40 Fun Facts About A River Runs Through It

Which actor won career-making praise as the reckless Paul Maclean in A River Runs Through It?

Brad Pitt won most of the praise, and the part is often called his career-making performance. He was his own harshest critic, saying later that he could have done better.

Which children's author followed Norman Maclean as editor-in-chief of his college humor magazine?

Dr. Seuss, then a student called Theodor Geisel, took over the Jack-O-Lantern when Maclean stepped down. Maclean remembered his successor as the craziest guy he had ever met.

Narration written for A River Runs Through It is engraved beneath an arena statue of which basketball great?

Michael Jordan's statue at the United Center carries the film's words about watching a moment of perfection. The passage was written for the screen and does not appear in the novella.

Which child actor won a Young Artist Award for playing the boy Norman Maclean in A River Runs Through It?

Joseph Gordon-Levitt was ten when the film was shot, and his category was for film actors under ten. He grew up to star in Inception and The Dark Knight Rises.

Which Academy Award did A River Runs Through It win, its only Oscar from three nominations?

Best Cinematography went to Philippe Rousselot, a Frenchman who has also won three César Awards at home. The film's score and its screenplay were nominated but lost.

Which Hollywood star directed A River Runs Through It and also narrates it as the older Norman Maclean?

Robert Redford auditioned 26 actors for the voice-over before deciding to read it himself. He had been captivated by the novella ever since reading it in 1980.

What does Neal Burns bring on the fishing trip in A River Runs Through It, proving he is no fly fisherman?

A can of worms marks Neal as a bait fisherman among men raised to cast a fly. He also turns up drunk, and spends the day drinking instead of fishing.

Reverend Maclean of A River Runs Through It, who treats fly fishing almost as worship, preaches in which church?

Presbyterian elders invited the real John Maclean to Montana in 1909, which is how the family came west. He had been ordained sixteen years earlier, after studying at a seminary near San Francisco.

Which honor did a fiction jury recommend for the novella A River Runs Through It, only for its board to refuse?

Pulitzer Prize jurors chose the novella in 1977, but the board overruled them and gave no fiction award at all that year. The board is said to have called it a lean year for fiction.

After drinking all the beer and passing out naked beside the river, what do Neal Burns and his companion suffer?

Severe sunburn is the price of sleeping off the brothers' beer under a Montana sky. Jessie is furious with Norman, who left Neal with the beer instead of fishing beside him.

In which Montana city, where three rivers meet, do the Maclean brothers grow up in A River Runs Through It?

Missoula owes much of its fame as a fly-fishing town to the book and the film. The real Macleans moved there when Norman was six, after its church called Reverend Maclean to the pulpit.

Which Montana river, a tributary of the Clark Fork, do the Macleans fish in A River Runs Through It?

Blackfoot water rises at the Continental Divide and joins the Clark Fork about five miles east of the Macleans' town. The family in the film calls it the Big Blackfoot.

Which Ivy League college does Norman Maclean leave Montana to attend in A River Runs Through It?

Dartmouth keeps Norman in the East for six years, and the real Maclean stayed on there as an instructor after graduating. In the film Reverend Maclean offers to pay for any college he picks.

Which job does the adult Paul Maclean hold in A River Runs Through It, when he is not fishing or gambling?

Newspaper reporter is the trade that earns Paul a local name as the fishing newspaperman. The real Paul Maclean was known for exposing political corruption.

Which card game leaves Paul Maclean deep in debt to dangerous men at the Lolo Hot Springs speakeasy?

Poker, a big game in the speakeasy's back room, has Paul owing more than he can pay. When he tries to sit in again, the dealer refuses to let him play.

How does Paul Maclean die near the end of A River Runs Through It, just before Norman leaves Montana?

Beaten to death and left in an alley is the news the police bring to Norman. The real Paul was killed in 1938, and nobody was ever arrested for it.

Which city's university offers Norman Maclean a post teaching literature late in A River Runs Through It?

Chicago kept the real Maclean teaching until he retired, and only then did he write the novella. Its university press published the book, the first fiction it had ever issued.

The Maclean family of A River Runs Through It traces its roots to islands off the west coast of which country?

Scotland's Hebrides were the family's first country, and Maclean traced his brother's drinking and gambling back to those island ancestors. Reverend Maclean himself grew up speaking Gaelic in Canada.

How are the Maclean boys schooled in A River Runs Through It before their afternoons of fishing?

At home, from their father, the boys study each morning under a strict code of his own. The real Maclean said those lessons, with the Bible read aloud, gave him his ear for rhythm.

Which actor plays Reverend Maclean, the stern minister who teaches his sons to cast, in A River Runs Through It?

