Thoughts on Shane (1953)
Alan Ladd is not much of an intimidating screen presence, and this is a large part of what makes Shane’s title character such a relatable hero. However, the film’s thematic concerns extend beyond the good-guy bad-guy archetypes that have come to define the Western genre. Here is a film that examines defiance from multiple angles, in all its morally gray ramifications. It has an innocent quality: Stevens’ deliberately has the story and action unfold through the perspective of a young boy. This boy, Joey, can only superficially identify the men and situations in his presence; he sees people as either good or bad, and things as either right or wrong. His innocence allows Shane to play with tropes of its own genre, and present itself on the surface as a typical crowd-pleaser.
This narrative device is deceptive, however; in a few moments that escape the eyes of young Joey, Stevens’ reveals to us a much crueler, grayer, more unforgiving world. There is a scene in which Jack Wilson, the film’s villainous contrast to Shane, provokes Torrey, a short- tempered homesteader, into a duel that ends in his essentially meaningless death. Stevens’ keeps the camera at a distance throughout the scene, heightening the distant coldness of Wilson and his murder. There is also a speech given to Joe, the little boy’s father, by Rufus Ryker, the head cattle baron, in which he expresses the tremendous amount of suffering he and his men had endured in the past to get to where they are, making his character more empathetic—if not quite sympathetic —than he initially seems to be.
The irony of the film, however, is that Shane is not so different from Wilson: he is just as reserved and mysterious, at least to the young Joey, and it is his inherent goodness and bravery in the face of the ruthless cattle barons that renders him heroic. Joey may not understand the world around him the way Shane and his father do, but at least in Shane, he is given an invaluable example of both personal and public defiance; defiance in the midst of the cruel and the merciless, defiance despite an attraction to another man’s wife, and defiance in spite of a desire to live somewhere theoretically utopian but realistically troublesome. Shane understands Joey, even if Joey doesn’t yet, and more importantly, he understands himself, even if nobody else does.
This narrative device is deceptive, however; in a few moments that escape the eyes of young Joey, Stevens’ reveals to us a much crueler, grayer, more unforgiving world. There is a scene in which Jack Wilson, the film’s villainous contrast to Shane, provokes Torrey, a short- tempered homesteader, into a duel that ends in his essentially meaningless death. Stevens’ keeps the camera at a distance throughout the scene, heightening the distant coldness of Wilson and his murder. There is also a speech given to Joe, the little boy’s father, by Rufus Ryker, the head cattle baron, in which he expresses the tremendous amount of suffering he and his men had endured in the past to get to where they are, making his character more empathetic—if not quite sympathetic —than he initially seems to be.
The irony of the film, however, is that Shane is not so different from Wilson: he is just as reserved and mysterious, at least to the young Joey, and it is his inherent goodness and bravery in the face of the ruthless cattle barons that renders him heroic. Joey may not understand the world around him the way Shane and his father do, but at least in Shane, he is given an invaluable example of both personal and public defiance; defiance in the midst of the cruel and the merciless, defiance despite an attraction to another man’s wife, and defiance in spite of a desire to live somewhere theoretically utopian but realistically troublesome. Shane understands Joey, even if Joey doesn’t yet, and more importantly, he understands himself, even if nobody else does.