Posted on 12/04/2015 12:15:59 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Filmmakers sometimes hit the exact correct symbol to represent an idea.
That's true of John Ford in the final scene of his masterpiece, The Searchers. Ethan Edwards, frontiersman and Civil War veteran, has succeeded in his years-long quest to rescue a young girl kidnapped by Indians and return her home. He brings her to the cabin, the family fusses over her, and all of them rush inside... All except Edwards, who remains alone, framed by the open door. With an almost childlike gesture,one arm gripping the other at the elbow,he turns away as the door,as if by the hand of God,is firmly shut.
Edwards is portrayed as nearly crazy,almost pathological in his hatred of Indians. But he remains the hero. He is the man who counts-the one who does things,who will not back down,who takes charge,who accepts the challenge that no one else will dare. He is, quite simply, the alpha male....
Ford knew-and we can assume Wayne did too-that there is a paradox at the heart of masculinity. Alpha males are necessary and cannot be done without. At times of emergency no one is more lauded. But when the emergency is over, no one is more unwelcome than the alpha.....
...First we have to define our terms-it goes without saying that the definition of an "alpha male" has been thoroughly distorted in hopes of discrediting it. An alpha, we're told, is a bully, a thug, of low intelligence or even worse-back in the 60s it was often implied that he was homosexual. You don't hear that much today, now that gays are the exemplars of the new masculinity. (Let's note here for the record that Putin and Trump both fit this mold-they're transparent bullies. Another trait of the alpha is that they never need to try too hard, as both these characters do.)......
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Well, the reason I felt it was necessary to point that out, was to keep Trump supporters from making it about Trump (embarrass themselves when they didn’t read the piece) since the author makes a point to disabuse them of it.
I do not think so, I though a girl he thought was Debbie, was actually a Comanche and shot him. Marty (Martin) finds Debbie outside the camp. Ethan (Amos) was going to shoot the girl but had changed his mind, which gave the Comanche girl the opportunity to kill him.
Ford did change the ending, but not the most important part, that Ethan still had pity and compassion.
Okay. My memory isn’t what it once was.
Dunn writes: “Let’s note here for the record that Putin and Trump both fit this mold-they’re transparent bullies. Another trait of the alpha is that they never need to try too hard, as both these characters do.”
I stopped right there. This guy doesn’t get to reshape or redefine what an alpha male is any more than the rest of us. Neither Putin or Trump are “transparent bullies” just because Dunn says so. This is just more Trump-bashing BS by a guy who is confused about what it means to be an alpha male.
Too bad, you missed out.
Fixed.
The way I see it, you enter into conflict to get a project approved, with threats of what will happen if it fails, and if, through your efforts, it is wildly successful, the ones you fought will pat each other on the back, vie for credit with each other, and award themselves bonuses.
AHhhh...
Thank you. The author not knowing this and then projecting his ridiculous meaning on the gesture... well, beginning from false premises doesn’t encourage reading the article.
Mrs. Carey mentioned the incident in the supplementary material on the DVD of “The Searchers.” Harry Carey, Sr., was a benefactor of John Wayne’s in his early career, and Harry Carey, Jr., was a regular in the John Ford cast.
Mrs. Carey said John Wayne surprised her with the gesture, and she was very touched.
Considering the typical North resident, they have no problem with a dictator and control freak.
I’m glad they all quit. I worked for a person from there and she had a very similar mentality. Her husband was nothing more than a drone that was told what to do all the time based on the phone calls.
Her galpal above her was no different but worse. Heaven forbid that person ever become a political leader. It’s bad enough, her line of work is banking.
The last time I saw an ending with that kind of ending was “The Fog” and it still gives me nightmares. Haven’t seen a horror movie since then.
The film “Knowing” looks like a pasted-on happy ending: The planet Earth is incinerated in a solar (event) but not until after aliens spirit away the children.
Then after fading away in flames the movie lurches into a scene of children frolicking in fields of alien flowers. The only missing element is unicorns...
[ROLL CREDITS]
“Tommy”, by Rudyand Kipling (not The Who version).
I went into a public-’ouse to get a pint o’ beer,
The publican ‘e up an’ sez, “We serve no red-coats here.”
The girls be’ind the bar they laughed an’ giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an’ to myself sez I:
O it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, go away”;
But it’s “Thank you, Mister Atkins”, when the band begins to play,
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it’s “Thank you, Mister Atkins”, when the band begins to play.
“The Mist” and they had to rewrite the ending from the book, making it MORE controversial.
And ruining it for me.
Can’t imagine The Duke filming that scene.
A woman with a “husband” and kids, and he shoots her?
Can’t see that happening.
Does Grant let her slide out of the convertible and down the cliff in that ending?
Thank you. It has been so long since I saw it I forgot the name. I only remembered that it was Stephen King and I didn’t read anything of his again because of that ending. Didn’t find out till a few years ago that they had changed the ending from what he wrote.
The other part of the formula for alpha males is they can control themselves, they do not lose control.
That is why he could refrain from shooting her, although it was always in his mind, a real man has to be able to rein that part in.
Animals do what they feel, men do what they must.
The aliens/angels HAD to do something.
Why bother with the warnings/premonitions if they weren’t going to take action?
But, yeah, the flowering ending didn’t fit.
I must have watched the Earth being incinerated dozens of times. Really good special effects and it really ENDED any idea of hope for the planet.
Yeah.
The book ending left a TON of room for sequels.
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