Legends of the Fall - 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

There’s nothing wrong with a movie that exists to be beautiful. You take a lovely scenic location like the Canadian Rockies (Calgary and parts of Banff doubling for northern Montana), cast some handsome-looking leads, and stick them in immaculate period-appropriate clothing and by God, you’ve got the backdrop suitable for a sprawling epic like Jim Harrison’s Legends of the Fall. While the story is compelling and most of the performances are solid, Edward Zwick’s film is often far too content with simply being beautiful to be a true full-blooded frontier epic. 

After serving in the United States Army, Cornish-born Col. William Ludlow moved his family deep into the wild wilderness of Montana to raise his three sons Alfred (Aidan Quinn), Tristan (Brad Pitt), and Samuel (Henry Thomas). Free from the influences of society and government, the boys grow into men, each with their unique path to living. Alfred does right by God and Man’s laws, Samuel is loved by all, and Tristan is the wild free spirit that refuses to be tamed. The family’s enduring resolve will be tested by the Great War, the love of the beautiful Sussanah (Julia Ormond), and the pressures of society expanding into their frontier. 

Now to be clear, I don’t think Legends of the Fall is a bad film, there’s much to admire, but I don’t feel it’s a great film. It’s a beautiful film to look at, it’s an interesting film to watch, but it’s also a very flawed film. But I’ll start with what I like. The first thing that stands out to me is the John Toll cinematography; every frame’s a portrait perfectly captured with some of the most beautiful mountainous country you can travel. Zwick might not be tackling big-scale epics these days, but he was a master craftsman when capturing a specific time and place as he did for Glory and The Last Samurai and this film is another impressive example of that talent. 

This film is also impeccably cast. Anthony Hopkins was just coming off his The Silence of the Lambs Oscar win and he plays the family elder haunted by his history perfectly. Henry Thomas exudes that sense of naive optimism indicative of a younger sibling while Aidan Quinn plays that stiff-uptight-upright do-no-wrong older sibling to the hilt. And then high on his star-breaking turns in Thelma and Louise and A River Runs Through It (less said about high-haired Johnny Suede the better) Brad Pitt channels his Hollywood bad-boy persona for the rebellious Tristan. And then you can't say enough about the range Julia Ormond brought to this film. 

My issue with the film, and it’s partly a feature of the original novella, is how segmented the narrative is, it doesn’t leave breathing room for each era of this decades-long story. Told through the events laid out in letters, we’re never in one place for long. We’re barely introduced to their home in Montana as children before they return as grown men before they’re off to Europe for the Great War. Because the story spans five decades, it has a lot to pack in restricted to a two-hour twelve-minute run time. If it’d been longer, let the scenes take their time before rushing off to the next truncated multi-year period, I think the dramatic beats would have been more effective. The pieces work terrifically, they’re directed impeccably, but they just don’t always knit together evenly. And from the number of scenes that were cut, I can’t help but wonder if it was better for them to have stayed and slowed down the pace and let the story truly be epic.

Then the other piece of the film that just makes my eyes roll is the numerous hunk shots of Brad Pitt. I get it, he was the handsome rising star, and he certainly grabbed the camera’s attention, but what's here is overkill. You can have only so many pensive stares into the off-camera horizon with golden magic-hour lighting behind him. If you took a shot every time the characters stopped everything they were doing to watch Pitt ride into the scene on a horse, you’d be drunk under the table long before the credits.

So I admire a lot of Legends of the Fall, but I don’t love it. I caught it in theaters as a kid (dragged by my older sister), and watched it many times on tape and DVD, but it’s only gotten so far in my estimation. With recent revisits on Blu-ray and now on 4K, I’ve tapped out. I don’t think I’ll ever think of it any better. It's fine, it's entertaining, but that's it for me. I know many who love this film endlessly, I'm just not one of them I don’t begrudge Legends of the Fall aiming for the scale of David Lean, but more me the story often turns into an undercooked David Lean Cuisine preserved on film with Oscar-winning Cinematography. 