Tom Skerritt took the part in the same year he began his Emmy-winning run as the sheriff in Picket Fences. Film fans already knew him as the captain in Alien.

Which Montana river stood in for the Macleans' own stream in the fly-fishing scenes of A River Runs Through It?

Gallatin water near Bozeman, in the south of the state, played the family's stream in the west. Meriwether Lewis named the Gallatin in 1805 after the Treasury secretary of the day.

At which event does Norman Maclean first meet the flapper Jessie Burns in A River Runs Through It?

A Fourth of July dance is where the film stages it. The real Norman met Jessie at a December party, then walked into a blizzard for help when her car's radiator froze.

In which Montana city does Paul Maclean live and work while Norman is away at college in the East?

Helena, the state capital, is Paul's home when Norman comes back from the East. In 2000 its Independent Record gathered memories from people who had known both real brothers.

Which actor plays the adult Norman Maclean, the steadier older brother, in A River Runs Through It?

Craig Sheffer came to the part from the horror film Nightbreed and the teen drama Some Kind of Wonderful. A later generation knows him as Keith Scott in One Tree Hill.

At which film festival did A River Runs Through It have its premiere, a month before reaching American cinemas?

Toronto hosted the first screening in September 1992, and the film then opened on only twelve American screens. It widened to 800 after three strong weeks.

Which London-born actress plays the Montana flapper Jessie Burns in A River Runs Through It?

Emily Lloyd had become a star at sixteen in Wish You Were Here. She had also turned down the lead in Pretty Woman, the part that made Julia Roberts famous.

Which angling practice do the end credits of A River Runs Through It urge on modern fishermen?

Catch and release is what enlightened anglers practice today, the credits say, noting that the Macleans kept their catch as was common in their day. They add that no fish were killed or injured during filming.

Why did the makers of A River Runs Through It not shoot the fishing scenes on the Macleans' real river?

It was too polluted from clearcut logging to be used, so other Montana rivers played the part. A benefit screening in Bozeman later raised money to help restore it.

In the last sermon of A River Runs Through It, what does Reverend Maclean say we can give those we cannot help?

Unconditional love, even without understanding, is the minister's answer to losing Paul. He never names his son in the sermon, and he dies not long after preaching it.

What nickname does the woman Neal Burns brings along on the fishing trip go by in A River Runs Through It?

Rawhide is a woman Neal met only the night before. The pair drink through the afternoon while the Maclean brothers are away along the bank with their rods.

What name does A River Runs Through It give the fly-fishing technique that the adult Paul Maclean has invented?

Shadow casting is the proof, for Norman, that his brother has become an artist with a rod. Reverend Maclean says much the same after Paul lands his last great fish.

Granite Falls, the waterfall seen in A River Runs Through It, lies outside Montana in which state?

Wyoming supplied the falls, which sit in the mountains near Jackson. Nearly everything else on screen was shot in south central Montana.

Which composer replaced Elmer Bernstein and earned an Oscar nomination for scoring A River Runs Through It?

Mark Isham, a jazz trumpeter, had only a few weeks to write a new score after the first was judged wrong in tone. He went on to score three more of the director's films, among them Quiz Show.

In which railroad town on the Yellowstone River did filming of A River Runs Through It begin in 1991?

Livingston also lent the film its church, which is a Lutheran one in real life. The end credits thank the town's people for sharing their mountains and rivers.

With local lumberjacks away at war, which employer takes on the teenage Norman in A River Runs Through It?

U.S. Forest Service work in the Montana woods began for the real Maclean at fourteen. He turned those summers into another of the stories printed alongside the famous novella.

In which Midwestern state was Norman Maclean born, though his name is forever tied to Montana?

Iowa came first: he was born in Clarinda in 1902, the town where Reverend Maclean had taken up fly fishing. The family moved to Montana when he was six.

Which Norman Maclean book about smokejumpers killed in the Mann Gulch blaze was published only after he died?

Young Men and Fire reconstructs the 1949 blaze that killed 13 firefighters, and Maclean left it unfinished when he died. Published in 1992, it won a National Book Critics Circle Award.

Which publisher turned down A River Runs Through It and later got a scathing letter from Norman Maclean?

Alfred A. Knopf rejected the novella, then came courting his second book. His 1981 reply said that if they were the last publisher on earth and he the last author, books would be finished.

Which Western novelist auditioned to narrate A River Runs Through It before the director took over?

Wallace Stegner, the author of Angle of Repose, was tried out along with 26 actors. None of the readings satisfied the director, who recorded the voice-over himself.

Which British actor was the other finalist for the part of Paul Maclean in A River Runs Through It?

Cary Elwes, known then for The Princess Bride and Days of Thunder, lost out at the final stage. Kyle MacLachlan was the runner-up for the role of Norman.