Winds of Change.NET: Heroes in Hollywood

July 11, 2008

Heroes in Hollywood

by Grim at July 11, 2008 4:03 AM

James Bowman has penned a confused critique of Hollywood that nevertheless contains a large kernel of truth: Hollywood has largely quit portraying American heroism in its traditional fashion.

American movies have forgotten how to portray heroism, while a large part of their disappearing audience still wants to see celluloid heroes. I mean real heroes, unqualified heroes, not those who have dominated American cinema over the past 30 years and who can be classified as one of three types: the whistle-blower hero, the victim hero, and the cartoon or superhero. The heroes of most of last year’s flopperoos belonged to one of the first two types, although, according to Scott, the only one that made any money, “The Kingdom,” starred “a team of superheroes” on the loose in Saudi Arabia.

The confusion he experiences arises later in the piece, and seems to have two causes. First, he wants to say that Hollywood has changed recently, but finds roots for all the problems he cites going back through the 1930s, and especially in the postwar. This problem is easy to dispose of: it used to be that Hollywood could explore both genuine heroism and these other models; but now, it rarely attempts genuine heroism.

The second problem is larger, and odd given his profession. He misunderstands at least two critical examples: one that he uses at length, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and one he fails to cite where it is most necessary, Open Range.

Open Range is something I cited in a piece on this topic in 2005.

In some respects, Open Range is almost a reversal of High Noon: the entire town comes out with rifles, unasked, to defend strangers they really aren't sure about; and in the end, the ability of one of those strangers to do violence for justice is enough to win him a place in their hearts. Where Gary Cooper left in disgust, Kevin Costner found a home and the respect of a people.

In the context of Bowman's piece, Open Range is even more important. Boss Spearman, played by Robert Duvall, is exactly a hero of the type he says that Hollywood doesn't do anymore:

But it is “3:10 to Yuma” that offers the most interesting contrast between the old-fashioned sort of Western and the new breed. It was a remake of a movie first made in 1957, directed by Delmer Daves and starring Glenn Ford and Van Heflin. Like so many other Westerns of the period, it was a parable of the heroism of the ordinary people who brought civilization, peace, and prosperity to the Wild West. Heflin’s character, Dan Evans, is a simple farmer in danger of losing his farm to drought who, for the $200 it would take to pay the mortgage, accepts the task of escorting Ford’s Ben Wade, a dangerous killer, to catch the eponymous train to trial. At a moment when it looks as if he is sure to die in the attempt, Evans explains to his wife that he is no longer escorting the prisoner for the money but as a civic duty. “The town drunk gave his life because he thought people should be able to live in peace and decency together,” he said. “Can I do less?” Needless to say, there is no comparable line in the remake.

There is in Open Range. While Kevin Costner's character, Charlie Waite, qualifies as a 'victim hero' of the type Bowman describes, Boss Spearman is a genuine hero. He is a decent, honest, hardworking man. He tries to help others who need it, including the boy they have taken in from starvation to train as a cowboy until they can find him other work. People respond to his example, like the troubled Waite, who has followed him for ten years just because he sees in Spearman's example a way to overcome his past and live a decent life in spite of his dark impulses. He is finally roused to full battle over the same principle Evans cites: a fury at a rancher who will not allow people to live in peace and decency. After a murderous attack on his small band, who were only passing through, he comes to town to settle up.

We got a warrant sworn for attempted murder for them that tried to kill the boy who's laying over there at the doc's. Swore out another one for them that murdered the big fellow you had in your cell. Only ours ain't writ by no tin star bought and paid for, Marshal.... Baxter's men bushwhacked our friend and shot him dead. Shot a 15-year-old boy, too. And clubbed him so hard, he might not live. Tried to take our cattle. Your marshal here ain't gonna do nothing about it.... A man's got a right to protect his property and his life.

As noted above, what is so inspiring about the movie is how -- once someone finally stands up to the tyrant rancher -- the townsfolk increasingly start to side with the embattled cattlemen, finally coming out in full. It is the reverse of High Noon in another thing too: at the end of the movie, the town embraces them. The two cattlemen enter into a partnership to run the saloon in town, and Waite -- finally relieved of so much of his fear and loneliness -- falls in love with and marries the sister of the town's doctor.

Bowman is not wrong to say that such movies are rare. Nevertheless, the abscence of Open Range is a critical failing in a piece devoted to this topic.

Meanwhile, his concept of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is simply wrong.

