Final Confrontation With Scar

The scene I have chosen is probably the most harrowing scene in the film, which is when has his final confrontation with Scar. Ethan scalps Scar during the raid to save Debbie whilst the other men are fighting and then emerges from the tepee brandishing his scalp. This is not something you would expect a ‘cowboy’ like Ethan to do as it breaks down the wall which stopped him being one of the ‘savage’ Indians which he has been tracking down throughout the whole film because of their brutal attack on his brother’s home and the kidnap of his nieces.

The scene is quite a shock on first viewing of the film as scalping is an Indian tradition, and throughout the film Ethan is shown to have a deep hatred for the Indians. his violent nature towards them is shown early on when he shoots the eyes out of a dead Indian because in their belief it means they will be forced to roam the world forever.

This hatred for Indians also almost led him to shooting his niece, Debbie, when she said that she was not coming back with them. He held the same belief that was shown earlier on when he found some women who had been rescued and said that they were ‘no longer white’. Ethan seems to hold the belief that the only good Indian is a dead one which would be seen today as extremely racist.

He goes against moral cowboy codes frequently in the film such as shooting at retreating enemies and in the raid scene running down a woman on his horse who appears to be holding a baby. His character is extremely complex in this regard as he will happily break moral values to harm Indians, yet he himself holds some Native American values. He appears to be able to speak several native languages and he himself is a scalper. The film clearly plays on Ethan’s ‘Indianness’ in several ways but most notably is the mirroring between him and Scar. Both men are strong characters, and whilst Scar is obviously intended to be the villain of the film, Ethan is by no means a hero and if not kept in check by Martin he would be cast in a totally different light.

This scene shows a shift in the western genre and perceptions about cowboys. It shows that both cowboys and Indians are united in several ways through their violence and their shared culture. The irony of the raid scene is that it mirrors the attack on the house at the beginning of the film, painting the picture that the white men are no better than the Indians throughout the film as both have been shown to partake in particularly heinous crimes and both parties could have been pushed to this by the illusion of revenge.

I chose this scene because it is a reflection on the attack on the house at the beginning but this time the viewer is behind the actions of the attackers even though they are still committing terrible acts in the same way as before, when the viewer was shocked by the attack on Ethan’s family. The film as a whole challenges stereotypical views towards the American west in many ways and the main character Ethan is not portrayed as a good person throughout yet he is who the viewer is behind throughout.