The Man Who Killed the Western
Written for Introduction to Cinema at Rose State College - Professor Mallard - Spring 2025
It's very fitting that The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (Ford et al.) would be one of John Ford's final movies as director (IMDB). This film would be released to the public just eleven years before Mr. Ford's departure from this life and his forty-five years of directing are seen all throughout (Krebs). The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is chocked full of symbolism, I believe it is a fitting film for our current times and maybe even a masterwork in filmmaking. John Ford has managed to create a true classic western that in my opinion marks the end of the classic western film. Through small deviations from the genre standard and some clever dialogue, this film makes a statement on the western whole western genre. The symbology and storytelling of this movie are completely different than many of the other movies John Wayne has starred in and John Ford has directed.
Within the first few seconds it is obvious The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is meant to be portrayed to you, the viewer, as a western. Paramount Pictures released twelve movies in 1962, seven in color and five in black and white (Paramount Animation Fan Wiki). Color film had been around for a little while with big films like The Wizard of Oz being released in color as early as 1939 . Paramount Pictures had the money to produce more color films than it did black and white films, this wasn't the industry normal until 1967 (Follows). This means it must have been a conscious choice by John Ford and Paramount Pictures to produce The Man Who Shot Liberty Vance in black and white as they would have many western films in the past. Continuing this theme, simple credits on wooden planks and signs nestle us into the western theme and prepare us for the journey to Shinbone, a fictional town somewhere west of 'the east'. John Ford's choices throughout this movie seem so meticulous and well thought out the more you look at them. There are many ways to establish the setting and main characters of a film, and I think this one takes the cake. A simple static shot of a train rolling through the countryside, cut to a man apparently waiting for the train, cut to our final position of this establishing sequence, Shinbone.
When I imagine an early western town, I imagine the law of the land, I imagine nothing but two streets and a saloon. Open to Shinbone and it seems this town is all grown up with a train coming through and a big senator in from Washington. The first fourteen minutes or so of this movie are set in the future where the town of Shinbone is thriving, but we learn this story is going to be set in a different time, a time where things were significantly different. There are many times throughout this film where it feels like the character is breaking the fourth wall and making a statement on the western film genre, this is the first of them. The 1940's saw a resurgence of human rights movements around the world (Herre and Arriagada), and western movies weren't always the most 'politically correct'. Western movies often feature notes of racism and genocide, they uphold societal gender norms, empower a sort of toxic masculinity, the list goes on. "(It was) A lot different then. A lot different before..." Senator Ransom 'Rance' Stoddard declares to us and Mr. Scott the newspaperman. John Ford started his directing career three years before women had the right to vote in the United States. Early western movies played into stereotypes around race, gender and western society in general. Women where often depicted as either a homely girl or a harlot, Native Americans where savages, African Americans were not slaves but still not portrayed the same as whitefolk. The writers, actors, producers and director all want us to know, that was a different time and reality is a bit different now.
After the first fourteen minutes we are almost immediately thrust into chaos. Another scene similar to our opening train ride has us trotting into the thick of the woods by stagecoach. Not long into this scene we're held up, literally and figuratively to meet our antagonist Liberty Valance and our first of many questions, who's going to shoot this man? Ransom Stoddard is robbed of everything he's got, and the seed of our problem has been planted, the lawman against the bandit but not by a battle of guns like your classic western film. The first hour of this film, every scene seems to be set up to show you it's different, it’s the new and improved western. We meet the antihero of the story Tom Doniphon, played exceptionally well by the one and only John Wayne. We learn that Rance has absolutely no interest in dealing with this problem like a cowboy and Tom feels the exact opposite. Tom Doniphon is your stereotypical cowboy; he's a man's man. He likes to drink, he likes to smoke, he likes to shoot guns and ride horses. Tom is boisterous, he's loud, he stands tall and proud, he's the hero.. right? Not anymore America, we solve our problems by voting now. Tom is the symbol of the old wild west, the gun toting, Indian hating, women defiling cowboy that we no longer want to be our hero, it's now the senator’s duty to stand up for the people! Not only is Ransom Stoddard the hero of his own conflict, but he also brings reform to the city of Shinbone and the western genre. It's no longer about the law of the land and the most significant problems now come from within. Instead of Native Americans attacking these towns its disrespectful and rude white bandits, our damsel in distress' biggest issue is that she can’t read or write. Rance presents the dream of something more than the country, more than the cactus rose, "Did you ever see a real rose?".
