeting Scar

Upon viewing the searchers, one key scene stuck in my mind more than the rest; the meeting between Scar and Ethan.

This scene to me is very important as it is the two contesting parties. One thing I had noticed was how the director John Ford makes the audience dislike Scar, even though he had only been briefly seen in the movie early on. Throughout the movie the name 'Scar' often brought terror with people Ethan had met, even the United States Army are looking for him. This makes the audience want to hate Scar. Giving him the stance that he is an aggressive individual who kills for fun. Before the scene where he meets Ethan I had envisioned him being ruthless and violent towards anyone, however I was very disappointed to see he was not as the stories in the movie made him seen. He doesn't do anything overly aggressive individually, more he depends on his men to do it for him. It was a bit of an anticlimax between him and Ethan, who is visibly more aggressive and violent than Scar and just exudes more rugged masculinity and looks more impressive than Scar.

The character of Scar is one that features prominently in many stories, but what is more synonymous is the actual scar on his head. A scar means violence, it means he is bad. It means he has done something in the past that has a story. Scars are something that the audience is drawn towards immediately. In examples today, scars are used to define major roles in movies, which are mainly bad i.e. Scar in the Lion King, or perhaps even in different genres, Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars. Perhaps this whole idea that a scar defines a character started with Searchers. It's a striking image. The comparison between Scar in Searchers and Scar in the Lion King is an interesting one. The type of character both of the Scar's are, are both very similar. The type of character Scar was in Searchers is the type of character that has grown to be re-used in movies today. Perhaps Scar was based off an actual Indian from this time, but the actual character has been exaggerated to make the audience further dislike the Indians in this story. Movies like these that have a detrimental effect outside of the screen. Wanting the audience to dislike Indians in a movie would often lead to a similar effect outside of the screen.