Movie: A River Runs Through It.

I pulled from my collection the movie, "A River Runs Through It," tonight, and there are several reasons that I love this film. Based on the book by Norman Maclean,

1) It is a period piece that is well done and made at a time when movies did not rely on special effects, language, and gore.

2) It takes place in an area of the world that I have come to greatly love, and cannot return to often enough - the American West.

and

3) It is a fly-fishing movie, as well as good Americana.

I cannot say how long ago I first saw the film, but it has been a long time.  One of Brad Pitts's first movies, it tells the story of two brothers - sons of a stern Presbyterian minister coming of age in the early-20th century - and how they took two very different paths.  Yet in common was always fishing.

I have always loved fishing, yet I do not get to do it much.  For years up until just a few years ago, we traveled to Branson, Missouri, to fish Lake Taneycomo.  And always before we traveled, or while we were there, it was an annual tradition to revisit "A River Runs Through It."

Perhaps it is a marriage between history and nature that gives the movie its appeal to me.  If you have a few hours to spend in cinematic pursuits, check out this Robert Redford film.  It is not a happy, uplifting film, but it is a pretty one with a nostalgic flavor that in some ways confirms that I was born in the wrong era of history. 

Perhaps, before too many days pass, I will wet a line again.