John Fords

The man who shot Liberty Valance

The name of John Ford is almost synonymous with the western movies; in his
carrier as film director he won four Academy Awards of Merit for Achievement in
Directing and his awards are unmatched: The Informer (1936), The Grapes of Wrath
(1941), How Green Was My Valley (1942), The Quiet Man (1953).
In the late Sixties and early seventies, there was a revisionist movement in
Hollywood. This revision of genres included the western genre. In this essay, I will
analyze the differences between the classic Western, and the revisionist westerns. The
movie that contains all the features of the western genre and it is John Fords masterpiece
is The man who shot Liberty Valance (1962); this movie is included in the revisionist
Westerns category for because it starts to question the ideals and style of the traditional
Western and for the way in which the characters are represented (the women have
stronger roles) and the changes of perspective regarding the atmosphere (realism is
stronger than romanticism).
The classic western was a story of a hero (usually a white male), who in the end
always prevailed over the anti-hero; the main character most likely possessed an
exceptional ability with a gun and would use this ability to fight for a good/ moral
purpose in order to help the weaker individuals of society defend themselves and their
land from the villains (so, the hero is brave, honorable, and valiant). More, the viewer

understand the idea that the violence was a large theme in the classic western and the only
way to solve conflict in these movies was to out-shoot the enemy. Gunfights were not
exactly realistic and always the hero came out on top. Women in the classical westerns
were depicted as weak individuals who were second to the men in society; so, rarely was
a woman a main character in the films (she was shown to be weak, holding the man back,
trying to tie the man down).
The ending of the classic westerns was simple: the hero would defeat the villains,
and move on, leaving society to help others, or joining society, giving up his special
status as hero.
The revisionist western was very much an inversion of these themes, as it was
already mentioned. The essay will focus on the way in which are presented men and
women, the relationship between them and the connection with different elements that
helps to create their portrait in The man who shot Liberty Valance.
The plot of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance concerns the end of the Old
West/ the society of a small rural town located in the West (in this movie, Shinbone) and
its transitions towards becoming part of a federal state. So, the theme of the political
change implicates other themes and other contests: it suggests the potential
disenchantment of the individual and the end of rugged heroism, the moment of civil
emancipation in different aspects of life.
Senator Ransom Stoddard (Stewart) and his wife Hallie (Vera Miles) arrive in
Shinbone with the train. They are there for the funeral of a local named Tom
Doniphon, a character without importance for the town in its present days. The
editor of the local newspaper, the Shinbone Star, asserts his right for information

(Who was Tom Doniphon? and the reason for which the senator and his wife are
present). It is Stoddards response a story (the film is presented in continuous
flashbacks) about events which took place several decades before.
At the beginning of his story, Stoddard presents himself as a young man that
ended the law school having a bag full of law books and his father gold watch; the
young Stoddard journeys to Shinbone on stagecoach and the coach is stopped by a
group of outlaws, who beat Stoddard when he attempts to prevent a woman losing
the broach given to her by her dead husband. The leader of the group, Liberty
Valance (Lee Marvin), ransacks Stoddards bags and finds his books and he
promises to Ransom to teach him the Western law (violence) and he brutally whips
him. The scene establishes one of the main characters (Stoddard) and the anti-hero
(Liberty Valance) and one role of the man in society: to protect the helpless woman
(the widow).
Stoddard is recovered by a rancher named Tom Doniphon (Wayne) and he is
taken to the local eating establishment - the home of Hallie and her Swedish
parents, Peter and Nora Ericson; when Stoddard revives weak, he wants to arrest
Valance and his men, but Doniphon (he is calling Stoddard Pilgrim) gives to
Stoddard a new lesson: in this place, the law has no importance, each man settles
his problems (usually by gunfight). This section is important because it presents the
first identified revision of the genre: the fact that the film presents no hero,
Stoddard and Doniphon are both main character and, somehow, heroes; more, the
law represented by the sheriff is weak, almost inexistent; this two characters

represent different attitudes towards life in the West: one of them believes that
the change is possible and the other is unable to see that things are already
changing.
Stoddard recuperates and settles in to live in Shinbone: he stays with Hallie
and with her parents, he works washing dishes and waiting tables in their eatery;
later on, he establishes a daily school to teach the locals, including Hallie, how to
read and write. Valance continues to menace the town. So, the male is the agent of
progress and of a better future and the woman is the individual that needs to be
helped to grow from an intellectual point of view. The woman contemplates the
achievements of the husband (the mother of Hallie is proud of her man because he
is an American citizen and he is able to vote) and she helps the family through
domestic activities or to have a business.
Doniphon and Hallie have a simmering relationship: the Ericsons and the
people of the town initially consider a marriage proposal only a matter of time, but
he is waiting for the right moment (or he believes that none it is able to get married
with his girl or her to chose somebody else), Doniphon proves slow to act.
Meanwhile, Stoddard and Hallie grow increasingly close and, at the end, they will
get married. Regarding the status of a woman in a relationship, the viewer sees two
attitudes: as in the traditional Western, the woman has no power or ability to
choose her husband (Hallie in relationship with Doniphon), but the revision of this
theme presents the woman in the moment when she starts to be a partner for her
lover (Hallie in relation with Stoddard, the relation of her parents). The viewer

