Legends of the Fall (1994)

I'll tell you why so serious

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Great acting but the morality of one of the brothers broke my heart so I got in such a bad mood from watching it.

I have to say that the Oscar winning cinematography just blew me away in Legends Of The Fall. With British Columbia standing in for Montana of the early 20th century it's not called The Big Sky country for nothing. My guess though is Montana now is a bit too developed now to get the proper feel for atmosphere in which Anthony Hopkins raised his three boys all of whom turned out quite different. The three sons in Legends Of The Fall are Aidan Quinn, Brad Pitt, and Henry Thomas chronologically. Quinn is the solid and reliable eldest who becomes one of Montana's Representatives in Congress. They usually had and still have only two of them. Henry Thomas can't get out from under being the baby of the family. The other two are constantly looking out for him.It's Brad Pitt as the middle son who is our brooding protagonist and the closest thing Pitt ever did on screen as a romantic idol. Brad's like something out of one of those romance novels. The brothers start showing their differences when Henry Thomas brings home Julia Ormond as his intended bride. She gets all their hormones in overdrive and when Thomas fails to return from World War I the rivalry between Pitt and Quinn drives the rest of the film.Anthony Hopkins who served in the Indian wars in the cavalry was disillusioned by said conflicts and built his own empire where the native Indians share in its bounty. His kids however grew up in the era of Theodore Roosevelt where you answered your country's call no matter what. And like TR all three Ludlow boys are imbued with the idealism of the Allied cause. All three go to Canada and enlist in their army and defy their father. It all becomes a Greek tragedy of sorts in the end.The Oscar winning cinematography is just breathtaking. The vastness of God's earth will dazzle the viewer and you might become an instant conservationist. Legends Of The Fall also won an Oscar for Art&Set Design which is also wonderful and I think that TR's Sagamore Hill might have been a model used.Sad though that Hopkins, Pitt, Quinn, and Ormond got no Oscar recognition for this film. Even watching it on television without the big screen Legends Of The Fall still blows me away.

OK, can't really fault the acting in this movie, except perhaps from Brad Pitt. I can't fault the production value. It's beautifully shot. It held my attention well enough. But I had problems with it when I first saw it back in1994, and having watched it again more than twenty years later, I haven't changed my mind. The primary issue? Pitt's character, Tristan. He's the heart of the story, he's meant to be, if not heroic, at least sympathetic and compelling. Instead, to me, he's just a self-absorbed, arrogant, emo jerk. His hair drove me crazy. That might seem shallow, but he looked like a man on the cover of a trashy romance novel. It's like his hair WAS his character. Like Pitt was kind of acting with his hair. I found myself siding with Aidan Quinn's character, Alfred, instead. Not that Alfred isn't meant to be sympathetic too, but overall I think the movie judges him unfairly, as do the other characters. Maybe it's because Aidan Quinn is just a much better actor, IMO, but mainly I just felt he got a raw deal. I won't say why because I don't want to spoil anything. As for the others, Anthony Hopkins is great as always. Julia Ormond is GORGEOUS here and performs quite well. Her character broke my heart. Finally, I thought the treatment of the Native American characters and how they informed the themes was rather pat. Not racist, just stereotyped. And it's a sexist movie too. I'm not usually a stickler about that, but here, for some reason, it really bothered me. But again, I'd say Tristan is the central problem. And when the central character doesn't work for you, the movie probably won't work for you either. I completely understand why so many viewers love this movie. It's just not for me.

I watched enthralled by the lush countrysides, wonderful production values, convincing and heartfelt acting, within the sphere of romanticized ironic events. However, the music, which was an ever-present distraction succeeded in drowning out the dialogue, at times, and when it wasn't doing so it seemed out-of-place in its purposeful attempt to add grandeur to scenes that needed no such addition. In fact, the music's loud volume was so off-putting, in its attempt to unnecessarily telegraph emotional content, that it only added an overblown pretentiousness to the proceedings. With that said, I gave this film a rating of 8, which - without the overwhelming musical score - probably would have netted a 10, for all the other elements it had going for it. Sometimes less is more and if the music had been a subtle background inclusion, rather than an overpowering entity unto itself, I believe this movie would have benefited rather than suffered as a result.