Attila Takács: Adapting Narratives: Comparative Insights into John Ford’s The Searchers and Zacharias Kunuk’s Maliglutit as an “Indigenous Canadian Western”

Article

DOI 10.51313/Freeside-2024-06

John Ford’s The Searchers (1956) is a seminal Hollywood Western, significant for both Ford and John Wayne. The protagonist, Ethan, seeks the tribe that kidnapped his niece, Debbie, motivated by revenge and deep-seated animosity toward Native Americans, who are dehumanized in the film.

            In contrast, Indigenous Canadian filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk subverts the Western genre in Maliglutit (2016). Kunuk’s film adapts the narrative from an Indigenous perspective, focusing on the abduction of women and portraying Indigenous people as complex, human characters rather than dehumanized demons. Maliglutit challenges traditional Western motifs, critiquing the genre’s foundations built on the marginalization of Indigenous peoples.

            Kunuk’s work adapts and amplifies the silenced voices and untold stories of Inuit communities, heralding a new era of filmmaking that addresses historical injustices and promotes cultural diversity and inclusion, reshaping cultural perceptions and challenging long-standing stereotypes in cinema.