In the article “The West – Hardboiled: Adaptations of Film Noir Elements, Existentialism, and Ethics in John Wayne’s Westerns”, Sue Matheson recognizes a contrast between John Wayne’s western and the typical western film. She argues that the contrast exists because Wayne’s characters are hardboiled – tough, dark, with little external emotional reaction while engaging in violence often. This hardboiled attitude of the duke’s characters also highlights other noir elements of the movies they are in. First, she states how the physical setting of the western relates to the inner state of Wayne’s characters. This could be through the claustrophobic feeling given by the cliffs or buttes, for example monument valley in the searchers, or the use of the open, empty, dirty desert. The power of the landscape may also speak to the power of the character and their “wilderness within.” It may also be seen that while tough on the outside, Wayne’s character has a dark, troubled, and imperfect inner being that we only see reflected through the milieu he appears in.
She also highlights themes of postwar disillusionment, as seen in the corruption common in both Wayne’s westerns and film noir. The stories in Wayne’s westerns concern “violation, betrayal, and social breakdown.”
She likens Wayne’s character to the hardboiled detective in the sense they function in a landscape full of paranoid psychotics, stories centered on man’s savage nature. Even the element of a character’s appearance in Wayne’s westerns reflects themes from film noir. Traditionally, how clean faced or dirty and smelly a character is relates to good and evil. In Wayne’s westerns, Matheson argues the character’s appearance relates to how normal or abnormal their psyche may be. While most characters in Wayne’s westerns are dirty, the most psychopathic characters whether good or bad can been seen by their special layer of filth and grime. Paranoia and psychotics are a common theme in film noir.
Matheson next highlights the themes of anti-establishment and anti-capitalism popular in film noir and reflected in Wayne’s westerns. She gives examples of how the capitalist or wealthy, materialistic characters in Wayne’s westerns steal or kill “legally” and are in fact dangerous sociopaths – to use Matheson’s words. Dirt and grime signals abnormal psychology just as much as suits, ties, top hats, and coats.
Next Matheson points out the common theme of existentialism and moral individualism throughout film noir and Wayne’s westerns. The antihero does bad things for a good reason. Involved in violence, murder, and other morally grey acts, he does them because he is fulfilling his duty. The rule of the western law is the rule of the gun. Even ordinary citizens are not exempt from the corruption. “Decent, normally law-abiding citizens tend to find themselves enmeshed in situations that require them to become criminals.” (Matheson 896) The idea of a “moral double bind” is also a common theme between film noir and Wayne’s westerns. Matheson gives the example of Doniphon’s choice to kill Valance because it’s the right thing to do, although he knows this action would cause him to lose Hallie to Stoddard.
She continues the idea of the moral marginalism of Wayne’s characters by giving examples of Ethan’s attitude towards Debbie as a contaminated creature and his incestuous love for his sister and Rooster Cogburn’s alcoholism, living in a rat infested pantry, selling a dying man’s belongings, and general disregard for human life. However, as she states, although they exist on the margin, Wayne’s characters are men because their actions are fundamentally ethical. She states that their actions are ethical because it is for the improvement of themselves as well as the greater population. In this way, some “vices become virtues.”
Although the duke’s characters are marginalized, like the antiheroes of film noir they are balanced between two moral extremes. Matheson gives examples from El Dorado, Hondo, and The War Wagon to support this point. I also can see this position in Ethan’s balance between the helpless, ‘wimpy’ settlers and the vicious, savage Indians.
Matheson sees the above elements in Wayne’s characters and that they are common to many film noir themes and motifs, which in turn can be seen as a social commentary on the events that have taken place and the feeling of the culture in relation to those events in the time period in which the film have been created.
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