"There Are No More Guns In The Valley": A Review of Shane

 

In his excellent book Five Came Back, author Mark Harris chronicles the exploits of five famous filmmakers as they work shooting films in the trenches of World War II. One of these directors was George Stevens, who was most famous for his work in light-hearted comedies. It was a genre he’d never return to once he came home from the war. While abroad, Stevens encountered survivors of a concentration camp. Being exposed to the most horrific horrors human beings could create altered his mindset. Stevens no longer wanted to make frothy comedies. If he was going to make any kind of movie, he wanted to make something that reflected the very real consequences of violence.

It’s impossible to detach Stevens’ experiences in World War II with Shane, a Western that departs heavily from standard entries in this genre. Gunslinging cowboys are not figures of bad-assery while violence itself tends to create more problems than it solves. The titular lead, portrayed by Alan Ladd, is a figure wandering the land with no real purpose until he comes onto the property of Joe Starrett (Van Helfin). Starrett lives here with his wife, Marian (Jean Arthur), and Joey (Brandon deWilde), though they’re in a constant battle for their land against Rufus Ryker (Emile Meyer). Shane decides to stick around and help keep things tidy around the Starrett household, though the escalating cruelty of Ryker means it’s only a matter of time before a showdown is to be had.

A. B. Guthrie Jr. and Jack Sher’s screenplay doesn’t just use violence as a go-to signifier for villainy. Detachment is also utilized as an indictor that a human being has lost their way. The worst characters in Shane, like Ryker or his hired hitman Jack Wilson (Walter Jack Palance), don’t care about people. They care about land, they care about power, they care about money, but other human beings? Not so much. It’s the same sort of detachment that underlies any form of prejudice, including the anti-Semitism, racism and homophobia that drove the Nazi regime. Once you fail to see another human being as a person, you don’t have any remorse when you commit acts of cruelty against them.

Detachment is just as dangerous as a flying bullet in the Wild West of Shane. Considering this interpretation, Guthrie Jr. and Sher imbue the climax of Shane with a welcome sense of complexity. The titular character becomes about as far away from detached as you can get as he sets out to confront Ryker on his own so that the Starrett family doesn’t lose Joe. However, in doing so, he must embrace violence. It’s a conceptually noble act that still requires Shane to sacrifice some of his own humanity. To boot, the lingering consequences of this violence means that Shane cannot stick around with the Starrett family in the long-term. Even seemingly heroic deeds come at a cost in the world of Shane.

George Stevens’ direction of Shane’s final showdown and the other brawls throughout Shane emphasize that this movie is trying to take a rawer rather than grandiose approach to violence. We’re not supposed to be excited by people firing guns at each other, we’re supposed to be conscious of the human lives dangling in the balance. This is especially apparent n a fantastically executed sequence where Wilson is prowling around Frank Torrey (Elisha Cook Jr.). Stevens’ restrained camerawork and the slow pace of the scene makes the tension unbearable. You can feel something ominous drawing closer and closer with each footstep  Torrey takes.

Meanwhile, Stevens’ and cinematographer Loyal Griggs lend a luscious look to the homestead of the Starrett family and the surrounding valley. Pools of deep blue water and bright green foliage litter the landscape that the Starrett family and their neighbors call home. It’s a locale so gorgeous looking that you immediately understand why these families would want to fight back against Ryker to keep it. Plus, such a vibrant-looking backdrop is totally unique for the Western genre, which tend to take place in more sparse tableaus with muted color palettes. It’s yet another instance of Shane eschewing conventions of the Western genre to create something quite engaging, particularly in the context of how it reflects George Stevens post-WWII psyche.