Ransom Stoddard's reformation of this town comes in many forms, first and foremost ridding the town of that no-good Liberty Valance. While working the system, Rance has the opportunity to do good for Shinbone through education, opening a school to teach about not only reading and writing but law and the government. The cherry on top, when Mr. Carruthers and his son barge into class late, Ransom Stoddard quick as a match, "none of us in here smoke, Mr. Carruthers.". This is a new era. We don't fight, we're educated, we treat each other with respect, and we sure don't smoke cigarettes. This scene inside the classroom is one of the most important scenes in this film, we have a female Swedish immigrant tell us about the importance of voting, followed strikingly by an African American male telling us about the Declaration of Independence, "All men are created equal", Pompey ironically forgets. Finally to cap it off big business cattlemen are doing whatever they want to the small townsfolk, and they've hired Liberty Valance of all people. This moment leads to great juxtaposition between old Western America and new America. This is a new America, with new problems but they have to be solved with old techniques. This to me is the film showing us how different the western can be directly and indirectly, directly through every moment in this classroom and indirectly for every moment after. Ransom Stoddard has broken down and must fight fire with fire, he's got a gun and he's learning how to use it. This is a metaphor for the writing / directing team and their weapon, the film. This movie is being used to show the Western isn't about hating on colored people, it isn't about making women small, it's about the problems people of the times are facing. The old and the new must come together, Tom the old American hero shows Rance how to use a gun, and Rance the new American hero tries to get Tom elected as a delegate. There is this sort of oil and water mix that happens at first, Rance clearly hasn't handled a gun much before and Tom sure doesn't care for talking and voting to solve problems. This mix is quite similar to how the western film was looked at as human rights movements took hold, it just didn’t mix right anymore. There is quite a bit of build up to the moment Liberty Valance is shot, and I want to leave you with the same question I had from the very beginning, who killed Liberty Valance?
It could have been Ransom Stoddard, the lawman, the senator, the protagonist. It could have been Tom Doniphon, the gun tottin', cigarette smokin', rottin' tootin' cowboy, the antihero. Regardless of who shot Liberty Valance the world has changed a lot in sixty-three years, but the message of this movie holds strong. Western movies have always been a visualization of the problems of the people. Native Americans and white westerners had all out wars, and from the perspective of the white man the cowboy was the hero. Your average household idolized the cowboy versus the Indian so much it was a game children played. John Ford, the writers, the producers, the actors, they are all acknowledging that times have changed but the past is real. This film I truly believe puts the classic western genre to bed, our problems have evolved in the same way our technology, our cities, and our society as a whole have. A masterwork in storytelling, decision making and a monument to a generation, I’d highly recommend watching The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance at least twice.
Works Cited
Follows, Stephen. “When Did Colour Films Eclipse Black-and-White Films?” StephenFollows.Com -
Using Data to Explain the Film Industry, StephenFollows.com - Using data to explain the film industry, 18 Mar. 2024, stephenfollows.com/p/when-did-colour-films-eclipse-black-and-white-films.
Herre, Bastian, and Pablo Arriagada. “Human Rights.” Our World in Data, 12 June 2016,
ourworldindata.org/human-rights.
IMDb. “John Ford | Director, Producer, Actor.” IMDb, IMDb.com,
www.imdb.com/name/nm0000406/?ref_=tt_ov_dr_1. Accessed 16 Feb. 2025.
Krebs, Albin. “John Ford, the Movie Director Who Won 5 Oscars, Dies at 78.” The New York Times, 1
Sept. 1973, pp. 1–1, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1973/09/01/issue.html.
“The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.” Paramount Pictures, 1962.
Paramount Animation Fan Wiki. “List of Paramount Pictures Films (1960–1969).” Paramount Animation
Fan Wiki, Fandom, Inc., paramountanimation.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_Paramount_Pictures_films_(1960%E2%80%931969).
Accessed 16 Feb. 2025.
