Legends of the Fall

Legends of the Fall is an excellent story of brotherhood, loss, and life. Originally Legends of the Fall was a story written by Jim Harrison, but later was adapted into a film. The story tells of three brothers named: Alfred, Tristan, and Samuel, who lived their lives on a plantation in Montana and then decided to go to war once the youngest brother was of age. Samuel, the youngest brother seemed to be favored by the family; and the older brothers only want to go to war to protect him. Eventually tragedy strikes and young Samuel is killed by machine guns due to his blindness from mustard gas. Tristan (the middle brother) took Samuel’s death especially hard and many other characters thought he had become completely mad. Once Tristan and Alfred came home from the war they go in completely opposite directions. Tristan abandoned the woman he loved, Susannah, and went on an adventure to other countries looking for something to fill the place in his heart that Samuel fit into. Eventually a strange love triangle unfolds and the characters get into deeper drama and trouble. Through analyzing the film and text one will find that there are different aspects in each one that do not exactly agree. Setting, characterization, time, conflict, and dialogue are some of the aspects that one can compare to determine the difference in the two stories. During the film Legends of the Fall most of the events shown took place at the Ludlow’s ranch in Montana. Shorter scenes were also shown of the brothers at war in England and of Tristan’s journey after the death of Samuel. One of the most significant differences in the setting is when, in the film, Tristan witnessed Samuel’s death during the war. In the text, Tristan did not see Samuel’s death, but it still impacted him just as significantly. Much more emphasis is placed on Tristan’s journeys after Samuel’s death in the text. The film shows just a few moments of scenery of Tristan’s travels to different places. In the film