The whole package - what movies should be.

Rating: 10/10 (22 January 2008)

This is easily one of my top ten favorite films of all time. I loved it in 1994 and I loved it more last weekend when I caught it on cable.
I am someone who thinks most 120 minute movies are too long, but Legends of the Fall could easily add another hour to the 133 minute running time and I would watch it again and again. I feel there is still so much more to be written about these characters.
Mostly love story, a little bit Western, a little bit War, Legends of the Fall is an epic in the truest sense of the word. This is probably the vehicle in which Brad Pitt delivers finest work. (Written for Tom Cruise?? What a catastrophe that would have been!!) Pitt delivers a range of different motions not only convincingly but authentically.
However, the best performance of the cast might have to be Julia Ormand. (Where has she gone?) She was a perfect choice. Every emotion plays just below the surface of her skin and eyes. Her first appearance in the film leaves the other characters spellbound, and it strikes me the same way every time I see it. Critics raved about her work in this film in 1994, and she followed it up with a couple other starring turns, but still deserves more attention than she has gained so far.
The cinematography is amazing too. Whether the camera is aimed at the glorious mountains, a sun dappled landscape, Brad Pitt in clothes or out, or the gentle beauty of the lovely Julia Ormand, your eyes drink eagerly from scene after scene.
The romantic, the adventurer, the historian, and the sentimental viewer will walk away from this film craving for at least a second to live one of the lives so beautifully crafted on film here.