Saw the Movie, read the book, liked them both. The Movie for what it is, a little entertaining diversion, and the book as a nice read with some great imagery. I love the last passage both in the movie and the book.
By the way it is Jason Borger doing all the incredible casting and the scene going downstream after the huge rainbow.
Mike
The novella was a good story. You can knock it off in one night and it’s well worth the time.
…I have opinions about “the movie” that have little do do with it’s cinematic qualities. That’s better left to another time.
Can’t stand Pitt as an actor,
I would like to comment on Brad Pitt as an actor though.
For years I though of him as a low talent pretty boy.
I was wrong
The part he plays in The 12 Monkeys was pure genius
I loved the mumbling dialog in Snatch
Seven Years in Tibet, Se7en, Fight Club, Ocean’s 11…
[LEFT]All top notch.
Brad Pitt has proved himself
[/LEFT]
Here’s my opinion (and remember, my opinion is worth EXACTLY what you are paying for it).
When “The Movie” came out most of us (including myself) mistakenly thought the movie was about flyfishing and then as fly fishers were somewhat disappointed. “The Movie” is NOT about flyfishing. Fishing was simply the one thing that connected the 2 brothers (and their father for that matter). It could have just as easily been stamp collecting, stock car racing or baking cookies.
Paul approached flyfishing the same way he approached life, hell bent and full spead ahead. Norman was haunted by the fact that they were completely different people and I’m sure that he knew that Paul’s personality would be his undoing. Remember when he chased that nice trout down-stream and floated his hat? He could have easily died then and there instead of being pistol-whipped to death. He could no more let that trout break him off than he could give up gambling. I also think Norman, in some small way, wished he was more like Paul. I doubt Paul wished he was more like Norman, however. In the final scene I get the impression that, even as an old man, Norman feels he failed his brother in some way and if he would have done something differently they might still be fishing the big water together.
Sorry for rambling. Take the movie for what it is. It ISN’T about fishing nut about LIFE.
Royce, you nailed it!
I didn’t think the movie was hokie at all and I am the ultimate at disliking that kind of stuff(reality shows suck…to me that is the ultimate in hokie). I thought the story behind it all was very good. The only thing I disliked about the movie was the death of Paul. I know that is what ultimately drove the main character, but it seems like such a waste. But that is life and that is what the movie was.
I still get choked up at the end:
“I am haunted by waters” gets me every time.
If you’ve never had a passion that consumed you, you have no idea what that means.
FOr me it is the frozen version:
“I am haunted by snows” I am enthralled with snow. I simply love it. Since I could drive, every time it snows I am out in it exploring everything. Even before that every time it snowed I was out in it just wanting to be in it. I love everything about snow. I grew up in an area that receive 70-100 inches of it. I now live in an area that sees 4". Now I am hainted at the memory of snow. I still make it back home and make sure it is going to snow when I am there. I AM HAUNTED BY SNOWS.
I can understand ‘being haunted by waters’.
But what Royce said IS the whole movie. If you think it is a movie about fly fishing… you sorely missed the point.
The movie has nice scenery, but great writing can never really be translated to the big screen. The book is a excellent piece of writing that happens to incorporate some fly fishing.
Yes, the book was better than the movie. I think John Bailey was the advisor on the fly casting in the movie and he did a reasonable job. But the book is not really about fly fishing per se. That is simply the canvas on which the book was painted. Norman McLean is an excellent author and his writing is filled with characterization and imagery. If you read the last page of the book, it will seal the meaning of the previous pages into your mind. But don’t expect it to be a “fly fishing” book. It is something different from that. And in my opinion, it is a masterpiece of literature. I only wish I could write that well. It’s in the same vein as Ruark’s “The Old Man and the Boy.” Compare that with his “Death in the Long Grass” which is a book about hunting, and maybe you can see the true direction of “And a River Runs Through It.”
My $.02
Godspeed,
Bob
MacLean has moments of brilliant prose in his writings. The first page and the last page in “A River…” are good examples. Other of his books are worth reading as well, such as “Young Men And Fire.”
For those that have not read it, this is a sampling of prose from “A River…”
The copy I own also has two short stories, they both are pretty good as well. Anything the guy wrote is worth reading.
I like the movie and the book.
For me its about how three people who don’t or can’t communicate except through their shared passion for fly fishing and the natural world.
They witness / share / and appreciate each other not only while fishing but while they are both literally and figuratively immersed in the river and natural environment.
Ed
I first read the book many years before the “Damn Movie”, as we call it came out. The book is one of my all time favorites. Second to that is, “The River Why”. Royce is right, the book and movie are not about fly fishing. They are both about the two brothers and how they were different, with one common thread running through the family, fly fishing.
The book does get more involved in the fly fishing, but the fishing is still a vehicle to bring out the differences in the two brothers. To me the saving grace of “The Movie” was the narative of the more famous passages from the book. If you have not read, “A River Runs Through It”, it is very much worth the few hours.
