Aaron McLellan--A River Runs Through It

The movie “A River Runs Through It” is incredibly moving with many allegories and deeper meanings in it.  It is about two brothers growing up in the wilderness of Montana around the 1920s.  They are taught everything they know from their father, who is a Presbyterian Minister.  He teaches him what seems to be his real passion, fly-fishing.  This was especially moving for me because I have spent time fly-fishing in Montana, particularly the Big Blackfoot River that they fish at in the movie.  The Big Blackfoot represented a union with the transcendence.  Just as the two boys father taught them the ways of Christianity, he also taught them the ways of fly-fishing.  Their father introduced them to the transcendent.  At the river there was peace, unity and fulfillment, where troubles went away.  At home and in the world they experienced hardships, sufferings and division.  As the two boys grew up they walked among much different paths.  Norman the older brother was looked at as the successful respectable brother.  Paul the younger brother was looked at as the delinquent who never grew up and had many problems in his life.  But even when the brothers had been apart from each other and their relationship had grown apart, when they got to the river, their problems disappeared and in the presence of the transcendent, troubles of life fade away.