leeper@mtgzz.UUCP (m.r.leeper) (07/29/85)
One of those strange reinterpretations of a film, but this one is valid it you look at the scene in question carefully: I watched MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE when it was shown on TBS just recently (actually I saw it later in the day via videotape). Something struck me that I never noticed before. Everyone knows that the public thinks that it was Rance Stoddard (James Stewart) who killed Valance, but that it was really Tom Donovan (John Wayne). For the first time, I noticed that Donovan is lying. It was Stoddard who killed Valance. How do I know? A bullet, particularly a rifle bullet, has a fair amount of momentum. Valance has no side to side movement at all. If the bullet that hit him had any impact, it was straight back. Wayne's story was patently impossible. The film still works this way, but Donovan's self-pity when he loses the girl comes off looking very differently. In the end, he is lying nobly to save Stoddard's career, and he succeeds, but the is not the man of the title, Stoddard really is the man who shot Liberty Valance, but nobody who has seen the film ever has mentioned it. Mark Leeper ...ihnp4!mtgzz!leeper
jay@umd5.UUCP (08/01/85)
>One of those strange reinterpretations of a film, but this one is valid >it you look at the scene in question carefully: > >It was Stoddard who killed Valance. >How do I know? A bullet, particularly a rifle bullet, has a fair >amount of momentum. Valance has no side to side movement at all. If >the bullet that hit him had any impact, it was straight back. Wayne's >story was patently impossible. While I think Mark Leeper's point is certainly interesting and makes Wayne's downhill slide take an entirely different slant, I, myself, would never base an interpretation of a film on the body movement of character. I would especially not do so in an older film and, even more especially, not in a shootout sequence where drama is king and reality is fodder for latter day afficianados (like us?) to munch on. John Ford's films are always beautifully composed but his plots and characters are not subtle. Stoddard is shown to have no skill with a gun; Valence is clearly an expert gunslinger. While it is probably not out of character for Wayne to storytell for a noble cause, I don't think Ford intends his flashback narrative to be a lie. This is not Rashomon we have here; this is Hollywood storytelling. We tend to believe the stories we are told in our films and when we see them unfold before our eyes, especially in flashback narratives, we assume they are true unless there is compelling evidence to counteract our assumption. In my mind, the manner in which Lee Marvin takes a dive is not sufficient evidence on which to (re)interpret this film. -- Jay Elvove ..!seismo!rlgvax!cvl!umd5!jay c/o Systems, Computer Science Center, U. of MD.