John Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

Standing at the end of a long line of John Ford Westerns and at the twilight of the genre’s Golden Age, 1962’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is a self-reflective work, as much about the Western genre as a product of it. Thus, while this film, like other Westerns examined in this book, demonstrates important connections to Homer’s epics, it finds its most pervasive parallels with the post-Homeric tradition. As in Virgil’s Aeneid, John Wayne’s Tom Doniphan sacrifices his personal desires in the interest of national progress, exhibiting a Western version of Aeneas’ pietas, while Liberty Valance fills the role of Turnus, demonstrating Achillean traits, but in a negative light. Yet the film also has a close kinship with Greek tragedy: in particular, through its preoccupation with generational tensions along with issues of knowledge and identity intertwined with themes of murder, marriage, and reputation, it recalls Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus, with James Stewart’s Ransom Stoddard functioning as a decidedly un-epic Oedipus figure forced to confront his own failures. Like both Virgil and Sophocles before him, Ford offers a complex commentary on nation-building, simultaneously sentimental and critical, holding America’s glorious civic identity up for scrutiny and encouraging self-knowledge over blind mythologizing.

John Ford’s The Searchers1

John Ford’s 1956 The Searchers has attracted more scholarly attention than any other Western, including that of receptions scholars who have noted its kinship with Homeric epic. This chapter enlarges on the most important of these arguments – Martin Winkler’s study of John Wayne’s Ethan Edwards as an Achilles figure and the author’s own analysis of the film as an Odyssean journey – recognizing the psychological identification between protagonist and enemy-as-alter-ego long noted by Western scholars as an important parallel with the dynamic found in ancient epic and expanding on the importance of women’s sexual fidelity to male honor and identity. This chapter then brings the Aeneid into the conversation, demonstrating that like Virgil’s epic, The Searchers is a self-questioning, multi-layered reflection on heroic achievement, offering a problematic hero and extolling the glories of empire while acknowledging the sacrifices inherent in its establishment. Finally, this chapter considers this film as a commentary on racial and Cold War tensions in 1950s America, reflecting on how this fits in with the larger comparison with ancient epic.

George Stevens’s Shane

Though a staple of the Western canon, George Stevens’s 1953 Shane has been criticized for its self-conscious mythologizing. Perhaps because of this mythic framing, Shane’s connections to the epic tradition are pervasive. This chapter begins by examining the overlapping concern in both with the guest-host relationship, constructions of male honor, and property rights as they relate to masculine identity. Turning next to the Iliad, this chapter expands on Carl Rubino’s examination of Shane as an Achilles figure by looking at the complicated psychological identification between hero, companion, and enemy present in both works. Next, Shane is connected to Homer’s Odyssey in its focus on a hero torn between lust for action and longing for home, its concern with a boy’s coming-of-age, and its anxiety about women’s sexual integrity. Finally, this chapter examines Shane’s close kinship with Virgil’s Aeneid through their focus on nation-building, with each including a significant acknowledgement of the antagonist’s perspective, in effect calling the justice of the hero’s cause into question, along with related notions of divine impetus and Manifest Destiny.

Howard Hawks’s Red River

As the film that introduced a new psychological complexity to the genre while establishing John Wayne as a serious actor rather than merely a star, Howard Hawks’s 1948 Red River is often considered the first Golden Age Western. After brief discussion of its literary roots and the circumstances surrounding its production, release, and reception, this chapter connects this film to the broader epic tradition before turning to specific parallels with the three canonical Greco-Roman epics, first, arguing that much like Homer’s Iliad, Red River positions Wayne’s Tom Dunson as an Achilles figure – a man consumed by deadly rage provoked by a slight to his honor. Next, expanding on Gerald Mast’s identification of the film as an Odyssey, this chapter shows that in both works, a morally ambiguous hero embarks upon a quest to preserve his home, and in both, the father-son relationship is central, along with related issues of succession, status, authority, and identity. Finally, Red River’s kinship with Virgil’s Aeneid is discussed: both highlight the painful sacrifices inherent in the heroic work of nation-building – difficulties symbolized in both cases by the sacrifice of women and the hero’s compromised humanity – emphasizing the cost of empire even while promoting its glories.

