The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

In Sue Matheson’s article The West-Hardboiled: Adaptations of Film Noir Elements, Existentialism, and Ethics in John Wayne’s Westerns, the author discusses the characteristics and ethics that exist in John Wayne’s Western films. She says that “in noir films, the world is ultimately corrupt and corrupting. Thus, decent, normally law-abiding citizens tend to find themselves enmeshed in situations that require them to become criminals” (Matheson 896). This could not be any truer of director John Ford’s film, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. In the film, we have the two alpha cowboys, Liberty Valance and Tom Doniphon. Liberty Valance is one who is feared by all of the citizens of Shinbone, and Tom Doniphon is the one man who stands up to him time and again. However, he does so in a way that would make him just as much a criminal as Valance. This is because, according to Matheson, “both men settle their problems in the same fashion. In Shinbone, the individual does not enforce the law; he is the law” (Matheson 896). Despite their similarities in this regard, they are different in many other ways. Valance is a character who deserves to be feared by the citizens of Shinbone because “’he’s a no good gun-packing murdering thief’”(Matheson 896). He walks around the town without showing a hint of emotion when he causes a disruption; in fact, if anything, he seems to enjoy the trouble he causes others. Doniphon, on the other hand, does not possess all of the negative characteristics that we see in Valance. Though Matheson believes Tom “is callous, remorseless, and manipulative,” I have to disagree with this statement (Matheson 896-897). He shows that he is a decent character when he allows Ransom Stoddard, an attorney general who is nothing like the two alpha cowboys in the film, to be with Hallie, the woman Doniphon is in love with. Also, even though Doniphon kills Liberty Valance at the end of the film, he lets the people of Shinbone believe Ransom did it so Ransom can bring order to the West instead of living in an uncivilized community. That is Ransom’s main concern when he first arrives in Shinbone. When Tom advises him to carry around a handgun if he wants to deal with Liberty Valance, he can’t bring himself to do it. Throughout the majority of the film he protests and disagrees with the way the Westerners live in fear of another man. However, by the end of the film, he realizes he “has to settle his problem with Valance like ‘a man.’ In doing do, like Valance, he places himself outside the law” (Matheson 896). Despite these statements, it is obvious that Doniphon and Ransom Stoddard are good characters and act in good faith. When Liberty Valance is shot and people believe it was Stoddard who shot him, he brings a new perspective on the law and sets out to change the corrupt Western law he first encountered. By nearly breaking the law he believes in, ironically, he brings law to Shinbone.