The subtext of films featuring the whistle-blower hero, the cartoon hero, and the victim hero is that heroism—heroism of the, say, Gary Cooper type—belongs to the public and communal sphere, now universally supposed to be cruel and corrupt, and therefore is really no longer possible or even, perhaps, desirable.
That seems to have been the point of the great John Ford film of 1962 called “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.” In it, John Wayne plays rancher Tom Doniphon in the Wild West town of Shinbone, which is still part of a territory not admitted to statehood and has only a comically feckless Andy Devine resembling anything like a duly constituted authority. Shinbone is terrorized by an outlaw named Liberty Valance, played by the great Lee Marvin. An idealistic lawyer named Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) comes to town to practice his profession only to find that there is no law there. In fact, he himself is robbed by Liberty on his way into town, yet he can find no one there who thinks that this is any of his business, or that it is even possible for this outlaw to be brought to justice. The law is helpless where there is no law enforcement. As Doniphon advises the newcomer, “Out here men take care of their own problems.”

Doniphon is the only man in town capable of standing up to Liberty, but as he himself hasn’t been robbed he doesn’t quite see why anyone else being robbed, let alone this geeky stranger, should be any business of his. Eventually, the idea of a larger civic responsibility begins to sink in—and, with it, a sense that it has become incumbent on him to do what no one else can do. Yet it can only be done outside the law, which remains powerless. This puts Doniphon and Liberty (the name is of course significant) on the same side. Both are outlaws whose would-be heroic struggle has no place in a civilized community. When Wayne triumphs, a way must be found for the townspeople to pretend that it is the law which has rid them of the depredations of Liberty and his gang, and a way duly is found. Stoddard is hailed as a hero and Doniphon, the real hero, is forgotten.
Ford’s film was a parable less of the coming of civilization to the West than of the cultural transformation that was taking place in the postwar period in America and elsewhere—a transformation which resulted in an early but unmistakable foreshadowing of the death of the hero in the 1970s.

Tom Doniphon does reject "a larger civic responsibility" in the early parts of the movie, but not nearly so emphatically as Mr. Bowman describes -- and not at all for the reason he suggests. First of all, Doniphon does help Ransom Stoddard in several ways: rescuing him on the trail, arranging to feed him until he can get back on his feet, and protecting him when Liberty Valance bullies him at the steakhouse. Because there is a code of honor at work, he must find a pretense to step in: the one he chooses is the steak lost when Stoddard is tripped by Liberty, which was Tom's own steak. In addition, he has a role in civic responsibility -- he helps to run the meeting to appoint delegates to the territorial convention.

What Doniphon does in terms of rejection is not done out of a sense of being 'on the same side as Liberty Valance,' that is, the side that is against law. He participates in the attempts to bring law to the territory. He just has other plans for himself, as he says plainly when turning down a nomination to be one of the delegates: and those plans are made crystal clear by the film. He loves Haley, has been building a home for her, plans to marry her, and wants only to live on his ranch with her in peace. What he does by way of rejecting a larger role in civic authority is done out of that love and that desire.

This is also why he is destroyed by the killing of Valance: not because it brings law to the territory, but because it loses him Haley forever. She had been moving increasingly into Stoddard's orbit, and in her reaction to Stoddard's survival and apparent victory against Liberty, Doniphon sees that he has lost everything he ever wanted. He destroys his home, never rebuilds it, and dies eventually in miserable poverty. Without her, he found nothing in life worth wanting.

It is also entirely wrong to say that "a way must be found for the townspeople to pretend that it is the law" that rid them of Liberty. The townspeople don't have to pretend: they have no idea that it wasn't Stoddard who did it. More, they aren't pretending that "the law" had anything to do with it: they love him for shooting Liberty in the street (as they believe that he did). And yet still more, it is absolutely plain that they loved Doniphon just as much -- he was their first choice for delegate, to a roaring approval from the crowd. Had he stepped out into the light and gunned down Liberty, in the name of stopping him from tormenting the people of the town any further, he would have been just as honored for the act as was Stoddard.

I don't wish to be too critical, because Bowman's larger point is well taken. Hollywood does need to do genuine heroism more often. They don't do it well very often at all anymore: Open Range stands, not quite alone, but in small company. The Western is too often overlooked, today: and our modern war movies are unspeakably terrible as a rule.

By the same token, Hollywood has long been able to do darker works, and there is much that can be valuable in it. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, as well as some of the other pieces he cites -- The Maltese Falcon, for example -- are wonderful movies that bear repeated viewing. Human nature has both bright and dark sides. We can profit greatly from reflection.