One lasting affect from the movie here is that the sun burn scene was filmed on one of my favorite small streams. Now everyone wants to fish where that was filmed.
On a related subject. I did hear a rumor that “The River Why”, was going to be made into a movie. Is there any truth to that?
Seems like the Ol’Coot wants to fish there too after a soak in Chico drinking a Moose Drool!
Well I can see quite clearly now, That I gotta get the book…Having never read it. I like the movie for what it is…The story of an immigrant family. That settled at the junction of three great trout water’s…It’s all about Family…as it always is…and should be!.
The “movie” is a great story and thats pretty much it. As far as hooking people on flyfishing? All you have to do is watch the movie and at sometime in your life, spend some time in western montana. Having lived in the Bitterroot valley for 8 years fishing the bitterroot, big hole, beaverhead, rock creek, clark fork and the blackfoot. My challenge to you is to go there and fish those rivers and tell me that your not in heaven!!! When I lived in Hamilton, I met a man named John Foust, he’s close to 70 years old. He was one of the technical flyfishing advisors for the movie. The fish that jumps in the movie is a mechanical fish that he made. It now hangs in his house! A great man to talk to with many great stories. If you look at the movie credits at the end of the movie you"ll see his name. Still guides to this day on the Bitterroot river. Its not the movie that hooks you, its the area that your in. It takes you back in time… I have some great flyfishing stories from many of those rivers… CLASSIC FLYFISHING. You cant get that out of a book or a movie!
Steve,
I am green with envy. In my second life I am moving to Montana and living the life of a trout bum.
What I’ve never understood is the comparison of a book to a movie, or the other way around. Two completely different media. Movies, or films, are typically “based” on a novel, and rarely to be confused as a documentary of the book. I, too, enjoyed both. And I thought Redford did a fine job of infusing some of Maclean’s best passages into the context of the film. Sometimes, though, I do find an intrepretation of a book by film an improvement. Take Milan Kundera’s “Unbearable Lightness of Being.” An excellent book, and quite a great example of stream-of-consciousness writing. Sometimes as a reader, though, you were lost in the “consciousness.” The film, though, put Kundera’s work into a chronology that, at least for me, was much easier to understand and relate to than Kundera’s original work. Yet, like Maclean “versus” Redford, as a reader and viewer, I think we are better served to enjoy each media for what they are, that they compliment rather than compete. JGW
Personally, not sure but I was around 12 years old when I saw it at the movies and I had never seen fly fishing done before. I was an obsessed spin fishing fanatic, the movie opened a whole new world to me. For that reason I enjoy the movie because it led me to this sport.
Ratherbfishn, yeah we can just sink some beers in the stream and go fishing. So far I have come pretty close to a black bear and just about ran into a big bull moose right where that was filmed.
I loved the book. It’s one of the best books I’ve ever read.
I didn’t like the movie. I agree that Brad Pitt was miscast. I thought the other main characters were pretty well cast though.
Brad Pitt came across as more of a California beach guy (which in fact he is) than a brooding, troubled, hard-core flyfishing, hard drinking Montanan, who ends up destroying himself, which was the character he was supposed to be playing.
The story of the book is true, mostly. But here are some things I learned later, that were not in the book. In real life there was a rivalry between two brothers over the woman Norman eventually married. So part of Norman’s guilt over not being ablel to save his brother stemmed from the fact that he married his brother’s sweetheart. That’s not in the book. I think the movie touched on that, but I don’t recall if it made it really clear. In many ways that’s really the heart of the real story, but Norman probably couldn’t bring himself to reveal THAT much in the book.
The other thing is that the brother actually killed by thugs in the streets of Chicago, not in Montana. Why that was changed, I don’t know.
Anyways. If you haven’t read the book, read it. I give the movie a C-.
Something to pay attention to next time you watch the movie. I don’t know why I noticed this, but having worked in television in the past, I’m weird about paying close attention to things. In the scene where Paul catches “the big one” and takes a swim down the river. Pay close attention to the fish as he is holding it at shoulder height. I think this may be the first ever stunt double fish, LOL. When the camera angle switches from a frontal view to a rear view, the trout changes. In fact it switches a few times. One fish has a protruding lower jaw with a black tip. the other looks like a large hatchery trout, lower jaw shrinks. Different coloring too I believe. I’m sure the idea was to use 2 fish to shoot the scene multiple times so as to not stress any one trout. I’m assuming the editor of the film was NOT a fisherman! LOL
Harebear,
Not to highjack the thread, but I like to watch for the little details as well. Next time you watch the movie, I think it is the scene where Norman and Paul go fishing the first time in years, now that Norman is back. Pay attention to Norman’s hat. The brim alternates between flipped up and flipped down several times throughout the sequence.
Mike