BE The West-Hardboiled: Adaptations of Film Noir Elements, Existentialism, and Ethics in John Wayne's Westerns

Sue Matheson’s, The West- Hardboiled: Adaptation of Film Noir Elements, Existentialism, and Ethics in John Wayne’s Westerns, revolves around the impact and representation John Wayne stood for. John Wayne has no doubt had a lasting impression in the film industry but also changed the way people saw and lived their lives. As Matheson describes in her opening paragraph, “As a boy, Newt Gingrich, future speaker of the House of Representatives, tried to walk like John Wayne; this was his way of being a man”. Wayne’s dominating personality that succeeded all others, created by Duke Morrison and John Ford, showcases his “hardboiled” attitude.
In many of John Wayne’s films, his masculinity is combined with the film technique, film noir, to further display their version of the Western. Matheson explains film noir as, “The connection between characters and milieu is extremely important because states of the inner world, the mind and emotions, are transmitted by expressionist techniques of exaggerated or distorted representations of the outer world”. Matheson’s point of how film noir is used to strengthen films and develop dominating character such as Wayne is clearly evident in, The Searchers by John Ford. In this Wayne Western, Ford uses unique camera angles to make the horse and rider the same height as the mountains in the shot. This not only shows landscape to which all Westerns encompass but metaphorical equalizes John Wayne and the mountain in their size and importance. The landscape, as well as how John Wayne is depicted with and against it, contribute to Matheson’s approach that unlike the traditional Western, “Wayne’s West are concerned with man’s savage nature rather than mankind’s ability to domesticate nature itself and create the garden world that is civilized America”. All of these attributes, about Wayne and his Westerns define, “the hardboiled essence of John Wayne character”.
Although personality and actions best depict the character, according to Matheson, physical appearance also plays an important role in determining a character. In many of Wayne’s Westerns, Matheson exhibits how, “One can usually determine how aberrant characters are by their levels of grime- the dirtier their faces, the darker their hearts”. This quote is not only shown through the example of Shanghai McCoy in Rooster Cogburn, but through the depiction of Red Flack in The Big Trail. His over sized, grizzly, and barbaric stature perfectly correspond to his emotionless, rude and narcissistic personality. Also, the opposite is true for a man who is clean shave. John Wayne, young and looking as if he just got out of a make-up chair, is the nice guy, adventurous and savior to the rest of the westerners.
Many of Wayne’s Westerns have an underlying insight into what is going on in the country during that time period. Matheson touches on the fact that, “As in many of Wayne’s Westerns, sociopathic behavior in The War Wagon is carefully coupled with a critique of capitalism”. This critique of capitalism is a direct link to the Great Depression. Wayne starred in various Westerns whose villains portrayed, “capitalists engaged in perpetuating social injustice and economic exploitation”. Not only did Wayne’s Westerns incorporate the manly and rugged hero but also included villains that proved to be corrupting the film as well as real life economies.