This is one of the finest encapsulation of “when the legend becomes fact, print the legend,” maybe even more so than The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence itself. This has to be one of the most explicit deconstructions of the Frontier myth I’ve ever seen. There is just so much to unpack here, and I can’t say anything that hasn’t been said more clearly and concisely by others in this review section, but I’ll give my two cents on this. Ford so accurately captures both the internal relationships of the army and the external ones, the turn from westward expansion to American imperialism. It’s the active partitioning of the west, the imposition of arbitrary European values on a world far older and more complex than it will ever be. That’s not even getting into specific characters, which I found all uniquely compelling (in particular Wayne and Fonda, with Temple and O’Brien close behind). Of course, the ending is everything you needed it to be for a film of this caliber. Highly recommend if you’re looking for a cavalry flick.
This is one of the finest encapsulation of “when the legend becomes fact, print the legend,” maybe even more so than The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence itself. This has to be one of the most explicit deconstructions of the Frontier myth I’ve ever seen. There is just so much to unpack here, and I can’t say anything that hasn’t been said more clearly and concisely by others in this review section, but I’ll give my two cents on this. Ford so accurately captures both the internal relationships of the army and the external ones, the turn from westward expansion to American imperialism. It’s the active partitioning of the west, the imposition of arbitrary European values on a world far older and more complex than it will ever be. That’s not even getting into specific characters, which I found all uniquely compelling (in particular Wayne and Fonda, with Temple and O’Brien close behind). Of course, the ending is everything you needed it to be for a film of this caliber. Highly recommend if you’re looking for a cavalry flick.
