Two Cents is an original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team will program films and contribute our best, most insightful, or most creative thoughts on each film using a maximum of 200 words each. Guest writers and fan comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future entries to the column. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion.
The Pick
Well howdy Cinapse Pilgrims, thanks fer comin’ in, but ya can’t drink. The bar’s closed!
This week’s selection is one of the all-time great Westerns, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance! The film was helmed by the legendary John Ford doing some of the best work in his career, and starred two genre titans in John Wayne and James Stewart, surrounded by a strong supporting cast of character actors. It’s also the film that made John Wayne synonymous with the term “pilgrim” — he uses it 23 times!
There’s a crux at the film’s core: the Law found in books taking on the Law Of The West; and guns prevail where diplomacy fails. Liberty Valance barrels along with a terrific story, but it’s the heart-breaking conclusion that elevates it to the mantle of what many consider one of Hollywood’s most memorable masterpieces.
Did you get a chance to watch along with us this week? Want to recommend a great (or not so great) film for the whole gang to cover? Comment below or post on our Facebook or hit us up on Twitter!
Next Week’s Pick:
Next week’s pick is one that holds a very special place in our hearts, the 1972 crime classic Across 110th St. If you recall, the Two Cents gang covered Serpico a few weeks back. Well, we just couldn’t get enough of that gritty 1970s New York City. Across 110th St is commonly referred to as a blaxploitation film, but it’s not exploitative. It’s a hard-boiled, high-stakes drama that explores the raw humanity of both cops and robbers. If you’ve seen it, you know how amazing it is. If you haven’t, don’t dare miss it! The film is available to rent on VOD platforms, though if there was ever a movie I’d tell you to just blind buy, well…
Would you like to be a guest in next week’s Two Cents column? Simply watch and send your under-200-word review to twocents(at)cinapse.co!
The Team
Brendan:
John Ford would make movies after The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, but that doesn’t detract from the sense of closure that the film gives to an era, a myth, and a career. Valance is a funeral dirge for a lost American West, with Ford attempting to atone for his own propagation of the myth with an explanation for why we need such fictions.
If history is indeed nothing more than a lie agreed upon, it is in stories that the lies are sweetened to an acceptable degree. Valance is one of the great (GREAT) American films because it places the fictions and illusions upon which our country is founded and places them under the microscope, speaking to both the how and the why that such stories become the accepted text of history.
It’s also wildly entertaining and thrilling, with exceptional performances by James Stewart, John Wayne, Woody Strode and Vera Miles. But it’s that haunted, broken heart at the center of the story which elevates Valance to the upper echelons of the medium. And perhaps Ford’s greatest stroke is never letting the audience off the hook for the film’s lies. You know the truth, and now must live with it.
(@TheTrueBrendanF)
Austin:
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance feels like the definitive statement on the classic western. It’s the distillation of, and possibly the best representation of — the era before the genre was forever changed by Italian and modern influences. Besides the towering presence of The Duke and James Stewart as the town’s well-educated crusader, the amazing and eclectic supporting cast reads like a hand-picked selection of the best of both the western genre and some of Ford’s regulars: Vera Miles, Lee Marvin, Andy Devine, Woody Strode, John Qualen, and even John Carradine and Lee Van Cleef. The characters in this film have so much life and energy, and even minor townspeople are often memorable.
The film’s poignant conclusion is emotionally gripping, playing like a slightly more modern take on Dickens’ A Tale Of Two Cities. There’s a point where, for me at least, you can see what’s coming next and it’s not pretty — and then it plays out exactly the way you hope it won’t, and is right in doing so. (@VforVashaw)
Liam:
I just cannot get down with John Wayne. I tried coming up with some insightful critique of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and I know it is in there somewhere. I certainly find much of John Ford’s direction too ham-fisted to be tolerable, like the black gentleman talking about the preamble in front of a portrait of Abraham Lincoln. The pure ideology of the film is almost awesome in how ludicrous it is. I could also point out that, for the most part, I prefer my westerns brooding and Italian. Yet, Jimmy Stewart is so charming and the story has some pluses even as it is so frustratingly American. My real issue, the one that made this movie a total burden, is John Wayne. I cringed with every “pilgrim” and I mocked his hat constantly. I hate to admit it, but I really can’t. (@LiamRulz)
Our Guests
Luke Tipton: SPOILER REVIEW.
It’s been about 15 years since the last time I saw this, and John Wayne looms large in my early, formative years as a film lover. So revisiting it brought lots of nostalgia, which is fitting I guess, since nostalgia is something John Ford explores in much of his work. Nostalgia for a misremembered past; the simultaneous mythologizing and deconstruction of The American Frontier. Ford’s best films (and Liberty Valance ranks among his best) deal with the difficult work of bringing civilization to the wilderness; remembering what was lost to make way for that civilization, and what never really existed. What I find most striking about Valance is its dark streak of moral ambiguity. Ranse Stoddard only accomplishes what he sets out to do — bring law and order to the west — not through the power of the law, but by the gun. And even then it’s revealed that this mythology is a lie; that it was John Wayne’s Tom Doniphon who actually pulled the trigger, a knowing act of violence that paradoxically brings law and order. There’s a lot going on philosophically, but under Ford’s direction, it’s never that heavy handed. (@stipton82)
Justin Harlan:
“Cause the point of a gun was the only law that Liberty understood. When it came to shootin’ straight and fast, he was mighty good.”
Seriously, through the entire film, this song played over and over and over in my head. During the brief moments when this song wasn’t on repeat in my head, I couldn’t help but continually think that this is my father’s type of movie. Maybe some of you can relate, but Saturday in my parents’ home were marked by dad doing housework in the morning while we kids watch our cartoons and then he took over the TV to watch the Saturday afternoon westerns. I’m pretty convinced that my father kinda wanted to be John Wayne.
The Western genre isn’t my bag, but as far as Westerns go, this is a great one. It’s hard not to enjoy the great actors in this film. As an adult, the aforementioned nostalgia has led me to enjoy Westerns more than when I was younger, perhaps one day I’ll fully “get” them, but until then, this is one of the films I can go to to bridge that gap. (@thepaintedman)
Filmcat:
Did anybody else get hungry for giant steaks, bacon, and pie while watching the restaurant scene? (Filmcat)
Did you all get a chance to watch along with us? Share your thoughts with us here in the comments or on Twitter or Facebook!