“A River Runs Through It” July 31

Camden, Maine - The next film in the Summer Movie Series at the Camden Amphitheatre is “A River Runs Through It” (1992; 123 min.; PG) on Tuesday, July 31, at 8:15 pm. The movie is an extraordinarily beautiful adaptation of Norman Maclean’s autobiographical work of the same title. The free movie series is part of the Camden Public Library’s “Renascence Summer” and is generously supported by The First Bancorp. The series continues on the next three Tuesday evenings at dusk. In the case of rain the movie will be postponed.

The theme for the summer, including the Adult Summer Reading Program, the Summer Music Series, and the Summer Movie Series, is poetry: “Reading Between the Lines: A ‘Renascence’ Summer.” The theme commemorates the 100th anniversary of the “discovery” of poet Edna St. Vincent Millay at Camden’s Whitehall Inn in 1912. In the movie “A River Runs Through It,” Norman walks into his father’s study while his father is reading a book aloud. Norman picks up on his father’s line and together they finish the poetry aloud; the poem is “Ode on Intimations of Immortality” by William Wordsworth.

The movie is Maclean’s memoir of the two fly-fishing sons of a Presbyterian minister—Maclean and his brother, one reserved, one rebellious—growing up in rural Montana. The movie is directed by Robert Redford. Craig Sheffer stars as the young Norman, the older son in his family, who takes his school work and writing a bit too seriously for Paul (Brad Pitt), the impetuous younger son. Paul would rather have a good time, drink, and play cards than get involved with academic study. Where Norman wants to be a college literature professor, Paul would prefer to stay in Montana all his life and wrangle some kind of job writing for a local newspaper. Their father instills in them a love of fly fishing, which for one brother becomes a lifelong passion even as he sets out to become a newspaperman and struggles with his addiction to gambling. The other brother, Norman, dreams of exploring the world outside of Missoula as he falls in love with a local girl who also dreams of broader horizons.