From: reiher@ficus.cs.ucla.edu (Peter Reiher)
Subject: Re: A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT  (SPOILERS)
Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 92 22:25:50 GMT

In article <1992Nov11.200829.6097@cbfsb.cb.att.com> colten@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (marc.colten) writes:
>I've been avoiding talking about this film, and I have no doubt it's
>beautifully filmed and all, but the story is making me sick to my stomach.
>
>I've never heard of Norman McLean, and I've never read his books, but
>recently Smithsonian Magazine did a piece on the man, his book, his
>family and the film, and then I saw Siskel and Ebert review it
>and I've got to say SOMETHING.
>
>First, Norman McLean's family was the sickest thing I've ever heard of.
> . .  .
>Rev. McLean was a bully, living vicariously though his sons and I
>never had any doubts as I read this article that Paul would wind
>up being beaten to death in a bar fight.  

I know nothing of McLean's family other than what he wrote in "A River
Runs Through It", and some other supposedly true incidents that appeared
in the film version.  Therefore, I cannot comment on their real lives.
However, since you haven't read the book, and I have, I thought it worth
saying that the book is beautifully written, and does not, perhaps, have
the moral or theme you think it does.  It's a short work, and not hard
reading, so I recommend it to you.  There's a reason the book has a
"cult" following, even among those who know little and care less about
fly fishing.  McLean manages to use a rather obscure sport to say some
very interesting things about grace, skill, and love.  He says them
very eloquently, too.  The book is sold as fiction, and McLean never
claimed it to be pure fact.  If his real childhood was nastier than
depicted in the book, that has no bearing on the quality of the book.

>The article said that McLean wrote his book after a lifetime of mourning
>for his lost brother.  I wonder if in all that time he could admit
>to himself who was really responsible for that loss.  

Note that Norman, the elder son, did not end up getting beaten to death,
and, in fact, ended up as a college professor.  While clearly their
upbringing had a great deal to do with his brother's death, his brother's
character, wherever that comes from, did, too.

>The other thing that really annoys me about this film is the
>film critics who are leaping over backwards trying to ignore some
>obvious truths.  Ebert even went so far as to say that this was not
>really a story of Montana Protestants and fly fishing - but a 
>"universal" story.  What a crock!  Tell the cult surrounding this
>book that you were going to make movie of the book, but since it
>was so universal you were going to move it to Brooklyn, make the
>main characters a Rabbi and his sons and take out the fly fishing
>and see how "universal" the story is to them.

The story would not be the same if it wasn't set in Montana, around the
turn of the century, in a Scottish Presbyterian family whose male members
were obsessed with fly fishing.  In spite of that, it does have a great
deal to say to people who don't live anywhere near Montana, who live in
the modern era, in a variety of family types, whether or not they care about
fly fishing.  It's worth remembering that, in art, details are usually
not trivial, but that doesn't mean the art is completely about the details.

-- 
		Peter Reiher
		reiher@wells.cs.ucla.edu