I’ve only seen the movie, so this thread will have me looking for the book next time I’m in a bookstore. Books are almost always better than their movie versions anyway, so ARRTI must be quite a good book. I’m intrigued that its mood may be considerably darker than what the movie portrays.
But at least in the movie, I didn’t get any sense that the family was dysfunctional. Just the opposite: the parents seemed normal people, good people, especially the minister who I thought was a very good dad for giving both his sons so much latitude to explore their lives. The only real friction point throughout was the charmingly rebellious #2 son who relished pushing society’s envelope at every opportunity. But don’t lots of everyday normal families have sons or daughters who do the same thing?
The tragedy of the movie was that #2 son became so recklessly self-assured that he began hanging with a wild crowd and eventually got himself killed after pushing their envelope to the ripping point.
I would agree that this movie got a LOT of people inspired to try fly fishing. And that’s cool, because the main thing that appeals to people about this movie is that its story line is anchored by the pleasures that dad and sons find on the river. While fishing they enjoy that wonderful combination of privacy, serenity, excitement, admiration and togetherness that natural fishing partners have.
Myself, I was impressed by the fact that they quickly split up when fishing. They were loners on the river, but loners only because they understood the risks of too much human commotion spooking the fish, so therefore they respected one another’s desire for space, peace and quiet.
And don’t activities like that, conducted in such a beautiful environment, hold a natural appeal to just about everyone? The problem novice fly fishers have when trying to experience the movie’s river mood is that their inexperience makes them feel insecure. They seldom admit, but nevertheless perceive, their need for instruction, but at the same time they don’t want anyone around to witness their many mistakes. This fear, I submit, is where the urge arises to compensate for their inadequacies by (if they can afford it) purchasing more and more of the high-end tackle, even going so far as to buy entire stretches of trout rivers and then slap no trespass signs all over the place.
The initial healthy urge is to disappear temporarily into nature, to seek a spiritual connect with themselves as instruments of nature. Instead, the modern insecurities intrude and prevail, and that initial urge to enjoy quiet fly fishing gets subverted into a quest for technical control. They actually want the opposite thing, they want desperately to get away from this consumerist mindset, but it just isn’t that easy.
I guess we can only hope that anyone who got into fly fishing after seeing that movie had a strong enough personality to endure the embarrassments and suffering that fly fishing can punish us with, and eventually (or maybe immediately) begin more confidently enjoying the sport’s beauty and solitude. Those who don’t have the patience in themselves that is required, they’ll soon enough move on to some other recreational activity.
You can only hope that someday they’ll return to fishing with a more relaxed attitude and finally connect with the peaceful but thrilling private challenge they’re longing for.
An earlier movie, “Deliverance”, no doubt had the same impact on the sport of canoeing (and river recreation) that ARRTI had on fly fishing. I would argue that the popularity of Deliverance – with it’s many beautiful scenes of wilderness style canoe tripping – spurred a sudden growth and interest in the science of canoe hull design, which resulted in the tremendous variety of canoes we see now.
But Deliverance also, I’m certain, inspired untold numbers of novice canoeists to take navigation risks they were ill-equipped and untrained to take, resulting in many getting killed in rapids or caught in snags, strainers, sweepers, lowhead dams, etc.
Likewise, when watching ARRTI I was appalled when Brad Pitt’s character jumped into the river and began swimming downstream through rapids, trying to stay within reel backing range of his large trout. Anyone who’s been around violent rapids, anyone who understands powerful currents, ankle entrapments and the effect of numbing cold water on human muscles and cognitive functions, knows that what Pitt’s character did in trying to land that fish amounts to virtual suicide for the common person in real life. I just hope that would-be fly fishers who saw that movie deduced that Pitt’s swim through those rapids was yet another expression of his character’s extreme risk-taking personality, an example of what NOT to do, something they themselves would never in a moment of excitement try to mimic.
Joe
“Better small than not at all.”
