The end?

My brother was named after a cowboy movie, which tells you a lot about the era in which we grew up. In Shane, Alan Ladd looks down at the boy who adores him and says, "I'm alright, Joey," before riding off toward the sunset. The hero cannot escape being a gunfighter. He saves the town and disappears into the horizon with a bullet in his side and his conscience intact. Whether he lives or dies is left politely unresolved, which is Hollywood's way of letting you believe whatever helps you sleep.

My dad loved that picture, though I doubt he lingered over its subtleties. What he saw was the clean-shaven man in the white hat: the good guy who occasionally had to do unpleasant things so the rest of us could live decently. My father admired America in much the same uncomplicated way. From Canada, the United States appeared enormous, confident and impossibly shiny.

Of course, even then there were hints that the smile was a shade too perfect. Racism, violence and an appetite for distant wars were not exactly hidden, but they were easy to excuse. Every movie needs a few explosions.

The difficulty is what happens after the cameras stop and the noble cowboy turns out to be a rather shabby man with a fondness for teenage girls and weak excuses. The confident hero turns out to be a carnival barker: loud, relentless, promising prizes he never intended to deliver. While the crowd kept its eyes on the spinning wheel, he was busy lightening their pockets.

For most of the last century the performance continued. America insisted it was merely defending freedom while toppling governments or spreading democracy while securing convenient supplies of oil. The invasions were humanitarian, the bombings regrettable necessities, the coups unfortunate misunderstandings. It was all presented with such professional stagecraft that many of us chose not to examine the wiring behind the curtain.

That same curtain has now been yanked down with a theatrical flourish. The current ringmaster sees little need for old disguises. The language of ideals has given way to the language of acquisitions.

What is startling is not that empires behave this way. Empires always have. What startles is the enthusiasm of the audience. When the new impresario muses about taking Greenland as if it were a vacation home, legions of admirers rush forward to explain why this is perfectly sensible. The mask slips, and instead of recoiling, many cheer the revelation.

I sometimes wonder what my father would make of it all. He died before the scenery fell over and the wires became visible. Would he still look south with the old admiration, or would he feel a quiet embarrassment at having mistaken a set for a city?

In the end of the movie, little Joey calls after the departing hero, begging him to return. It is a touching moment because the boy believes, as children do, that the good man can always come back if we only ask loudly enough. The rest of us, a little older now, are left to decide whether we are watching the end of a movie or the end of a very long illusion.