Originally posted at Grim's Hall; crossposted here on reflection, as I thought some of you might enjoy it.

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Comments

#1 from Robohobo at 10:10 am on Jul 11, 2008

Okay, I was headed for Avdat. But got caught by your essay. Good work and thanks. The appeal of "Open Range" to us Western types (those of us from the west) is known. We still try to live this way. I would also suggest a modern hero for you. Mal Reynolds from Firefly & Serenity. He is true to what he believes and incredibly loyal but does what he has to to survive in a harsh universe where he was on the losing but correct side. I tend to favor those kinds of heroes.

#2 from Dave at 11:52 am on Jul 11, 2008

"They don't do it well very often at all anymore: Open Range stands, not quite alone, but in small company."
We have gone to a collaborative society instead of an individual one. That pieces embrace this, as well as anti-heroes where we identify with our own failings and need others to drive us forward is not surprising.

From Robohobo at 1
"I would also suggest a modern hero for you. Mal Reynolds from Firefly & Serenity. He is true to what he believes and incredibly loyal but does what he has to to survive in a harsh universe where he was on the losing but correct side."
Dang, I was going to suggest this, got caught up in RSS. And a stabby feeling towards Fox.

There is more as well from just the SciFi side - Picard, Sisko(not losing but in risk). And more still with Bourne(victim debatable), BlackHawk Down, Bullock in Deadwood, Munny in Unforgiven. Victim hero, meh. Calling out 300 over 'The 300 Spartans' too.

I have little patience for the article - not because of it's premise, but the outcome. I find the layered 'A History of Violence' more compelling than Dirty Harry, and both equally invite aspiration. I want compelling entertainment for my $10, not invincible supermen who emulate unreachable heights.
We're darker people now, who embrace more than one side, rather than people of the 1950s who as whole went through more. Shades of grey. I wonder what he thinks of Chinatown or LA Confidential (also touching on individual trying to drive the community).

#3 from Glen Wishard at 12:12 pm on Jul 11, 2008

Bowman:

“No Country” has one really sympathetic character, the aging sheriff played by Tommy Lee Jones, who is as helpless against the bad guy as everyone else is. Next to the sexy and invincible serial killer, a kind of inverted superhero played by Bardem, he is reduced to being just another victim hero, maundering on about what a nasty old world it is.

Hmmn. "Hollywood" in this case is Joel and Ethan Cohen, who also made Fargo. Fargo features a true hero, who takes on the nasty old world and whips it even though she's seven months pregnant. No Country for Old Men is an obvious twist of Fargo. Nothing was forgotten between the two, and the distinction is intentional. Not every story features a traditional hero triumphing over a traditional villain, or every hero would be reduced to another boring object lesson.

#4 from Armed Liberal at 5:29 pm on Jul 11, 2008

I think the point in "No Country" (more explicit in the book...) is that Ed Tom is an old-fashioned hero. He's just overwhelmed by the level of evil in the modern world...

A.L.

#5 from David Blue at 5:34 pm on Jul 11, 2008

Your piece is good, Grim, but the piece by James Bowman you responded to wasn't.

For a start, your readings of Open Range (2003) and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) are much better than his.

Second, he leaves too much out. If "real heroes" have been gone for decades, then Saving Private Ryan (1998), which is surely too big a movie to be ignored, can't feature any. This is wrong. Nothing could be less ironic or mocking or dismissive of the hero than Steven Spielberg's treatment of Captain John H. Miller, Sergeant Mike Horvath and Private James Francis Ryan himself. What Miller and Horvath do is right and necessary. They are heroes. To live up to their example and their sacrifice is a hard test. By the end, Private Ryan has passed that test. The End.

There are other examples. I would agree on Captain Malcolm Reynolds of the Serenity, and add not only Zoe Washburn but Simon Tam, who is a human, convincing, pure, shiny hero whose upright motive - love of his sister - is exactly what it seems to be.

But mainly, James Bowman dismissed a huge, popular new category of hero, the comic book and grandiose science fiction style hero as not "real" - in comparison to all other celluloid heroes, who are real? - on no other basis than sneering. It won't wash. There's not a thing wrong with Peter Parker, or for that matter May Parker, in Spider-Man 2 (2004). There are many other examples of this being done right. Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins (2005) is great, and this year Robert Downey Jr. also aced his role as Tony Stark overcoming his flaws and bad habits to do the right thing for the right reason. The box office says people love heroes like this, and they should.

