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Shane: The Post-Game Show

© Bob Stenbaugh

Shane Dir: George Stevens Wr: A.B. Guthrie Jr. DOP: Loyal Griggs

I knew this exercise was going to result in some form of apology. To Mr. George Stevens and family, I have greatly slighted your abilities as a filmmaker. Shane is an extremely thoughtful film. It uses the classic western narrative of the battle of ranchers versus homesteaders to great effect, all the while developing a distinct visual style.

A solid half-hour passes before any "action" takes place on screen, and when it does it immediately declares the film's unique tone. Like the entire narrative, Shane's first fight with Calloway is a bizarre blend of fantasy and reality. The sheer length of the fight is notable, eschewing the standard two-hit (me hittin' you, you hittin' the floor) western fisticuff structure. The fight leaps without rhyme or reason from the hightened reality of missed punches and genuine boxing strategy, to the hightened fantasy of single punches sending a man flying thirty feet through doors, or spinning full circle as he tumbles to the ground.

Stevens is establishing a tone, asking the viewer to be aware of peculiar goings on in the middle of this all too real, and often tragic tale.

The primary, dominant text of Shane follows the birth of a community. Unlike High Noon (which arrived in theatres a year earlier) Shane puts a positive spin on strength in numbers and the merits of organized, cooperative citizens. At the conclusion of High Noon Gary Cooper discovers that the town wasn't worth saving, and that he would prefer to begin his family somewhere else. At the conclusion of Shane, Alan Ladd discovers that the birth of a community is worth promoting at any cost. In the film's final moments he acknowledges to Joey that now he is "the last gun in the valley" and in order for it to grow into a place suitable for families, he must leave.

Stevens chooses a fascinating technique to investigate the struggle of nature versus civilization which is at the center of any western. From the very beginning, our first vision of Shane, we see him in a clever point of view shot, from the child's eyes, past a deer, and then Shane off in the distance. Tremendous depth of field is evident throughout the film, and almost always Stevens fills the frame with animals.

At Stonewall's burial in the town's graveyard, a dog runs over and paws the coffin on its way into the ground. Also at the funeral, smack dab in the middle of the tearful eulogy, we watch as little Joey attempts to pat a pony, only to have another child warn that the horse will bite.