John Ford’s The Man who Shot Liberty Valance is one of the greatest American films ever made, and certainly John Ford’s best, the only challenger to this title potentially being the quintessential western inversion, The Searchers. Many would classify The Man who Shot Liberty Valance as a western, and they, at first glance, would be correct to assume so: John Wayne, a gun fight, and a setting of the western territories. At further watchings, however, one can clearly see that The Man who Shot Liberty Valance is lacks the devices defining a film as a western, and shows the death of the “John Ford Western”: this is shown through the setting, the shots, and the overall plot and theme of the film.
The Man who Shot Liberty Valance is about Ransom…show more content… He is a lawyer, the first lawyer of the territories, and the eventual senator of the state. He also starts the first school in Shinbone, teaching the people how to read, thus “civilizing” them. Ransom even calls for the statehood of the territories, “They call upon you to unite behind a real strong delegate and carry this fight to Washington if necessary.” He also teaches civics in his classroom. One of the most important things is how obviously he is not the traditional western code hero. Ransom Stoddard is, instead, an eastern educated man who is, most importantly, a terrible gunman. He represents what the west will become, civilized, and a lack of the masochism that defined the west. Ransom Stoddard is the personification of future civility, the death of the…show more content… Usually shown through the giant bluffs of Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. Liberty Valance has none of those traditional locales. There are two establishing shots bookending the film, one of the train rolling in and rolling out, but both are not unspoiled land. The only other time we see “Land”, in the sense meant by Talbot, is Tom Doniphon’s cabin on the outskirts of Shinbone. The film pretty much takes place entirely in the town of Shinbone with very little “Land”. Clearly, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance does not fit the definition of a western film.
Liberty Valance starts with a description of how everyone has moved out except the old marshall. “The only one of us from the old days still working steady is the senator. Place has sure changed. Churches, high school, shops.” The town of Shinbone has changed to a fully-fledged modern city, with John Ford, very specifically, showing the telephone and the trains. The Man who Shot Liberty Valance more importantly, starts with John Wayne, the personification of the west, dead, and his town of Shinbone is modernized and civilized. The west is dead, lawlessness is no more, and liberty is
