The Law Emerges from Violence

Abstract

Abstract The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance tells the familiar story of the struggle in the American West between naked physical violence and the rule of law. It appears that law wins when the thuggish Valance is bested in a shootout by the bookish Rance Stoddard, who then goes on to be the Governor and Senator of a state he helps civilize. But a flashback scene (within a flashback scene) reveals that the fight was not fair and was orchestrated from the shadows by a hidden gunman. The triumph of law and order has been effected by the very force law is designed to blunt. Civilization rests on a bedrock not of principle but of cold-blooded murder. High Noon presents a vision of the law housed not in an institution but in the breast of a single, heroically unheroic man who stands his ground independently of any official obligation to do so. At the moment of crisis, he is deserted by everyone—including, for a time, his new wife—and must rely only on his determination to be the man that he is, with or without a badge.