austinkleon:

Doorways in John Ford’s The Searchers

Are you going in or are you staying out? In the world of The Searchers you must choose. You can’t have both. In this movie, everyone is on the threshold of that choice. And for some, it isn’t a choice at all, it’s just the way things work. Everything you want, everything you search for, is “out there”, or, on the flipside, everything you want is “in there”. There is a giant gap between in and out. Characters are seen standing a bit away from the house, with people clustered in the doorway, and it seems like anything, anything can happen in that gap.

I was reminded of this by the True Grit shot.

Great, great article. Liminality, my friends. And while we’re on the topic, I tumbled a doorway shot from The Outlaw Josey Wales after I watched it a month or so ago: