** (out of ****)
Starring Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins, Aidan Quinn, Julia Ormond, Henry Thomas, Gordon Tootoosis, and Karina Lombard
Directed by Edward Zwick & written by Susan Shilliday and Bill Whitliff, from the novella by Jim Harrison
1994
133 min R
A two-hour commercial for Marlboro.
Oh, I really wanted this melodramatic claptrap to work on me, honestly I did, at least ironically. But it was just too overheated and laughably earnest. There was the perfect, virginal sex scene, set to candlelight. There were the grudges held for years and years. There was the guy screaming “no!” over a dead body. Then the old man read the heartbreaking letter and got a stroke. Then the orchestral score continued to bludgeon me to death, as it had for the whole movie, and would continue to do so until the last frame of the last second of the end credits. Then there was the endless and redundant narration, making absolutely sure no one misses anything. And, of course, there’s Brad Pitt’s flowing locks and bare chest, his lips girly and huge, as he does everything “passionately.” Yes, “Legends of the Fall” is like a Harlequin trash romance come to life and given the epic treatment. And then some bootleggers show up so we can shoot some people at the end.
A plot outline can’t even begin to give you an idea of the charms of this film. In summary, “Legends of the Fall” isn’t really that different from Faulkner or Malick, except for a complete absence of subtlety. In the early years of the 20th century, three brothers from a ranch in Montana fall in love with the same woman. Then a war starts, which the movies have taught us are always hardest on love triangles (and other love polygons) from well-to-do families. A brother dies, another blames himself, another holds a grudge for almost as long as that old guy in “Karate Kid II,” and the woman stays at the ranch to suffer like this is Euripides.
The brother’s names are Alfredo, Sonny, and Michael—oops, I mean Alfred, Samuel, and Tristan. That’s right, Tristan. He’s (Pitt) the “wild” one, Alfred (Aidan Quinn) is the “responsible” one, and Samuel (Henry Thomas) is the “dead” one. Samuel’s death goes about like this:
Samuel: “Tristan!”
Tristan: “Samuel!”
Samuel: “Tristan!”
Tristan: “Samuel!”
Samuel: “TRISTAN!!!”
Tristan: “SAMUEL!!”
KA-BOOM!!
Tristan: “NO!!!!”
Orchestra: Fortississississmo
As their father, Anthony Hopkins is the definition of crotchety. In the tradition of classically-trained British actors, he plays comedy exactly as if it were drama. Before his stroke, his mouth is never without a cigar, and after, his face is trapped in an hilarious grimace as he stalks around the ranch grunting at things. Quinn is also good. He’s one of those respected, reliable, and hardworking actors who may not have become a star, but is never at a loss for work. He delivers his goofiness about as well as it can be delivered. The woman is played by Julia Ormond, although she might as well be a coat rack. The movie has some good scenes in which Hopkins, a veteran of the Indian wars, reams his sons out for joining the army, elaborating on the “you’ll kill and then you’ll die” argument against fighting.
As for Pitt, he stands beyond criticism: if the movie works for you, and for that I envy you, he works, but if it doesn’t, he’s a hoot. Among the film’s half-dozen narrators is a wise old Indian guy (Gordon Tootoosis), standing in for the wise old black man, and he is always shot from below. The movie makes it clear he lives to be about a million. Like Aidan Quinn, director Edward Zwick (“Glory”) is a hardworker and knows how to photograph big countries, big battles, and big emotions. He beat out Peters Jackson and Weir for the 2003 National Critic’s Circle Best Director Award for “The Last Samurai,” his first-rate Kurosawa impersonation.
It might just be “Legends’” bad luck that I saw it about a week after re-watching “Days of Heaven,” also about a pre-WWI love polygon in open country, also an Oscar winner for photography. That movie is so oblique and meditative, about as far as you can get from “Legends,” that you don’t notice the pulpier elements until its done. The same basic script of “Legends of the Fall” could have been made that way, or maybe the temperature could have been turned up even more and become an overwrought Guy Maddin silent extravaganza. Who knows.
At least at the end I was in flavor country. Luckily, flavor country is a big country, thanks to my homeboy, cinematographer John Toll (“The Thin Red Line,” “Braveheart”), who picked up the Oscar for it. Wait a second…Toll and Malick worked together on “Red Line” and Malick’s “Days of Heaven” also won an Oscar for cinematography. It’s all starting to make sense now…
Finished Friday, September 16th, 2005
Copyright © 2005 Friday & Saturday Night
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