“This is the west, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

The idea of the myth of the West as somehow anterior to history, or external to it is extremely problematic. Westerns for me are one of the greatest indicators of the beautiful problems at the root of history as a means of making sense of our culture. The history of the West and the idea of the frontier is crucial to US History, but not necessarily because of their basis in fact, though that is part of it. Part of the power of Westerns is their misrepresentation of the past, a vision of US culture that shapes a future materially in terms of political decisions. During the 20th century, the idea of American exceptionalism and the notion that the US was immune to the treats of communism and socialism are born of the idea of a kind of geographical determinism that may be linked to one of the most influential historical essays of the last 100 years:Turner’s “The Significance of the Frontier in American History”. Given Turner’s discussion of the frontier as the driving force behind US history and its future, how can a film like Liberty Valence be so easily discounted in terms of history? I think the definiton of history may be a bit too narrow. Is history about the factual record? –or is it also about or fantasies about our past and the cultural moment that constructs these fantasies? A kind of cultural and social history that moves between and amongst the archives, but archives not limited to facts and dates, but narratives and metaphors.