This is a beautiful film with a magical aura about it. If you suppress cynicism and view this as a cultural relic of its time, the experience is profound; a perfect example of how filmmaking from the 50s was actually the peak of quality. Many argue Shane is the best western ever made and I would agree if not for some pacing issues and overall length of the film. Several scenes depicting farm life tableaux and the barroom brawl could have been edited and truncated. There's also the fact that Brandon de Wilde, the little boy, plays his role in an arched, histrionic fashion that can be grating. One has to sublimate modern sensibilities and accept that at the time, the child actor was endearing and his relationship with Shane is integral to the story. The film's direction, camera angles, and landscape shots capturing the pastoral mountainous setting transforms the west into a real fairy tale. Alan Ladd's face against the bright blue sky and white clouds is majestic, his visage mythical and enhanced by the swell of the score. The whole moment exudes that comforting romanticism of Hollywood's golden age. Modern viewers coarsened by a blase attitude will find much of this corny and it's their loss.

The movie unfurls like a storybook myth: a lone rider emerges from rolling valleys to find a frontier family. He joins them as an outsider and we learn that he's much more than he seems. He plays the pacifist part and is clearly troubled by his gunfighting past. His sharp, paranoid reflexes make him reach quickly to draw his gun at every false alarm, creating tension amidst the idyllic family life. We see all the joys and serenity of a homesteader's family life and understand Shane's attraction to their way of life. However, his sanguine disposition melts away and we sense the violence and Herculean prowess buried within whenever he reaches for his gun. When he teaches Brandon how to shoot, he fires with godlike speed and accuracy. Set against this slow pace is a music soundtrack evoking a mystical, optimistic world that only a film from the 30s and 40s could manage, like The Wizard of Oz.

The calm waters become troubled when conflict erupts between the farmer community and the cowboy gang in town who are eager to drive them away from their farms. Shane starts out as a pacifist, letting a bully--played by a young Ben Johnson--push him around in a bar. Shane is of few words, remains gentle but firm, and we know this is a strong, capable fighter who restrains himself. Alan Ladd is bewitching here. While effeminate, short in stature, and not the masculine western hero we expect, he's a real presence on screen in a way that other western actors wouldn't manage. He came from a career of film noir and knows how to portray a silent tough guy. He eventually gets into a brawl with Ben Johnson and beats him to a pulp before others join in; outnumbered, he still takes them on and then the farmer husband steps in to help. Brandon de Wilde is starstruck by Shane in a way that's hard for modern audiences to relate to without thinking it eccentric or creepy. But we have to remember for the time Brandon is seeing Shane as another father figure and a mythological idol - a superhero.

Shane, without meaning to, becomes a rival to the father, although the father hasn't really noticed this dynamic building up and harbors no resentment yet. Shane charms the wife and the son, and yet the father still regards him highly and keeps him around. Shane is running from a past he doesn't want anymore, but he ultimately accepts his purpose is sacrificial: to save the farmers from a threat that only he can handle. There's a scene with a young Jack Palance who comes into town as a famed gunfighter for hire, taunting one of the townspeople into reaching for a gun before shooting him first. Neighboring farmhouses are burned and the pressure to get these farming folk out of the town finally pushes the father to fight back. Shane stops him with a fistfight of their own. Then, Shane straps his pistol and rides into town to settle everything. Brandon chases after him with the dog at his side to watch the showdown unfold. Interestingly, Ben Johnson's character comes back to greet Shane before riding off to take on Jack Palance and becomes a good guy, abandoning the cowboys and wishing him the best against them. It's always pleasant to see Ben Johnson this way.

The final shootout in the saloon is terrific and one of the finest ever filmed: tense, fast, and realistic. Shane says to Palance: "I've heard about you. I've heard you're a low-down Yankee liar." Palance: "Prove it." Then we get a superb and lightning-fast shootout with the cowboy ringleader and Palance killed in quick succession. We think we see Shane flinch as if he's been shot, but maybe not. One remaining shooter aims his rifle from the upstairs balcony and Brandon yells "Shane look out!" Shane ripostes instantly with a fatal shot while receiving one in return. Shane leaves, his dirty work done, and he has a final tender scene with Brandon, who touches him and feels blood. With a twinkle in his eye and a smile, Shane gives him some final parting words and rides off to the famous boy's shouts echoing through the valley: "Shane! Come back!"

We see Shane slumped on his horse and must accept that he's dead or dying as his horse carries him off into the sunset and over the valley. It's not heartbreaking, yet it has a noble sadness and warmth that few films can generate convincingly. One could shed a tear over this not out of grief for the loss, but the meaning of the sacrifice. Commenting on Shane the character, Ebert says "There is a little of the samurai in him, and the medieval knight. He has a code." Shane is emblematic of the dangerous outsider who cannot fit in with civilization but whom civilization needs in order to save itself. Shane tries running from his violent past and wants desperately to join this loving family as a farmhand or friend. He does for a time until trouble in paradise forces him to embrace what he is and preserve paradise for others.

The themes would not be so powerful if the directing style and filmmaking were not from 1953. As a western, this is not very action-heavy and I often appreciate this approach. It hasn't been all that common in classic westerns except for The Gunfighter (1950) with Gregory Peck, which focuses on a gunfighter's pacificism and regret. Shane says: "There's no living with a killing. There's no going back from it. Right or wrong, it's a brand, a brand that sticks." This film is a work of art with moments that move like nothing else if your heart is open to it. I let mine be despite growing up in a world 40 years after it was made. That I could be uplifted in ways no movie in the past 30 years has affected me proves that beauty in filmmaking is timeless and woefully missing in the 21st century.