FILM SUMMARY

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance opens in 1910 with the return of Senator Ransom “Ranse” Stoddard (James Stewart) and his wife Hallie (Vera Miles) to the small western town of Shinbone, where they immediately arouse the interest of the local press. They are met by the aged ex-marshal Link Appleyard (Andy Devine), who soon escorts them to the undertaker's office, wherein lies a plain pine coffin containing the body of Tom Doniphon. The newspaper editor Maxwell Scott (Carleton Young), who has followed them, has never heard of Doniphon and demands to know more about the man whose death has brought the Senator all the way from Washington. Ranse agrees to tell his story at last, initiating the long flashback that constitutes the bulk of the film.

Many years before, Ranse was a green Easterner headed to Shinbone where he intended to practice law, but on the outskirts of town his stagecoach was robbed and he himself whipped by the brutal outlaw Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin). He is later found by Tom Doniphon (John Wayne), a local rancher, who takes him to the town café where he is nursed back to health by the pretty young Hallie, whom Doniphon plans to marry. Once he has recovered, Ranse helps out at the café to pay his room and board, but hangs his shingle in front of the newspaper office operated by Dutton Peabody (Edmond O'Brien), ignoring warnings that it will provoke Valance. He also opens a one-room schoolhouse to educate the illiterate of Shinbone – Hallie included – and becomes an advocate for law, order, and statehood.

At a town meeting called to elect delegates to the Territorial Convention, Doniphon declines a nomination, after which Ranse and Peabody are elected over Liberty Valance, who is employed as a hired gun by the cattlemen who want to preserve the open range, and are thus against statehood. Valance retaliates by wrecking the newspaper office and beating Peabody near to death, after which Ranse resolves to confront Valance despite his moral objection to violence and his inexperience with guns.

In the American psyche, the “Wild West” is a mythic-historical place where the nation's values and ideologies were formed. In this violent and uncertain world, the cowboy is the ultimate hero, fighting the bad guys, forging notions of manhood, and delineating what constitutes honor as he works to build civilization out of wilderness. Tales from this mythical place are best known from that most American of media: film. In the Greco-Roman societies that form the foundation of Western civilization, similar narratives were presented in what for them was the most characteristic, and indeed most filmic, genre: epic. Like Western films, the canonical epics of classical antiquity focus on the legendary past and its warriors who worked to establish the ideological framework of their respective civilizations. These parallel cultural roles result in surprising connections between these seemingly disparate yet closely related genres.

Cowboy Classics looks at these broader generic connections and the reasons behind them through examination of some of the best examples of each: the works of Homer and Virgil – undisputed titans of Greco-Roman literature whose epics assumed near-biblical status in their own societies and are still revered as foundational masterworks of Western civilization – and five films from the Golden Age of Westerns1 that have attained canonical status both through their critical and commercial success and through the influence they have exerted not just on later film productions in various genres, but as important components of cultural literacy in America as well. Even those who have not seen these films – or indeed, any Western movies at all – equate John Wayne with the powerful, charismatic, and intractable epitome of the Western hero as Hawks first presented him in Red River (1948); everyone “knows” that showdowns happen at High Noon (1952); for many, the cry “Shane! Come back!” (Shane, 1953) evokes nostalgia for lost heroes, and the exhortation to “Print the legend” (The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, 1962) touches on the complicated relationship between myth, history, and America's national self-image; and moviegoers of all stripes recognize as important cinematic motifs the hero's return to a homestead burned and a family massacred, the obstinate, world-weary associations of the catch-phrase “That'll be the day,” and the isolated hero framed in a doorway, even if they have never heard of John Ford's The Searchers (1956).

Comparisons like the one undertaken in this volume are part of a fast-growing sub-discipline known as classical receptions, an area concerned with examining the use or manifestation of classical culture in later periods in a variety of contexts – such as literature, drama, film, and visual arts – with the aim of enriching the understanding of works from both periods. This area of scholarly inquiry arose in part as a response to a related earlier movement known as the classical tradition, which also looked at manifestations of antiquity in later periods, but with the primary focus on the influence of classical works on later literary, artistic, and intellectual productions. The latter area of inquiry stems back to the work of Gilbert Highet, whose 1949 book The Classical Tradition sought to trace Greek and Roman influence on the canonical works of Western literature, a project much in line with the still-prevalent notion that Greek and Roman antiquity provides the cornerstone and foundation of Western civilization today. In recent decades, however, a counter-movement has emerged from those who see this approach as elitist, in that it seems to frame works from antiquity as eternal, untouchable repositories of truth to which a steady stream of pale emulators aspire in vain, so that “reception” has become the preferred term for those who want to trouble this uni-directionality and challenge the impression that classical works have a fixed and immutable value. The term “classical receptions” was coined in the 1990s, and since then the movement has gained momentum through the efforts of classical scholars like Lorna Hardwick and Charles Martindale. Unlike the classical tradition model, classical receptions is concerned not only with the ways in which the enduring works of antiquity continue to speak to different artists, writers, and thinkers in different times and how new meanings are both derived from and made out of these ancient texts, but also with how utilizing a receptions approach can provide a new lens on the hypotext on which it is based, suggesting new approaches or reviving those that have been neglected or marginalized.

