The Bumpy Road to Redemption

As Mr. Hollis-Lima said in his previous post, Red Dead Redemption is a fine game. I've spent far too much time playing it this week, and I have no doubt that I shall devote just as many hours to it next week. And yet Red Dead, despite its six-year development, doesn't feel quite so polished as I might have hoped. It's a great achievement for Rockstar, but I can't help but feel it should have been greater.

Red Dead Redemption takes place in somewhere in the Generic West in 1911. There are trains and telegraphs and occasional automobiles, but lives still come very cheap. I suppose that Rockstar wanted to tell a story about the end of the West, which is fine, but the Red Dead world seems too violent to be believable for 1911. Videogames always exaggerate, but this, to me, takes suspension of disbelief a tad too far. Aside from this, the game's worldbuilding is mostly sound, something of a surprise after the maddeningly poor open sequence, where Our Hero rides the train to the town of Armadillo and listens in on some of the most hackneyed, tedious, and implausible conversations ever committed to Blu-Ray. There's a satirical intent – one of the speakers may even discuss Manifest Destiny – but the complete lack of subtlety bodes ill for the remainder of the game. The writing does improve, but never enough to make one forget that ill-starred sequence.

While the West of Red Dead Redemption does offer many peaceful pursuits such as horseshoes, poker, drinking, herding, horse-breaking, and exploration, sooner or later the guns will come out. When they do, many players will be disappointed. There's a cover system, but it's awkward. There's no separate button for hand-to-hand combat, making non-lethal methods very difficult. There's a bullet time mode called "Dead Eye" that's a lot of fun to use, but it makes fights far too easy. Finally, there's very little to remind players that their weapons come from a different era. The guns aren't terribly distinct from those in games set a hundred years later; they just fire a tad slower. And perhaps because one sees the game from over Marston's shoulder, these virtual weapons lack the virtual heft that might make them memorable. I suppose they recoil, but I never notice it. I'm too far removed from the action to see.

Violence in Red Dead Redemption is fast, common, and not terribly effecting. The game borrows its aesthetics from films like The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and Unforgiven, but the great Western directors knew how to give their gunfights suspense and significance. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance may be an epic, but there's a grand total of one killing in the entire movie. Or consider the opening to Once Upon a Time in the West: We know to expect killing, but Leone brilliantly draws out the suspense with seeming inconsequential details like the dripping of water or a fly's buzzing. In Rockstar's game instant gratification rules. Perhaps it's a weakness of the medium?

Another problem is the game's save system. There's an auto-save system, and usually a manual save point is only a minute or two away, and, in the wild, players can even strike up a campsite to serve their saving needs. Unfortunately, Red Dead Redemption stops being player-friendly the moment the state puts a price on John Marston's head. Fugitives cannot save in their usual "home" areas, nor can they set up camps. You can't save the game until the bounty is paid or the crime is pardoned. Unfortunately, it's very easy to accidentally commit a crime: the harsh Western climate breeds despair; policemen and civilians have the regrettable habit of throwing themselves between your gun and your target.

Once I lost half an hour of progress because I died without saving, on my way to pay my "debt to society." Cause of death? A glitch that threw my character hundreds of feet into the air. The game celebrated my eventual return to Earth with a display of ragdoll physics and the game over screen. I was not happy. Though Red Dead Redemption usually works very well, it has far more glitches and technical infelicities than most games with $100 million development tags. There's a good deal of clipping, some pop-in, and the occasional freeze. At least I haven't run into the infamous magic carts yet.

Red Dead Redemption is at least a very good game; it may well be a great one. Like Mr. Hollis-Lima, I look forward to playing more of it. I just wish the game had a little more polish, a little more subtlety, and far fewer glitches.

Ford's Finest? Pretty Close

Mr. Hollis-Lima and I generally have very similar tastes in film; but our tastes diverge when it comes to Westerns. I grew up watching John Ford films; I might well have been disowned if I decided that I didn't care for The Searchers. Thankfully, I never had to face such an aesthetic-familial dilemma; I have always thought The Searchers a great film. But my favorite Western – another John Ford and John Wayne collaboration – is The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

Most Westerns of the last twenty-odd years have been "revisionist" pieces. Some, like Unforgiven, look set to become classics. Others are best-remembered for inspiring overrated science fiction. Today, however, most critics would agree that the pioneering (perhaps a loaded word?) revisionist director was John Ford, who was also, of course, the most important "classical" Western director. In The Searchers, John Wayne plays a violent man with an abiding, if understandable, hatred of Indians. Cheyenne Autumn, Ford's penultimate film, follows an abused group of Cheyenne along the Trail of Tears. While The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance occasionally delves into racial matters, it spends far more time exploring violence, politics, and their relation to each other.

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, like many Westerns, begins with a train arriving in a small town. Neither gunmen nor tumbleweed greet the train; Shinbone is a thriving small town, with a high school and a telephone line. We never do learn what state Shinbone is a part of, even when that state's famous senator, Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) shows up in town to attend the paltry funeral of forgotten rancher Tom Doniphon (John Wayne). As Stoddard's wife, Hallie (Vera Miles), and other friends of the deceased stand vigil over the bare coffin, Stoddard tells an old story to the assembled reporters of the Shinbone Star. Thirty years ago, Tom Doniphon was a friend and mentor to Stoddard. Thirty years ago, Doniphon saved Stoddard's life.

Most of the movie is a flashback to the events of thirty years before, the events that brought Stoddard to prominence, success, and matrimony. When Stoddard, a young lawyer, first arrived in Shinbone, it was a far different town – dusty, violent, and dominated by the bandit and killer Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin). Stoddard, innocent believer in law and order, quickly runs afoul of Liberty, and finds that the legal system in Shinbone is far from capable of dealing with the outlaw. Stoddard, left penniless by Liberty's robbery, works a waiter and dishwasher for a pair of Swedish immigrants; his idealism quickly wins the heart of Hallie, Doniphon's presumed belle. Though he would much prefer to live a peaceful life, Stoddard comes to realize that, in Shinbone, a man must carry a gun to ensure justice. It's hardly a spoiler to say that Valance and Stoddard eventually duel.

In The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, the young idealist grabs a gun and turns pragmatist. One of two heroes nearly drinks himself to death; later, he's sanguine about a crime he committed: "Cold-blooded murder? I can live with that." Liberty is on the payroll of the cattle barons who want to keep Shinbone's territory part of the open range; Stoddard and Doniphon want enclosures and railways and statehood. The heroes may wear wide-brimmed hats, but the true cowboys are on the villain's side. And what are we to make of a film that celebrates America, but features a callous killer named Liberty?

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance may lead to somber reflection and dour blog posts, but despite all its moral seriousness, it's a very funny film. Andy Devine appears as a good-hearted, if cowering and incompetent, marshal; his endless dereliction of duty is a running joke. Edmond O'Brien's drunken newspaper editor has several hilarious speeches and one or two inspiring ones, while John Carradine makes the most of the small role of a hypocritical politician. Even John Wayne gets a few good lines – and one great kick – in.

I have not seen the entirety of John Ford's oeuvre; the man was prolific. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance may not be Ford's single best film; many would argue that The Searchers is better. But Liberty Valance is clearly one of Ford's best, and therefore one of cinema's best. This is a movie to watch and to force friends to watch. Mr. Hollis-Lima, you've been warned.