The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
starring James Stewart, John Wayne
Director: John Ford

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"When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." That's more than the code of a newspaperman in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance; it's practically the operating credo of director John Ford, the most honored of American filmmakers. In this late film from a long career, Ford looks at the civilizing of an Old West town, Shinbone, through the sad memories of settlers looking back. In the town's wide-open youth, two-fisted Westerner John Wayne and tenderfoot newcomer James Stewart clash over a woman (Vera Miles) but ultimately unite against the notorious outlaw Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin). Ford's nostalgia for the past is tempered by his stark approach, unusual for the visual poet of Stagecoach and The Searchers. The two heavyweights, Wayne and Stewart, are good together, with Wayne the embodiment of rugged individualism and Stewart the idealistic prophet of the civilization that will eventually tame the Wild West. This may be the saddest Western ever made, closer to an elegy than an action movie, and as cleanly beautiful as its central symbol, the cactus rose.
Video Description
Ford's swan song for the conventional frontier western, told in a moody, stagebound chiaroscuro flashback that answers the prototypical Death Valley panorama of his classical frontier films and posits the demise of the gunfighter-hero. Ransom Stoddard, a budding populist law school graduate from the East, tries to bring peace to the burgeoning town of Shinbone, which suffers under the tyranny of the ruthless titular villain. Although he's a scrawny tenderfoot and inept with a gun, Stoddard wins a place in the community by teaching "book learning" to the determined settlers. When his pacifist liberalism proves ineffective, Stoddard agrees to a showdown with Valance.

 

 

 

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