Legends of the Fall (1994)

Susan Shilliday and William D. Wittliff co-wrote this screenplay based on

Jim Harrison’s sprawling novel. This is storytelling on the grand scale of Edna Ferber’s Giant or Margaret Mitchell’s

Gone with the Wind. While director Edward Swick doesn’t quite achieve what those two earlier movies did, he gives it a mighty try. An elderly father and retired colonel of the U.S. Army, Ludlow (Anthony Hopkins), has three sons: Samuel, Alfred, and Tristan, played by Henry Thomas (all grown up from E.T.), Aidan Quinn, and Brad Pitt, respectively. All three boys go off to World War l, where Samuel is killed. When the other two return, they each want Samuel’s now-bereaved girlfriend, Susannah (Julia Ormond) as their own wife. As this domestic drama intensifies, the family begins to unravel. The script is clumpy and while all of the acting is really fine, there are two more important reasons to rewatch this film: the gorgeous cinematography by John Toll, which makes Alberta so much more beautiful than the Montana it is pretending to be, and the majestic film score by James Horner.