Vital Disc Stats: The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray 
Legends of the Fall rides onto 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray to celebrate its 30th Anniversary from Sony. Pressed on a BD100 disc for this single-disc plus digital release, the disc is housed in a standard black case with paper slipcover. The digital slip is Movies Anywhere compatible. The disc loads to Sony’s standard static image main menu with the bonus features list along the right side of the screen.

I’ve mentioned it before, I’ll say it again, Legends of the Fall is a beautiful-looking film, and that Oscar-winning John Toll cinematography makes for a practically flawless 1.85:1 2160p Dolby Vision transfer. From the first moments to the finale, this is one gorgeous transfer. My only gripe is depending on some of the waning daylight, the film grain could look a little thick and intrusive in the skyline, but that’s a very, very small complaint. I'm not sure most would even notice it, but it's something that caught my eye. Details are impeccably captured. Fine facial features with all of the beards and mustaches, the period clothing, and the incredible Oscar-nominated production design by Lilly Kilvert are all on display. Even the artificial city they built to recreate Prohibition-era Helena is incredibly detailed and felt lived-in and authentic. The Dolby Vision grade accents the natural lighting and full range of colors. Primaries are vivid and beautiful, skin tones are natural and human without looking overly pinked or peached. With the WWI battle scenes and other dark moments throughout, black levels are perfect allowing for a full range of shadows between the limited light sources and the deep inky places in the scene.

Completing the visual upgrade is the effectively perfect Atmos audio upgrade. The DTS-HD MA 5.1 track from the previous Blu-ray returns, but there simply isn’t any contest between the two. The Atmos track offers an impressive dynamic and immersive presentation. With some great care, the remixing prioritizes the channels in really effective ways. The imaging from the front/center channels through the horizontal surrounds and into the height channels really caught my attention. That first battle scene in WWI is a particularly effective moment letting that narration hover over the full activity of the screaming men, gunfire, explosions, and the flares launching overhead. Puts you right into the action. Even the quieter scenes offer unique channel-specific sound effects to set the stage for an impressive soundscape. Grounding the whole mix is the amazing James Horner score. While some of the motifs might be familiar to Horner’s entire catalog, but the Ludlow theme is a haunting piece and each movement is carried beautifully in this new mix. So yeah, that all was a long way of saying: if you have Atmos, that’s the way to roll.

Sony doesn’t add anything new in the bonus features package for this release, which is largely fine because what’s here is actually very good. The highlights are the commentary tracks, the first with Zwick and Pitt, the second with John Toll and Lilly Kilvert. Between the two tracks, you can absorb a lot of fascinating information about the production, how certain scenes were executed, and so forth. The deleted scenes are very brief and they allude to a number of subplots that were cut, but in my mind might have helped even out the swift pace of the film.

• Audio Commentary featuring Edward Zwick and Brad Pitt
• Audio Commentary featuring John Toll and Lilly Kilvert
• Deleted Scenes w/ Optional Zwick Commentary (SD 5:29)
• Original Making of Featurette (SD 5:59)
• Production Design Featurette (SD 4:43)
• Theatrical Trailer

Legends of the Fall is a film I admire a lot of, but I don’t love all of it. It’s a fine film. It’s a beautiful film to look at, again John Toll earned that Oscar. I love bits and pieces, but the whole just doesn’t come together for me. That said, it’s not one I avoid either. I revisit it from time to time, but I’ve stopped expecting myself to reevaluate how I feel about it. For the die-hard fans of the film, and even the lay folk who enjoy a pretty picture such as myself, Sony gives Legends of the Fall a first-rate Dolby Vision video transfer and Atmos mix to match. Both are damn near flawless enough I don’t see any reason suitable to severely knock the scores down. The bonus features package is a fine bunch of archival extras, but I would have loved to see more of the deleted scenes, given what’s said in the commentaries, it sounds like there was quite a bit of footage left out for time constraints. All said, if you’re feeling compelled to add this to the 4K collection you should be more than satisfied. I don’t love the film, but I can’t rate this anything less than Highly Recommended. It’s a damn great disc. 

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