The film begins years later with Stoddard returning to the town of Shinbone with his wife Hallie (Vera Miles) to attend the funeral of their friend, Tom Doniphon, played by John Wayne. Their visit catches the attention of the local newspapermen, who eagerly ask the aging statesman for an interview. Stoddard consents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
What follows is the story of Stoddard\u2019s arrival in town as a poor, ambitious young attorney. A violent encounter with Valance reveals to Stoddard, an Easterner, the lawlessness of the West. He soon meets Doniphon and shares his plan to set up a law office and arrest Valance. While Doniphon, the only man Valance fears, admires Stoddard\u2019s intellect, he suggests he buy a gun instead. Stoddard opts to hang up his law sign, form a school, and teach the townspeople how to read. His logic is simple: an educated public is more likely to back the law and hold the fascistic Valance accountable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ford\u2019s friend and contemporary, Howard Hawks, offered<\/a> a broad yet useful binary for the Western genre: films of the lawless frontier and films that take place after the onset of law and order. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance <\/em>transcends this dichotomy, beginning in the latter and then flashing back to the former. When Stoddard places his hand on Doniphon\u2019s coffin, one feels a deep sense of history, both between the two men and the periods of the West they each embodied. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Ford\u2019s film may sound a bit nationalistic, a chest-thumping idealization of American democracy. And sure, there is some of that. But a few subversive moments undermine the country\u2019s foundational myths. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In one of the film\u2019s best scenes, for example, Stoddard leads a lesson on the country\u2019s founding documents. Pompey (Woody Strode) volunteers to discuss the Declaration of Independence with the class. Stoddard asks him to recite the beginning from memory, the \u201cWe hold these truths to be self-evident \u2026\u201d part. At first, Pompey hesitates before slowly reciting the words. After a long pause, Stoddard chimes in with the rest: \u201cthat all men are created equal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the end of their exchange, Pompey assures Stoddard that he just momentarily forgot. But did Pompey, who is Black, actually forget the words? Or did he pause to question whether such an obvious lie could, in fact, be the opening of such a revered document? We are not sure. But in Pompey\u2019s pause, Ford leaves just enough room for us to wonder and reflect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is not to say that Ford\u2019s films are anti-racist, progressive bastions. (The opposite is often true.) Yet Ford\u2019s work, particularly in his later years, often deconstructed American mythmaking, and the inclusion of the scene with Pompey, one that is otherwise not germane to the plot, pokes a clear hole in the histories we so often have jammed down our throats, even by well-intentioned people like Stoddard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Valance works as a mercenary for the territory\u2019s wealthy ranchers, who are actively opposed to statehood. As Stoddard\u2019s influence in the town grows, the people and their local newspaper, led by the fearless Dutton Peabody (Edmond O\u2019Brien), feel empowered to make their voices heard. As the seeds of democracy begin to grow, one sees the populist vein that runs through much of Ford\u2019s work come to a head. <\/p>\n\n\n\n After a particularly violent night, Stoddard, in a rage, picks up a gun and confronts Valance. Two shots ring out and the villain drops dead. Stoddard becomes a folk hero. Later, Peabody puts forward Stoddard\u2019s name at a political convention to represent the territory in Washington as part of their fight for statehood. Disgusted by the reasons for his fame, Stoddard storms out of the convention hall. Doniphon corners him and shares the truth: he, not Stoddard, killed Valance. At Doniphon\u2019s insistence, Stoddard accepts the nomination and the rest is history. We then return to the present, where Stoddard finishes telling the newspapermen of Doniphon\u2019s heroics. Instead of printing the story, the editor tears it up. \u201cThis is the West, sir,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen the legend becomes fact, print the legend.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance <\/em>offers the nuanced view that sometimes myths are worth perpetuating. As Stoddard leaves the state via train, we think of Doniphon, a blue collar rancher, and his sacrifice. Without the lie, there may never have been a Senator Stoddard, or a state, or a railroad. The populace may well have been worse off and left the victims of the greedy ranchers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Watching Ford\u2019s film sixty years later, one cannot help but admire the intellectual honesty that is absent from so much of contemporary life. In today\u2019s culture wars, one side remains willingly ignorant of history, as right-wing figures view questioning the country\u2019s so-called \u201cfounders\u201d as sacrilegious. Books that tell alternative, more just histories are regularly banned<\/a> from schools; elected officials are more concerned with protecting statues of racist traitors than improving the lives of those who pass them each day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As Stoddard would say, education is key to a freer, fairer society. Ford\u2019s film offers a useful lesson: Acknowledging the existence of myths is not a weakness. And if we all paused, like Pompey, to separate the good myths from the bad, we may be all the better for it. “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” is available for digital rental or purchase.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/liberty2-1024x753.jpg\")
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