'The Searchers' shows off the strength of the John Wayne persona

Based on what little I know about John Wayne -- I don't like him. He appears to have been deeply racially prejudiced and his politics were beyond reactionary. But he was one hell of a movie star.

Popular enough to get his own nickname ("The Duke"), Wayne is one of the most iconic Hollywood actors of all time. And after revisiting his seminal film The Searchers, it's easy to see why.

The film, a favorite among 60s generation filmmakers like Scorsese and Spielberg, has grown in stature with each ensuing decade and is now often high up on lists of the greatest movies ever made.

It is a startlingly good western, one which is more rewarding with each viewing because there is so much fascinating subtext beneath its surface.

The story is an epic one. Comanche Indians (a.k.a.  Native Americans) kidnap a young white girl and Wayne (as the complex Ethan Edwards) goes on a years long search (accompanied by a "half-breed" named Marty, played by Jeffrey Hunter) to retrieve her.

Wayne's character is an unrepentant racist with an all-encompassing hatred of Indians and yet he is incredibly well-versed in their culture -- he speaks their language, knows their customs and eventually even practices them (in a chilling scene towards the finale, Edwards takes a scalp of his own). This is just the first of many interesting contradictions in the character.

The heart of the film is Edwards' contentious relationship with Marty, who he routinely disrespects and abuses because he is 1/8th Cherokee. Yet, there is a clearly a fatherly affection there too. Again, this movie has layers.

John Wayne in The Searchers

There are some conventional aspects of the movie that grate (like some of its attempts at broad comedy) and while in some ways its director, John Ford, was attempting to humanize the Indians he had vilified in so many past films, he still comes up a little short (although he is unflinching in showing a massacre of natives by the U.S. cavalry).

That said, the film is worth watching if nothing else for Wayne's astonishing performance. I love seeing an actor play against type and here we have the most established of American heroes played a deeply disturbed and vindictive individual.

It's no surprise that Scorsese is attracted to this character and film, since he is a master of making his audience identify with people that are unsavory.

I love westerns much in the same way I enjoy gangster films -- they take place in a world so far removed from my own  that watching them is a true act of pure escapism. They almost always have huge issues at stake -- life and death -- plus heavy doses of violence and sexual energy.

It's in these genres that older films, which were subjected to more strident censorship, were freer to explore controversial contemporary themes. Hence you get a western set in 1880s Texas which is as much about the racial strife of the 1950s as anything else.

Having seen The Searchers several times I still find myself unpacking its "happy" ending. It seems to easy too me and I suspect there are more complex conclusions to draw from it.

Nevertheless I love a film that gives me something to chew on and this one definitely does.