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THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE
1962
Director
John Ford
Starring
James Stewart
John Wayne
Vera Miles
Lee Marvin
Runtime
123 minutes
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“When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” Director John Ford prints it—and prints the facts behind it—and makes a movie about the moral burden of a life lived in the name of a lie and the ethical implications of violent action. THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE is one of the great movies about America.
Ford brings us to the lawless frontier village of Shinbone, a town plagued by larger-than-life nemesis Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin). Jimmy Stewart plays the bungling but charming big-city lawyer determined to rid Shinbone of Valance, who finds that he has an unlikely ally in the form of a rugged, local rancher (John Wayne). The two men also share the same love interest (Vera Miles) and when the final showdown becomes inevitable, one of the two will have to put everything on the line to take down the gunman. There are no easy answers in this twilight western that serves as Ford’s profound summation and reevaluation of his earlier movies, his role as a mythmaker, and the history of the nation.
“Ford's purest and most sustained expression of the familiar themes of the passing of the Old West, the conflict between the untamed wilderness and the cultivated garden, and the power of myth.” - Nigel Floyd
“One of the perfect films, a synthesis of a filmmaker's and a genre's most central concerns, carried out with a human sense of perspective, wistfulness and humor, THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE was the culminating effort of John Ford's triumphant career.” - Ben Sachs
“There’s much to say about it; the simplest is that it’s both the most romantic of Westerns and the greatest American political movie.” - Richard Brody
Ford brings us to the lawless frontier village of Shinbone, a town plagued by larger-than-life nemesis Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin). Jimmy Stewart plays the bungling but charming big-city lawyer determined to rid Shinbone of Valance, who finds that he has an unlikely ally in the form of a rugged, local rancher (John Wayne). The two men also share the same love interest (Vera Miles) and when the final showdown becomes inevitable, one of the two will have to put everything on the line to take down the gunman. There are no easy answers in this twilight western that serves as Ford’s profound summation and reevaluation of his earlier movies, his role as a mythmaker, and the history of the nation.
“Ford's purest and most sustained expression of the familiar themes of the passing of the Old West, the conflict between the untamed wilderness and the cultivated garden, and the power of myth.” - Nigel Floyd
“One of the perfect films, a synthesis of a filmmaker's and a genre's most central concerns, carried out with a human sense of perspective, wistfulness and humor, THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE was the culminating effort of John Ford's triumphant career.” - Ben Sachs
“There’s much to say about it; the simplest is that it’s both the most romantic of Westerns and the greatest American political movie.” - Richard Brody