distinguishes a world of men, where the women are, generally, decorative elements
(Hallie and her mother are the only women strongly presented in the movie).
Stoddard befriends Dutton Peabody (Edmond OBrien), the founder and
sole writer of the Shinbone Star. A growing population means that Shinbone is
required to send two delegates to a territorial convention for statehood and while
the townspeople are initially wary, Peabody and Stoddard succeed in explaining the
benefits statehood would bring the town. An article Peabody writes for the
Star highlights the attempts of cattle barons to keep the area an open range;
Peabody argues that this is borne of vicious self-interest, and would endanger
smaller homesteads. He speaks before the town votes for their two delegates and
explains that the statehood means progress in the future and a better life. Liberty
Valance whose group of men has grown, backed by the cattle barons who seek to
prevent a fair vote arrives and attempts intimidation, but Stoddard and Peabody
are voted as the towns two delegates. Soon after, in revenge, Valance and his men
assault Peabody and, because of that, Stoddard silently determines to act: he takes
a gun and waits for Valance in the street; when Valance emerges from the towns
bar, the two stalk each other, with Valance shooting Stoddards right arm and
forcing him to retrieve his gun. Somehow, Stoddard triumphs and Valance is shot
dead (the viewer finds out, later on, the fact that Doniphon is the real killer of
Liberty). So, the old law of the West triumphs in this section because the fight is
between two men of the same world (Ransom is not a part of the Old West) and
Ransom is able not to betrayal his moral principles. At the convention for statehood,

the gathered delegates must vote for one man to represent the region at Congress in
Washington and Peabody boldly nominates Stoddard. The objections to his candidacy
centre on his shooting of Valance: should a Congressman be one who takes the law into
his own hands and these protestations cause Stoddard to leave the delegation in distress
and uncertainty. He is halted by Doniphon, who reveals that it was he shot and killed
Valance in cold blood because he knew it would make Hallie happy and he tells
Stoddard that Hallie is his girl now. More, this two ways of life are able to communicate
because the main characters of the story understand themselves even though Doniphon
(the Old West) is unable to change.
Thus Stoddard concludes his recollection and we return to the present day. You
know the rest of it, he tells the young Star journalists: he went to Washington and
statehood was achieved; he became a very well known politician (the states first
Governor, serving for three terms, he served two terms in the Senate, he was ambassador
to the United Kingdom and returned for one more term in the Senate; and now stands on
the threshold of becoming Vice President). Stoddard and Hallie take their leave with the
train and on the way back to Washington, Stoddard suggests leaving political life and
returning to live in Shinbone Hallie responds enthusiastically and she mention the
importance of her husband activity: he helped to transform the wilderness in a garden.
So, the film presents some important moments in the history of the United States of
America, such as: the transition from wilderness to civilization (the railway), from a lack
of institutions to a governmental system created to help the people, the improving of
womens life and , also, old themes, such as the main activities of men (farmers).

The death of Doniphon is the death of the Old West and of its values. More, a
mise en abyme of the story is the garden: the wilderness became a garden and Hallies
garden has nothing special now, the people of the Old West connects in an
incomprehensible way for the strangers (the cactus rose has no importance for Stoddard).
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance was based on a short story by Dorothy M.
Johnson, published in her 1953 collection Indian Country. There, Doniphon and Stoddard
share a closer relationship, Doniphon proactively mentoring the younger and less
experienced man. The screenplay adapted for Ford by James Warner Bellah and Willis
Goldbeck has the effect of placing the two men in contrast; but it also makes the
character of Doniphon more ambiguous, and less sympathetic. Despite the lack of
scenery, the film is still evocative of a past time, but it cannot be reduced to an easy
allegory asserting the wilderness over civilization, or even the individual over society.
More, to view Doniphon as a forsaken hero, Stoddard as an impostor, is to limit the films
scope; it would be for us to accept the legends of the West, and to some degree of Wayne
and Ford, rather than facing the films particular set of facts. It would, in a word, render
us guilty of printing a narrow legend.
It remains to appreciate The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance through its
complexities: its demonstrating of the irreconcilability of different truths; the
inevitability of chance; and the nuanced, small but decisive ways in which societies and
personal relations run their course.