While the Western genre at a glance may seem to have little in common with the oral poetry of Homer or with Rome's most elite literary epic, they show remarkable similarities in their use of myth and history to reflect and shape national identities and prevailing ideologies. Their close kinship is often suggested in the rhetoric of film scholars, whose descriptions of the function of Westerns often apply equally well to ancient epic, as we see in Robert Pippin's statement that

Like epic did for antiquity, then, Westerns help us grapple with identity issues in a way that is relevant yet comfortably distanced, and for this reason they have proven remarkably resilient despite occasional pronouncements that the genre is dead. The past decade, for instance, has seen remakes of 3:10 to Yuma (2007) and True Grit (2010), a film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel No Country for Old Men (2007), a postmodern re-envisioning of the spaghetti Western in Django Unchained (2012), the family-friendly computer-animated feature film Rango (2011), as well as at least two popular and acclaimed post-Deadwood TV series in FX's Justified (2010–15) and A&E/Netflix's Longmire (2012–).

Moreover, just as the characterization of the epic hero in Homer and Virgil's works reflected and shaped notions of idealized virtue for men in ancient Greece and Rome, the Western hero as he is presented in film has become a pervasive and persistent model for idealized American masculinity more generally.

FILM SUMMARY

Red River is the story of Tom Dunson (John Wayne), who breaks away from a wagon train heading west in 1851 to start a ranch with the help of his crusty old sidekick Groot (Walter Brennan). Shortly after they depart, the wagon train they have left is attacked by Indians, who kill Dunson's girl, Fen (Colleen Gray), whom he had left behind with promises to send for her. A young boy named Matthew Garth (played as a youth by Mickey Kuhn) survives the attack and joins Dunson and Groot, who stake a claim in south Texas, wresting it forcibly from the land baron Don Diego. Fourteen years later, Dunson has the biggest ranch in Texas, but no one in the war-impoverished south can buy his cattle and he's broke. He decides to take 10,000 head of cattle north to Missouri, where people are buying. Matt (now played by Montgomery Clift) helps lead his team, along with a young sharpshooter named Cherry Valance (John Ireland), who leaves the employ of a neighboring cattleman to join the expedition. Groot joins them as cook. The trip is difficult and dangerous, and Dunson is a demanding and obstinate leader. After hearing rumors that the railroad has reached Abilene, Kansas, the men want to change routes to sell the cattle there, since the going would be far safer, but Dunson refuses. One night, Bunk, a cowhand with a sweet tooth, rattles pans while trying to steal some sugar; the noise spooks the cattle, provoking a stampede that kills one man and a number of cattle and destroys a grub wagon. Dunson wants to whip the offender; when the man protests, Matt is compelled to step in to prevent Dunson from killing him. Tensions grow as the men are put on half-rations due to the loss of the grub wagon. Some want to turn back, but Dunson holds them to their contract on threat of death.

FILM SUMMARY

High Noon opens with the marriage of Will Kane (Gary Cooper) and Amy Foster (Grace Kelly). Kane has been serving as marshal of Hadleyville, but following the ceremony, he officially relinquishes his badge, as he and Amy plan to move to another town where Kane will tend a store rather than carry a gun. As they prepare to leave, however, word comes that Frank Miller (Ian MacDonald) has been paroled and is scheduled to arrive on the noon train; Miller's old gang is already waiting at the station. When he was convicted, Miller had sworn to return and kill Kane, who had arrested him. Kane's instinct is to postpone his departure and stay to protect the town, since the man who is to replace him as marshal is not scheduled to arrive until the next day, but his friends convince him to make use of the little more than an hour he has before the train arrives and follow through with his plans.

The newlyweds hit the road, but they don't get far before Kane reconsiders and turns around over Amy's protestations. Back in town, Kane explains the situation to Amy as he reassumes his badge, intending to recruit special deputies to help him in the anticipated showdown with Miller. Amy pleads with him to avoid the confrontation, but although he recognizes the religious grounding of her opposition to violence, he remains resolute – even when she offers him the ultimatum that if he won't leave with her, she'll be on the next train without him. As she takes her leave, Kane encounters Judge Percy Mettrick (Otto Kruger), who sentenced Miller, and who is now packing to leave town, advising Kane to do the same. Just then, Kane's regular deputy Harvey “Harv” Pell (Lloyd Bridges) appears and tries to manipulate Kane into backing him as the new marshal; when Kane refuses, believing he isn't ready for the job, Harv accuses him of speaking against his petition for the position to the city fathers out of jealousy over his relationship with Kane's ex, Helen Ramírez (Katy Jurado) and turns in his badge.

