Why We Tell Stories? Part 2: Nostalgia & Violence

My favorite of Ford’s Westerns, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, married the topics of nostalgia and violence. It was one of his most bitter-sweet films, and worth the watch.  

In this film, released in 1962, our protagonist, Ransom Stoddard (played by Jimmy Stewart) and his wife, Hallie, returned to the town of Shinbone for a friend’s funeral. The man was Tom Doniphan (played by John Wayne) and the ideal western hero. Stoddard came to Shinbone years prior, hoping to set up a law practice on the frontier and bring justice and order with him. An outlaw named Liberty Valance terrorized this town. Ford teased at a traditional gun toting hero in Tom Doniphan. He would defend himself, but not the town. Yet, our unlikely hero, Ransom Stoddard, desperately wished to free the townspeople from Valance’s tyranny, but had only his books to protect him.

In the opening scene, Valance robbed the stagecoach with the young idealistic Stoddard on board. The bandits tossed Stoddard’s law books into the dirt, displaying their own contempt for what Stoddard symbolized. This scene set the tone and set up the major conflict of the film: the battle between order and chaos, and between civilization and lawlessness. The stakes were clear. Will they gain statehood or continued as the lawless frontier? Will it be law or violence that rules the West?

Ford preferred to film in the great outdoors. The mountains and vista were his canvas. He shot westerns such as Fort Apache, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, and The Searchers on the natural stage.

Against Ford’s wishes, the studio filmed The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance in a Hollywood back lot. Hollywood was changing. The world was changing in the 1960s. Change reminds us that nothing will ever be as it was. Times will never be as good again. This is the dark side of nostalgia. Ford traded the splendor of nature for a carboard box.

Monument Valley symbolized the freedom and possibilities of the American frontier. In filming Liberty Valance, Ford turned the black and white medium to convey a different nostalgia: one that is bittersweet. The world changes and advances. The past must die to bring that change. The black and white medium effectively communicated a sense of melancholy, depicting the setting and characters as small and confined.

Tom Doniphan embodied this melancholy of a passing age. Doniphan never truly joined society, choosing to live outside of town and only coming in to eat at the local diner and flirt with the waitress. There was no place or connections for him there. He t did not belong in civilization.

Stoddard brings education, laws, and a printing press. There was talk of trading in the lawless frontier for statehood. The town preferred Stoddard and modernity over Doniphan and his gun-slinging ways.

When faced with bandits—Valance and his gang—but, only Doniphan could defeat the outlaw. But, instead of a high noon face off in full view of the town’s folk, Doniphan acted from the shadows. He gave Stoddard full credit as the man who shot Liberty Valance, spawning the famous saying “print the legend.” Tell the version of history that provided the desired outcome. Stoddard appeared to both play by the rules of the Wild West to bring an end to its lawlessness. He rescued Shinbone and the territory, building the world he desired—a place of laws, newspapers, and peace. The audience alone knew it was false.

The country had moved beyond the Old West. Modernity had won out. The sense of unobtainable or obsolete ideal created the most powerful form of nostalgia. The cowboy and gunslinger, the pioneer and noble native, the calvary men and gold miner gave way to a new breed of Westerns after 1965. Westerns to follow would focus on the latter theme: the dark nostalgia and the melancholy of the loss of an age. The cowboy no longer was the shining hero, saving the day against the black hats. The pioneer would no longer be the icon of perseverance and endurance, but a victim of a harsh environment and in a hostile land.

Eventually, we will discuss the later themes and genre evolution. We will examine films such as The Shootist, 3:10 to Yuma, and various Clint Eastwood films like The Unforgiven to delve deeper into the idea of dark nostalgia.