The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

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‘The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance’ is both optimistic and pessimistic. It is unsatisfactory to call the film plain optimistic, which it was in the middle of the movie, as the beginning but more so the end was pessimistic. The middle of the film was optimistic because it showed the joyous personalities of the people and about ten minutes from the end of Ransom Stoddard’s flashback, film reached it’s climax when Liberty Valance was killed. On the pessimistic side of the film however, is what has become of Shinbone after Liberty’s death. When Liberty died, so too did every body living his way, which included the film’s unsung hero, Tom Doniphon. When Stoddard came back to Shinbone, the town was definitely less lively, due to modern inventions such as the telegraph, the steam trains and possibly the telephone. This is the cost that Shinbone had to pay for modernizing – liveliness.
The movie came down to liberty and violence verses law, order and freedom of speech, in which the latter prevailed, the latter being Ransom Stoddard. The sad thing was that with Liberty’s death died those living under the law that he lived, too. A prime example of this was Tom Doniphon. He was well respected mainly for his powerful presence and his ability not to be manipulated by anyone including Liberty Valance. However, when Senator Stoddard came back for Doniphon’s funeral, no one knew who Doniphon was. He died with Liberty. The even sadder thing was that he killed h...

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