Wednesday, December 20, 2006
THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALENCE
Speaking of American movies, the ultimate American type of movie has to be the western. And the ultimate western, to my mind, is THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALENCE, starring John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart and had Lee Marvin as Liberty.
To me, this movie goes to the heart of America, because it's about the boundary between freedom, which is what we were founded on, and law which keeps us living in a civilized way.
A small town is terrorized by a bad guy named, not by accident, "Liberty Valence." He's what you get when somebody thinks that freedom is when they can do whatever they want without constraint. Kill and rob and probably other things that couldn't be named in a film of that era.
He's Liberty, but actually out of balance, not in Valence.
Tom, John Wayne, is the movie's "natural man." He wants freedom freedom from law and government just as much as Liberty, but is naturally good. He'll do whatever he wants or needs, but doesn't hurt other people unnecessarily. Like Liberty, he lives by the gun.
Enter Jimmy Stewart, the man who carried a law book instead of gun, determined to bring law n order to the wild west. He's just as much a threat to Tom's way of life as to Liberty's.
If you listen to the song, it's good at conveying the theme of the movie as well. In that sense, it's a terrific theme song for a movie because it encapsulates the movie in its lyrics, though without giving away the "secret" about who was actually the man who shot Liberty Valence.
To me, this movie goes to the heart of America, because it's about the boundary between freedom, which is what we were founded on, and law which keeps us living in a civilized way.
A small town is terrorized by a bad guy named, not by accident, "Liberty Valence." He's what you get when somebody thinks that freedom is when they can do whatever they want without constraint. Kill and rob and probably other things that couldn't be named in a film of that era.
He's Liberty, but actually out of balance, not in Valence.
Tom, John Wayne, is the movie's "natural man." He wants freedom freedom from law and government just as much as Liberty, but is naturally good. He'll do whatever he wants or needs, but doesn't hurt other people unnecessarily. Like Liberty, he lives by the gun.
Enter Jimmy Stewart, the man who carried a law book instead of gun, determined to bring law n order to the wild west. He's just as much a threat to Tom's way of life as to Liberty's.
If you listen to the song, it's good at conveying the theme of the movie as well. In that sense, it's a terrific theme song for a movie because it encapsulates the movie in its lyrics, though without giving away the "secret" about who was actually the man who shot Liberty Valence.