FILM SUMMARY

The Searchers opens in Texas in 1868 with Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) riding up to the homestead his brother Aaron (Walter Coy) shares with wife Martha (Dorothy Jordan) and their three children. Although he is welcomed, some uneasiness is evident, stemming in part from questions about Ethan's activities since the Civil War's conclusion three years earlier, and in part from the clear attraction between Ethan and Martha. When the Edwards’ adoptive son Martin Pauley2 (Jeffrey Hunter) joins them for dinner, Ethan is openly hostile to the young man, seemingly due to his part-Cherokee heritage.

The next morning, Ethan and Martin join the Reverend Captain Samuel J. Clayton (Ward Bond) and a handful of other men in pursuit of cattle rustlers, realizing too late that this is a Comanche diversion for a murder raid. Ethan and Martin return to the Edwards’ homestead to find it in flames, with Aaron and his son Ben (Robert Lyden) dead, Martha both raped and killed, and the two girls Lucy (Pippa Scott) and Debbie (Lana Wood) kidnapped. After a hasty funeral, the men set out again in the hopes of rescuing the girls. When one of their group is wounded in a skirmish with the band of natives who have kidnapped the girls, Clayton and the others turn back, leaving Ethan, Martin, and Lucy's beau Brad Jorgensen (Harry Carey, Jr.) to search on alone.

Ethan later finds Lucy raped and murdered in a canyon and buries her, but keeps it from the younger men until Brad, having scouted ahead, reports with excitement that he has spotted Lucy in the Comanche camp. When Ethan confesses the truth, the distraught Brad charges off in a frenzy and is killed. Ethan and Martin search on, returning a year later to the Jorgensen homestead, where we learn that the pretty young Laurie (Vera Miles) has been impatiently awaiting Martin's return. The next morning, though Laurie tries to prevent him, Martin sets off after Ethan, who has ridden ahead.

FILM SUMMARY

Shane opens with Alad Ladd as the title character emerging from the mountains above a sparse Western settlement. As he is passing through the homestead Joe (Van Heflin) and Marian (Jean Arthur) Starrett share with their young son Joey (Brandon De Wilde), the Ryker gang, a group of cattlemen hostile to the local settlers, appear and accuse Starrett of squatting on their grazing land. Trouble is averted when Shane unexpectedly aligns himself with Joe, and the gang rides off without incident. Shane is invited to dinner and soon agrees to stay on with the Starretts as a hired hand. He rapidly becomes a hero-figure to young Joey and a valued friend to Joe, while meaningful looks are exchanged between him and Marian.

Later, having gone into town to buy work clothes, Shane stoically endures the taunts Chris Calloway (Ben Johnson), one of Ryker's followers, directs at him when he stops into the saloon to buy a soda for young Joey. Back at home, Shane walks in on a meeting of the settlers Joe has called in response to a neighboring homesteader's decision to leave as a result of Ryker's intimidation. Joe convinces the others to stick together as a group, and they plan to ride into town together the next day to shop for the upcoming Fourth of July celebration. When they do, Shane re-enters the saloon as a tacit challenge to Calloway, who has warned him to stay out. A fight ensues, and when Shane knocks Calloway out, the leader of the cattlemen Rufus Ryker (Emile Meyer) offers him a job, which he refuses. This provokes the rest of Ryker's men and at first Shane takes them on single-handedly; soon, however, Joe joins in, and despite being outnumbered, they more than hold their own until the fight is broken up by Sam Grafton (Paul McVey), the saloon's owner.

Screening Antiquity is a new series of cutting-edge academic monographs and edited volumes that present exciting and original research on the reception of the ancient world in film and television. It provides an important synergy of the latest international scholarly ideas about the onscreen conception of antiquity in popular culture and is the only book series to focus exclusively on screened representations of the ancient world.

The interactions between cinema, television, and historical representation is a growing field of scholarship and student engagement; many Classics and Ancient History departments in universities worldwide teach cinematic representations of the past as part of their programmes in Reception Studies. Scholars are now questioning how historical films and television series reflect the societies in which they were made, and speculate on how attitudes towards the past have been moulded in the popular imagination by their depiction in the movies. Screening Antiquity explores how these constructions came about and offers scope to analyse how and why the ancient past is filtered through onscreen representations in specific ways. The series highlights exciting and original publications that explore the representation of antiquity onscreen, and that employ modern theoretical and cultural perspectives to examine screened antiquity, including: stars and star text, directors and auteurs, cinematography, design and art direction, marketing, fans, and the online presence of the ancient world.

The series aims to present original research focused exclusively on the reception of the ancient world in film and television. In itself this is an exciting and original approach. There is no other book series that engages head-on with both big screen and small screen recreations of the past, yet their integral interactivity is clear to see: film popularity has a major impact on television productions and for its part, television regularly influences cinema (including film spin-offs of popular television series).