This blog post focuses on John Ford’s directorial strategies and the depth of his work, which elevated the Western from mere action spectacle to a space for reflection on humanity, society, and history. It explores the film’s symbols and meanings through a humanistic lens.
Director John Ford is highly regarded for elevating the Western film genre from mere stress-relieving action to one possessing humanistic depth. Among his works, the 1962 film “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” stands out particularly.
The film opens with Senator Lance recalling his past. Having just passed the bar exam in the East, Lance is traveling west by stagecoach when he is ambushed and severely wounded by the outlaw Liberty Valance and his gang. He is saved by Tom and his lover Hallie and ends up staying in the town of Sinbon. The townspeople dare not resist Liberty, who occasionally appears to terrorize the village, and the town sheriff is nothing more than a coward who trembles before Liberty. An intellectual named Pibody attempts to spread modern ideals through a newspaper called the ‘Sinbon Star,’ but feels only helplessness because most residents are illiterate. The only person Liberty fears is Tom, who is stronger and a better shot than him.
Lance, unable to stand by and watch this situation, opens a night school to teach people to read and write. Simultaneously, he establishes a law office to attempt to prosecute Liberty legally. Watching this, Tom scoffs, saying the only thing that can defeat Liberty is a gun. Then, when Liberty’s gang commits the attempted murder of Peabody, Lance too realizes the impotence of the law. Ultimately, he shoots Liberty dead in a duel. Because of this incident, Lance becomes known as ‘the man who shot Liberty Valance’.
Soon, the Senate election campaign begins in the West, and Lance runs as a candidate. However, plagued by guilt for violating his principles by using a gun, he intends to withdraw his candidacy. At this moment, Tom appears and confesses that he was the one who secretly shot Liberty. As he reveals the secret, Tom sneers, “You think too much and talk too much.” Yet, watching Lance’s retreating figure enter the campaign rally, he sadly accepts that the time has come when he can do nothing. Lance ultimately wins the election. And Halle, who loved Tom but also loved Lance, marries Lance.
This film is set against the backdrop of America’s historical transition from an era of fists and pistols to one where reason and law were just beginning to take hold. The work evokes the cultural philosopher Vico. Vico distinguishes the modern stage, where legal institutions as rational and objective entities realize justice, as the ‘Age of Man,’ and the barbaric stage, where individual emotion and physical force were the final arbiter, as the ‘Age of Heroes.’
Of course, there is no evidence that Ford actually read Vico’s works, but the two ‘men’ in the film correspond precisely to the two types of eras Vico contrasted. That is, Tom and Lance represent figures from an era beginning to fade into history’s background and an era newly dawning, respectively. The pistol Tom wears at his waist and the law code Lance carries symbolically reveal this. This contrasting imagery is also clearly evident in the rose Lance nurtures by drawing water and the rugged desert cactus Tom shows affection for.
What is particularly noteworthy in this work, however, is director Ford’s strategy of indirectly revealing his ambivalent orientation by weaving these two conflicting values into a single artistic device. This is confirmed by Ford’s own projection onto the characters, but is most starkly revealed in the fact that the title itself simultaneously refers to both figures.
By drastically restraining its dynamic scene direction, this film demands a higher level of appreciation from the audience than conventional Westerns. In other words, the artistic images within the film are no longer objects to be consumed sensually; they are a kind of transformed image, containing deep content that cannot be deciphered through superficial approaches alone. Artistic works demand intellectual cultivation not only in their production but also in their reception; they are not exhausted at the level of simple sensory pleasure or displeasure. Moreover, in works regarded as masterpieces, the artist’s deep consciousness, ideas, values, worldview, and even their reflections on the very identity of art itself are often cleverly concealed within artistic devices. Without this prior understanding, such works inevitably remain enigmas. In short, a great artistic image is not merely something to be ‘seen’ with the physical eye, but a kind of text that must be ‘read’ with the mind’s eye.
