At the end of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Senator Ransom Stoddard, played by Jimmy Stewart, is told the golden rule about the Wild West:
“This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
In the fictional world of the film that quote means that the public’s image of Stoddard would be shaken if they ever learned that his career was built on a lie.
Stoddard is heralded as the hero from the East who tamed the harsh West with books.
As an idealistic young lawyer, Stoddard brought the promise of education and bloodless law and order to the town of Shinbone. He was a man of honor and was bound to the sacred laws he preached. It was only when pushed into self-defense that he slew a ruthless criminal.
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| It’s ironic ‘cause his name’s Liberty… |
In truth, Stoddard was painfully naïve. True he tried to teach the people who were willing to listen, but in the end he was terrorized to the point of giving up. His showdown with the heartless Liberty Valance was less of a heroic last resort and more of a death wish.
Valance had so brutally shattered his faith in law and order that Stoddard accepted a duel fully expecting to die. Much to his surprise, Stoddard walked away victorious, but the man who really shot Liberty Valance was John Wayne’s Tom Doniphon, a heartbroken cowboy whose love had been stolen by a daydreaming lawyer.
The film is full of cartoonish Western clichés.
John Wayne swaggers around saying “Pilgrim” so much that it becomes the commas and periods in his sentences. Lee Marvin is the bad guy that every Western send-up models its villain after. The yellow-bellied sheriff. The sombrero wearing Mexicans who are always near by with guitars and tequila in hand. It was all here and it was all turned up to eleven.
The town of Shinbone was the goofy Western world I always had in my head, but here it all feels intentional.
It’s almost too stereotypical and by the time its over I realize that Stoddard is to the Wild West as Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon were to 50s sitcom suburbia in Pleasantville. Only instead of a feel-good message about being true to yourself and living outside of the world’s black and white expectations, this was more of a somber look at the ugly truths that myths sweep under the rug.
John Ford frequently showed us a West that was much more complicated than the myths it created and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is no exception. Just like Stoddard’s story, the truth of the American West is written in blood and guilt, and that’s not always a truth that an audience wants to hear. Ford knew this and always found a way to address the truth of our nation’s past while still delivering the spectacle and the romance of its legend.
Whether we know it or not—or know it and choose to ignore it—Ford’s movies challenge how we think about the West.
