The Austrians gave the world the orchestral symphony, the Italians opera, and the French ballet — just don’t mention that last one to the Russians. Cinema, the youngest of the great narrative arts, was born in several countries at once, though the French have tried to claim this one as well. But the real movies — not that pretentious avant-garde nonsense, but glamorous stars, studios, spectacle, and the Golden Age magic that produced such immortal lines as “Here’s looking at you, kid” — are American.I wanted to share my favorite American movies for the nation’s 250th birthday. But I will spare you the standard sermons praising Citizen Kane and Casablanca — though if you have not seen them, stop reading and remedy this immediately — and offer something slightly different: the films that most cleverly celebrate America, defend its traditions, and uphold its ideals. John Ford’s The Searchers is the American western in its purest form. John Wayne’s Ethan Edwards is not merely a hero (he is certainly not a gentleman). He is brave, loyal, vengeful: the kind of man who helped carve civilization out of anarchy.
The film is especially relevant in an age increasingly inclined to interpret and judge history as some overly sensitive HR seminar. The young now are routinely invited to dismiss Columbus, Washington, Grant, and nearly every other consequential figure in the American story because they were flawed, compromised, or morally alien to our own age. But civilization is built by imperfect men who, despite their sins, still managed to leave behind a world more ordered, prosperous, and free than the one they inherited.
