I like discussing influences which may also be a way of simply saying I am not ashamed to admit where it all comes from….anyway, took a shot of a “back yard” on de l’Eglise about 6 weeks ago and it has been simmering in my “recent” pile ever since. When I went back to this image tonight it kind of creeped me out because it was looking so familiar in some way. And then it finally dawned on me where it had come from – John Ford’s, The Searchers.
This film often ends up on critic’s “greatest” lists primarily because it is an aesthetically pure delight, John Ford, if you will, using the contemporaneously new colour films in old locations such as Monument Valley and, perhaps, laying down the last truly beautiful Western.
Only one problem with this film that bothers me – it’s a racist piece of crap!!
Sure it’s a beautiful piece of racist crap, a film almost as beautiful as Vertigo on some levels, but a racist piece of crap just the same.
Here is a shot from The Searchers.
And this one, which almost looks like a Rembrandt daytime painting (wink).
And here is mine.
Don’t ever be afraid to follow your influences because even the brightest and the best of us only ever get to throw their two cents on the pile of what we might call The Human Experience before we go into that nebulously absolute but absolutely certain unknown thingamabob called the hereafter…
PostArctica 
😉
I’m sorry you’re torn about the film. I know. Life was different than for the Indians but the reality is that the film was meant to show us just that. The race might have changed from then but the story remains. We each have our own battles. Sometimes with race and we need to grow up and learn that there are more things in life than that and that we need to work with each other. At least, that’s what I hope my viewers will get later next month when they come to see it on the big screen. I’m sure Lana Wood will have something to say about the topic. – Here’s some info on the screening.