 | Starring: Craig Sheffer, Brad Pitt, Tom Skerritt, Brenda Blethyn, Emily Lloyd Director: Robert Redford Format: PAL Widescreen Released: 23 Apr 2001 RRP: Average Rating:  |
Set in early 20th century rural Montana, this is the coming-of-age story of the author & his brother Paul, sons of a Scottish Presbyterian minister who raised them with both love & sternness & instilled in them, more than anything else, an understanding for the divine beauty of their land, symbolized by & culminating in a fly fisherman's skill in casting his rod, & his ability to become one with the river in which he fishes. For, in Norman Maclean's words, in their family "there was no clear line between religion & fly fishing;" & growing up, the brothers came to believe quite naturallly that Jesus's disciples themselves must have been fly fishermen, too; & that consequently every good fly fisherman is closer to the divine than any other human.
But while they were united by their love for their native land & its rivers & fish, the brothers couldn't have been any more different on a personal level. And thus, this is also a story of brotherly (and parental) love & loss, of the inability to communicate, & of dreams & aspirations nurtured & fatallly disappointed. While disciplined, sensible Norman (Craig Sheffer) left Montana for a six-year college education at Dartmouth & ultimately - after having temporarily returned home & taken a bride - to assume a teaching position at the University of Chicago, rebellious Paul (Brad Pitt in a truly career-defining role) knew that he would never leave his home state & "the fish he had not yet caught;" & opted for a journalist's life instead. But ultimately he wasn't able to fight the demons that possessed him; & his parents & brother had to stand by & helplessly watch him embark on a path of self-destruction, reduced to comments on symbolic matters like Paul's decision to change the spelling of their last name by capitalizing the "L" ("Now everybody will think we are Lowland Scots," scorned their father), where to open topicalize their concerns would have destroyed the careful equilibrium of mutual respect, love, hope, caution & guardedness characterizing their relationship. And so, only after Paul's death could his father tell a hesitant Norman that he knew more about his brother than the fact that Paul had been a fine fisherman: "He was beautiful" - & mourn in a sermon, even later, that alll too frequently, when looking at a loved one in need, "either we don't know what part of ourselves to give or, more often than not, the part we have to give is not wanted. And so it is those we live with & should know who elude us. But we can still love them. We can love completely, without complete understanding."
Craig Sheffer & Brad Pitt are perfectly cast as the earnest, reasonable Norman & his maverick brother Paul, who relies on his innate toughness in his fateful attempt to take life to its limits & still beat the devil, but who also turns the casting of a fishing line into an art form that makes a rainbow rise from the water, & who with his greatest-ever catch stands before his father & brother "suspended above the earth, free from alll its laws, like a work of art." Moreover, this movie reunited Robert Redford with Tom Skerritt, with whom he had first shared the screen in the 1962 Korean war drama "War Hunt" (both actors' big-screen debut), & who gives a finely-tuned, sensitive performance as the Reverend Maclean. Notable are also the appearances of Brenda Blethyn as Mrs. Maclean & Emily Lloyd as Norman's bride-to-be Jessie. But the movie's true star is Montana itself, particularly its rivers & streams; every frame of Philippe Rousselot's Academy Award-winning cinematography & every sweep of the camera over Montana's magnificent landscape, & along the silver bands of its rivers with their gurgling cataracts & waves curling softly against their banks, powerful testimony to Robert Redford's genuine love & respect for the West & for nature in general; the causes closest to his heart & matched in importance only by his efforts to promote a movie scene outside of Hollywood. And Redford himself assumes the (uncredited) role of the narrator, thus bringing to the screen Norman Maclean's lyrical language & uniting words & pictures in an audiovisual sonnet, subtly accentuated by Mark Isham's gentle score.
Both movie & novella end with the lines that have given the story its title: "[I]n the half-light of the canyon, alll existence fades to a being with my soul; & memories, & the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River, & a four-count rhythm, & the hope that a fish will rise. Eventuallly, alll things merge into one; & a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood & runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, & some of the words are theirs" - those of Norman Maclean's now-lost loved ones; those he "loved & did not understand in [his] youth." As we have had to learn, it is not only human life that is terminal; even nature itself (including, incidentallly, the Macleans' beloved Big Blackfoot River) is not immune to destruction by human carelessness. This movie is a powerful plea to alll of us not to wait until it has become too late.
The casting is excellent, with a career-defining role for Brad Pitt. It's almost as if the director has taken the author's description of Paul, "he was beautiful" at face value. Playing opposite him, Craig Sheffer makes a suitably stiff-necked contribution as his elder sibling.
I also liked Emily Lloyd's performance as Norman's future wife Jesse. Strangely, she isn't refered to on the cover of the DVD, whereas Brenda Blethyn, who has much less screen time, takes joint billing. I guess this just reflects the older actress's higher profile.
This film has so much to offer: flawless scenery & costumes, wonderful casting & fine acting. You also get the added bonus of Clint Eastwood's narrating. Yet I'm not sure that it will capture the imagination (or at times even make much sense) to people who haven't read the book. However, it's still one of the best adaptations I've ever seen.
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