The Language of Cinema

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance's central theme is the old John Ford preoccupation with the East vs. the West. This time, however, Ford sets out to destroy the legend he helped create about how the East brought civilization to the West. 

The story revolves around a love triangle. Wayne and Vera Miles are in love and are going to marry. James Stewart is a lawyer injured by a criminal, Liberty Valance. Wayne finds and brings him to town and asks Vera Miles to attend to his wounds. After recovery, he starts teaching the children and adults. Mesmerized by the education, law, and legislation he talks about, Vera Miles falls in love with him. They leave the small town for Washington

There is a scene when John Wayne brings a cactus flower for his sweetheart, Vera Miles. Woody Strode plants the flower in her garden. Wayne calls the flower the prettiest cactus rose. She then, in awe, asks James Stewart to see how beautiful the flower is, and he shrewdly responds by asking another question:" Have you seen a real rose?" 

The cactus flower is a motif for the West, while Real Rose represents law and legislation in the East.

Ford's narrative of the movie is mainly in a flashback; the movie starts at present when Stewart and Vera Miles, his wife, return to a small town for the funeral of John Wayne. On arrival, Vera Miles tells Andy Devine, the sheriff, that the cactus should bloom; he understands she wants to visit her old flame's place. 

The tree branch, the memory of Wayne, constricts their space.

The house is in ruin. She carries a hatbox, which we later realize she wants to put in the cactus flower. At Wayne's house, Ford uses the soundtrack from Young Mr. Lincoln when Henry Fonda as Lincoln comes to visit the grave of his sweetheart, who died of tuberculosis. Using the same soundtrack essentially depicts Vera Miles' love for Wayne, which further develops with the motif of the cactus flower. Let us not forget she never directly asks Devine to take her there. 

What has remained from the burned-out house. Only the cactus flowers survived. 

In a shot of Devine and her on the carriage, they are under the trunks of a tree, cutting the frame diagonally. The memory of Wayne brings an unbearable sense of loss for both: lost love for her and a lost era for Devine. Wayne's garden of blooming cacti is still there, under a burned tree. Wayne killed Liberty Valance, who was the justification for his presence in the West. He understood that killing Liberty would be a suicide for him. Vera Miles had asked him to protect James Stewart, something he could not turn down.

Looking at the garden, she points to one of the flowers, and Devine understands that he should pick it up for her. 

At the end of the movie, we return to the present time. As Stewart leaves the room where Wayne's coffin is, he notices the cactus flower on the coffin. There is a long shot with the coffin and flowers in the foreground. Stewart, lugubrious and disturbed, looks at the flower. The door frame, the half-open door, and the ceiling compress his space. His isolation is further depicted by the coffin, which denies him an open space, and behind him, Miles has turned her back.

 Andrew Sarris wrote that the shot is the outcome of all of Ford’s experience in cinema. 

At the very end, Ford once again restates his displeasure; on the train, Stewart asks Miles whether she agrees to leave Washington and come back to the town; she welcomes the idea and adds that her heart is there, which brings the image of a cactus flower to his mind. To get a comforting response, he asks Miles who put the flower on Wayne's coffin. With her brief response, she pays her debt to Wayne and his love, "I did." The brevity and bluntness of her answer shatter his confidence; he drops his head and becomes quiet. When the train conductor comes back to appreciate Stewart's work, he thanks him and adds that he will write a letter in appreciation of the good work of railways; when the conductor says," Nothing is too good for a man who shot Liberty Valance," which freezes him once more as he tries to light up his pipe, remembering what the editor told him a few minutes ago, "when legends become fact, print the legend."

The essence of the language of cinema is image. One can write extensively about the conflicts of the East and West or, as Ford did, just compose Stewart's image—no words, no music, no color, just pure art, pure cinema.