"Like Superman, whose first feature-film incarnation was in 1978, these heroes were unashamed of their cartoon origins and, therefore, their detachment from reality. Often muscle-men, like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sylvester Stallone, they even looked unreal. Wayne and Cooper had, of course, been imposing physical presences on and off screen, but no one would have mistaken either of them for bulgy, oiled-up Mr. Americas."

Nobody would mistake either the heroic Obi Wan (blocked by the spam filter - but you know who he is, I hope) or the even more heroic Lincoln Six Echo for "bulgy, oiled-up Mr. Americas" either. And there's nothing wrong with being big and beefy, as opposed to small and fast like Ewan McGregor (or the much faster Jet Li), except that brawn seems to disgust James Bowman.

Audiences disagree with him on both brawn and the comic book hero. Long may they continue to do so.

#6 from Grim at 8:24 pm on Jul 11, 2008

I'm glad you liked it, Mr. Blue -- I'm always glad to hear of your approval -- but Bowman deserves most of the credit. I have only commented on his larger piece; the real work is his own.

Now, as for superheroes, where I think Bowman often goes wrong is in not recognizing the value of the alternative modes of heroism. There is a great deal of value to exploring the victim-hero mode also: heroism often has a cost, which we benefit from using art to consider.

Nevertheless, he is very much right that there is a mode of heroism that is not normally considered usual. There are a lot of situations in life where what is really needed is just what Open Range provides: a strong, kind, honorable figure who will do what is decent in spite of the dangers or costs. That's a lesson that needs to be taught and retaught, which is why the hero is a universal figure in all forms of art. Hollywood used to make regular use of it, and to very good effect.

The failure of Hollywood to use the mode now, likewise, has costs. Bowman is right about all of that, though we may reasonably quibble with some of his points and models.

#7 from Roderick Reilly at 8:32 pm on Jul 11, 2008

I didn't see "Liberty Valance" until the 90's, and was perplexed by it. For one thing, I was expecting the theme song and music to be Gene Pitney's "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," which was a big hit at the time the movie came out. No Pitney. Strange.

I also noticed the film's attempts at what would eventually be known as "political correctness." Stewart's Stoddard character ran a school for illiterate townspeople, including the Hispanics. I cringed at the hokiness. I also had to laugh at the anachronism of this backwater territorial town with only a stagecoach connection to civilization having a restaurant!

It also had at the center of its plot the conflict between ranchers and farmers (range wars), which had become a staple of the post-WWII Western (wasn't "Shane" built around the same theme?). I may be mistaken, but this seemed to be a lefty-populist device that, while very loosely based on historical realities, made ranchers and ranching look evil.

Also, I found Lee Marvin as clownish instead of evil as Liberty Valance. They had him wearing a too-small, frilled hat, and carrying a cat-o'nine-tails whip. How gay is that?

#8 from Achillea at 11:16 pm on Jul 11, 2008

Not a blockbuster, but -- Purgatory. Despite the distractingly anvilicious religious elements, a story of heroism and redemption.

#9 from davod at 12:54 pm on Jul 12, 2008

This is off the topic of Hollwood heroes but still on the topic of heroes.

I have a problem generally with the way words are bandied about. I saw a TV news report about two guys who had escaped from the house of some guy who had imprisoned them. The sheriff was declaring them to be true heroes for escaping.

Lucky, resourceful, maybe, but heroes?

#10 from ThomasJackson at 10:34 pm on Jul 12, 2008

The Man Who Shoot Liberty Valence is one of Ford's best pictures as relevant today as when it was made. Stewart heroism is that he is willing to face down Liberty though he knows he has no chance. Wayne's heroism is that he is willing to murder Valence to save Stewart when Stewart refuses to back down.

Wayne shows that laws are useles without men willing to enforce them, a counterpoint provided by the helpless sheriff. The classroom scene is vital because it drives home the point about democracy and economic mobility as well as our traditional values such as freedom of speech and the press.

I suggest people see Men of Honor, Rudy or even the Lord of the Rings to see what heroism means. Just because Hollywood has forgotten what it means doesn't mean the American people have.

#11 from Demosophist at 2:13 am on Jul 20, 2008

Open Range is showing tonight (July 19) on A&E.

#12 from Grim at 3:54 am on Jul 20, 2008

Thanks for the heads-up. :)