A River Runs Through It (film)

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A River Runs Through It
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Robert Redford
Produced by	Jake Eberts Robert Redford Patrick Markey
Screenplay by	Richard Friedenberg
Based on	A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean
Starring	Craig Sheffer Brad Pitt Tom Skerritt Brenda Blethyn Emily Lloyd
Music by	Mark Isham
Cinematography	Philippe Rousselot
Edited by	Robert Estrin Lynzee Klingman
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures (Global) Guild Film Distribution[1] (United Kingdom)
Release date	October 9, 1992
Running time	123 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$12 million[2]
Box office	$66 million

A River Runs Through It is a 1992 American drama film directed by Robert Redford and starring Craig Sheffer, Brad Pitt, Tom Skerritt, Brenda Blethyn, and Emily Lloyd. It is based on the 1976 semi-autobiographical novella A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean, adapted for the screen by Richard Friedenberg. Set in and around Missoula, Montana, the story follows two sons of a Presbyterian minister, one studious and the other rebellious, as they grow up and come of age in the Rocky Mountain region during a span of time from roughly World War I to the early days of the Great Depression, including part of the Prohibition era.^[3]

The film won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography and was also nominated for Best Music, Original Score and Best Adapted Screenplay. The film grossed over $66 million and received positive reviews from critics.

Contents

Plot[edit]

The Maclean brothers, Norman and Paul, grow up in Missoula, Montana with their father, Presbyterian minister John, from whom they learn a love of fly fishing for trout in the Blackfoot River. Norman and Paul are home taught and must adhere to the strict moral and educational code of their father. As young men, the brothers navigate a dangerous waterfall. Norman leaves to attend college at Dartmouth; when he returns six years later, he finds that Paul has become a skilled fisherman.

Norman attends a July 4th dance, and meets Jessie Burns. Paul has become a fearless muckraking reporter at a newspaper in Helena. He has angered many of the locals by falling behind in a big poker game in Lolo Montana where a bar is a front for gambling and prostitution. He is also dating a Native American woman, Mabel, who is deemed inferior by the white community. Paul is arrested after fighting a man who has insulted her, and Norman is awakened in the middle of the night by a phone call from the police to come and bail Paul out of jail.

After Norman and Jessie go on several dates, she asks that Norman make an effort to get along with her brother Neal, who is visiting from California. Norman and Paul do not like Neal, but at Jessie's insistence they invite him to go fishing. Neal shows up drunk with Rawhide, a woman he met at a bar the night before. Norman and Paul decide to fish anyway and return to their car hours later to find that Neal and the woman have drunk all the beer and passed out naked in the sun.

Norman returns a painfully sunburned Neal home, where Jessie is waiting for them. She is angry that the brothers did not fish with Neal. Norman asks Jessie to drive him home, as he had brought Neal back in Neal's car, and he tells her that he is falling for her. She drives away angry but a week later asks Norman to come to the train station to see Neal off. After the train departs, Norman shows Jessie a letter from the University of Chicago: a job offer for an English Literature teaching position. Norman tells Jessie that he does not necessarily wish to leave and when it becomes clear that it's because of her - her face lights up and she quickly embraces him.

A river in Montana

When Norman tells Paul about the job offer and marriage proposal, he urges Paul to come with him and Jessie to Chicago, concerned that Paul is making powerful enemies. Paul says that he will never leave Montana. Just before leaving for Chicago, Norman, Paul, and their father go fly fishing one last time. Paul catches a huge rainbow trout that drags him down the river through a set of rapids before he finally lands it. John proudly tells him what a wonderful fisherman he has become, and how he is an artist in the craft, much to Paul's delight. They pose for pictures with the huge fish.

Soon after the fishing excursion, Norman is called by the police, who tell him that Paul has been found beaten to death in an alley. Norman goes home and tells his parents the news. Years later, Mrs. Maclean, Norman, Jessie, and their two children listen to a sermon being given by John, who dies soon after.

The closing scene is of the elderly Norman, once again fishing on the same river, with director Robert Redford narrating the final lines from the original novella;

Of course now I'm too old to be much of a fisherman, and now I usually fish the big waters alone, although some friends think I shouldn't. But when I'm alone in the half light of the canyon, all existence seems to fade to a being with my soul and memories, and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River, and the four-count rhythm, and a hope that a fish will rise. Eventually all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood, and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.

— Norman Maclean, (1976).^[4]