The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

With filmmaker Matías Piñeiro in person

The screening will be preceded by a book signing with Piñeiro at 3:00 p.m.

Dir. John Ford. 1962, 123 mins. U.S. 35mm. With James Stewart, John Wayne, Lee Marvin, Woody Strode. Who shot the vicious outlaw Liberty Valance? Was it the law-and-order senator (James Stewart), representing the new order, or the rugged gunman (John Wayne), representing the pioneer tradition? There are no easy answers in this twilight western that serves as John Ford’s profound summation and reevaluation of his earlier movies and features Wayne and Stewart in two of their greatest late-career roles. The film that coined the phrase “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend,” The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is, per Richard Brody, the “greatest American political movie,” a truth-seeking frontier tale about the free press, vigilantism, and the myth of the American male.

To celebrate the release of a new book on filmmaker Matías Piñeiro (Viola), The Originals is proud to present a 35mm print of John Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, a film that Piñeiro writes about. Published by Fireflies Press and Batalha – Centro de cinema, From where do you start when drawing a flower? is composed of Piñeiro’s notebooks, sketches, photographs, writings, and merges his filmmaking practice with his cinephilia as well as his longstanding work as a film educator.

Writes Piñeiro: “As flowers are a motif in the title of my book, I could not help but think about one of the most beautiful flowers in film history: the cactus flower in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance by John Ford. The beauty of this flower may reside in its extraordinary power for evoking a certain feeling of irrecoverable loss, a scar we have to learn to live with. This flower will be screened in a beautiful 35mm black and white print, as it was meant to be. The lack of color does something to this flower—we can’t learn all about it; we cannot fully pick it. It escapes us just in front of our faces but remains glowing within us.”

From where do you start when drawing a flower? (Fireflies Press and Batalha – Centro de cinema)

Tickets: $17.50 / $12 senior and students / $10 youth / free for MoMI members. There is a $1.50 transaction fee per ticket for all online purchases. The cost of admission may be applied toward a same-day purchase of a membership.

Order tickets. Please pick up tickets at the Museum’s admissions desk upon arrival. All seating is general admission.