Fred Zinnemann’s High Noon

This chapter focuses on what is often considered the paradigmatic Western, Fred Zinnemann’s 1952 High Noon, beginning with its complicated reception, its varied allegorical readings, its political uses, and its profound influence. The discussion then turns to parallels with Homer’s Iliad: in both, the hero’s initial faith in the justice of the social system gives way to radical isolation when the men who should provide the backbone of this system fail them, and in both, the final showdown functions as a psychological confrontation as much as a physical one. Next, like Homer’s Odyssey, High Noon centers on the threat the hero’s wife poses to his identity through her uncertain fidelity; in the end, however, her loyalty is confirmed, thereby validating masculine goals and values. Finally, like the protagonist of Virgil’s Aeneid, Gary Cooper’s Will Kane is a reluctant hero compelled to defend the community; though both are temporarily distracted by personal desires, they are ultimately moved to resume the heroic mantle by a strong sense of duty anchored to notions of a higher purpose. And like the Aeneid, High Noon is shown to contain a de-mythologizing strain that complicates national identity even as it celebrates it.

Introduction: Western Film and the Epic Tradition

Drawing on a wide range of cinematic productions spanning from The Virginian in 1929 to Golden Age and spaghetti westerns to recent popular TV series like Deadwood and Longmire, this chapter establishes the close connection between Western film and ancient epic, showing that like the poems of Homer and Virgil, Western film places invented or fictionalized characters in a foundational period from history, and thus offer enough truth to be relevant, but enough fiction to provide a comfortable distance. Works from both genres also delineate fundamental values and beliefs and provide models both virtuous and cautionary for male and female behavior while helping to justify national self-image. At the same time, the best productions from both genres complicate the ideologies they promote through devices such as depictions of excessive violence, positioning protagonist and enemy as alter egos, and the hero’s ultimate exclusion from the society he has redeemed. And much as epic both reflected and influenced notions of honor, justice, and manhood in antiquity, the imprint of Westerns on our own belief systems is so powerful that it continues to shape and reflect our own values and ideologies today.

Conclusion

This short conclusion reiterates the main thesis of Cowboy Classics: that Westerns help us grapple with identity issues in a culturally relevant way while providing the comfort of chronological distancing, much as Homer and Virgil’s epics did for their societies. As a result, the Western has proven remarkably resilient, with the past decade seeing a number of big-budget films, both originals and remakes, as well as successful TV series. And just as the characterization of epic heroes shaped notions of idealized masculinity in antiquity, the Western hero remains a pervasive model for ideal manhood in America more generally, as is evident both in other film genres – from science fiction and fantasy to detective and gangster films to post-apocalyptic narratives – and in real world scenarios where men are engaged in heroic action on behalf of society (or want to be seen as such). Indeed, the model of masculinity Westerns provide is so deeply ingrained in the American cultural consciousness that it in turn colors our reception of ancient epic, which is itself now often filtered through a “Western” lens.

Prologue

This prologue to Cowboy Classics overviews the growing interest in classical receptions: the study of how the classical world has been represented since antiquity, guided by the belief that these examinations can enhance the understanding of both the receiving society and the ancient one. After distinguishing classical receptions from the earlier classical tradition movement, which focuses on influence rather than dialogue, this chapter acknowledges objections to receptions studies from scholars both outside and within the field of classics, including the particular problem of comparing classical works with modern film – collaboratively-produced visual works often considered lowbrow compared to the elite literary texts of antiquity. Drawing on the work of filmmakers, teachers, and receptions scholars, this prologue argues for cinematic productions as legitimate visual texts of comparative value not only pedagogically, but also culturally, in that mainstream film, like classical epic, embeds its culture’s most closely held assumptions and worldviews. Finally, this prologue considers the specific problem of receptions studies like the one undertaken in this book – those with no evident direct connection to antiquity – arguing that these allow more focus on meaning rather than influence while bringing past works into present relevance rather than vice versa.