1. Some people hear their own inner voices with great
clearness and live by what they hear. Such people become
crazy. Or they become legends Legends of the Fall
燃情岁月

2. Unit Seven American Western
Legends of the Fall

3. About American Western (P121)
What is the Wild West?
What is American Western?
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. There are also a number of films about Western-type characters in contemporary settings, such as High Noon (1952) , Dances with Wolves in 1990, Unforgiven in 1992, The Revenant 《荒野猎人》（2016).

4. About American Western (P121)
What do American Western films mainly portray?
Westerns often portray how desolate and hard life was for frontier families. These families are faced with change that would severely alter their way of life. This may be depicted by showing conflict between natives and settlers or U.S. Cavalry (骑兵) or between cattle ranchers and farmers, or by showing ranchers being threatened by the onset of the Industrial Revolution. Despite being tightly associated with a specific time and place in American history, these themes have allowed Westerns to be produced and enjoyed across the world.

5. About the film Brief summary of the film
An epic/legendary tale of three brothers and their father living in the remote wilderness and how their lives are affected by nature, war, love, history

6. About the film The plot summary
Set in the Rocky Mountains of Montana in the early 1900s, this is a tale of love, betrayal, and brotherhood. After being discharged, Colonel Ludlow decides to raise his three sons in the wilderness of Montana, where they can grow up away from the government and society he has learned to despise. The three brothers mature and seem to have an unbreakable bond, until Susanna enters their lives. When Samuel, the youngest of the three, returns from college he brings with him his beautiful fiancée, Susanna. The eldest son, Alfred, soon finds himself in love with his brother's fiancée, and things get worse when he discovers a growing passion between Susanna and Tristan. Colonel Ludlow's favorite son, Tristan is willful and as wild as the mountains. As the brothers set out to fight a war in Europe, suspicion and jealousy threatens to tear apart their once indestructible bond.

7. Questions and Reviews

8. Questions and Reviews
It is one of American western films. Some key words to tell the distinguished feature of American western from this film
Wilderness, close to nature, beautiful natural scenery, large ranch, cowboys, Indians, heroes, horse-riding, gun shooting, cattle or herds, bravery, taking risks, adventure, conflicts and revenge

9. Questions and Reviews What can we see from the film (some key words)?
Wilderness of nature, ranch life, horse riding, living in harmony with nature
Passion or Patriotism
War and death (features of the WWI: fervor, each side has righteousness, lasting than expected, bogged down by trench(战壕), wire entanglement (带刺的铁丝网); cavalry (骑兵), gun machine, gas weapon and airplane mainly for collecting enemy information )
Love and brotherhood (three brothers under one roof)
Love of great father
Hatred and revenge
History (Indian policy, Liquor prohibition policy)

10. Liquor Prohibition policy: Volstead Act
Prohibition in the United States was a nationwide constitutional ban on the sale, production, importation, and transportation of alcoholic beverages from 1920 to 1933.
Prohibition supporters, called drys, presented it as a victory for public morals and health.
Anti-prohibitionists, known as wets, criticized the alcohol ban as an intrusion of mainly rural Protestant ideals on a central aspect of urban, immigrant, and Catholic life.
Though popular opinion believes that Prohibition failed, it succeeded in cutting overall alcohol consumption in half during the 1920s, and consumption remained below pre-Prohibition levels.
Criticism remains that Prohibition led to unintended consequences such as the growth of criminal organizations (bootlegging), including the modern American Mafia（美国黑手党）

11. Liquor Prohibition policy: Volstead Act

14. Questions and Reviews
The legendary story of the film is told, who tells the story?
One Stab, a head of an American native Indian family, the narrator of this film, who lived together with the Colonel (上校) Family.
The influence of the Indian family upon the Ludlow family
American Indians are one major element of the Western films. As we can see from this film, Tristan is greatly influenced by the Indian family. He learns a lot of skills like hunting, horse riding from One Stab. He cuts scalps(头皮) of the enemies after Samuel’s death as an revenge, which is the practice often done by Indian. They cut scalps of the enemies as trophy (战利品) to celebrate their victory. The Indian girl Isabel Two, the daughter of Decker and Pet, named after Tristan’s Mother Isabel says, “I am going to marry Tristan” when she is still a little kid.

15. The start and end of the film
The beginning and ending of the film (the role of bear, symbolism)
A bear is mentioned at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of the film.
The opening narration of the film:
One Stab: Some people hear their own inner voices with great clearness and live by what they hear. Such people become crazy. Or they become legends.
The fight between Tristan and the bear, Tristan wins (cut one of fingers of the bear)
In the middle of the film:
There is a confrontation between the bear and Tristan, who refuses to shoot his prey. One Stab knows why: “The old ones say when a man and an animal have spilled each other’s blood, they become one.”

16. The start and end of the film
The ending narration of this film:
Finally Tristan is killed by that bear, which is “a good death”, says One Stab
How do you understand the relationship between Tristan and the bear?
The bear inside Tristan body (symbolism). The bear represents Tristan's wild nature and unrested soul. Sometimes the bear is hibernating (silent), and sometimes it is awake and is roaring.
When is it hibernating and when is it roaring? (hear the voice of the bear from his heart)

17. Analysis of the characters
A retired colonel, sick of army life (not talk about the war, strongly against joining the war), sick of government (screw government, don’t like Alfred, a congressman, working for government), against the government policy to native Indians (live together with an Indian family)
The great love of father, especially to Tristan (reading the letter from Tristan to Susanna)

18. Analysis of the characters
Can not stand the cold winter, scared of bears in the ranch, leave the family, contact with the family by letter
Come back to prepare wedding for Tristan and Isabel Two, an Indian girl who was named after her
Damnation (from One Stab)

19. Analysis of the characters
Samuel: (Singing)
As evening fell
A maiden stood
At the edge of a wood
In her hands
Lay the reins of a stallion
And never I’d seen
A girl as fair
Heard a gentler voice anywhere
Whispered, alas
She belonged
Belonged to another
Another, forever
Yes, she belonged to
The twilight and mist
Ludlow: (Voice-over)
Dear Isabel,
How strange to have a cultivated woman in the house again and now intoxicating. Indeed to have all three of my sons under my roof again fills me with such a deep, quiet satisfaction that I thank God.
Analysis of the characters
Innocent or naive, patriotic, passionate, died in Canadian battle during WWI (defend England they have never seen, the victim of the war), full of love to fiancée, father, brothers and his country (A song to his Family — ),
His death or the war changed the whole family… so there is the film we can see today
Lyrics

20. Analysis of the characters
Wild like a bear, full of passion and revenge, free-spirited, undisciplined, willful, cannot control himself, love Samuel (name his first son Samuel), father, his wives, follow nothing but win love from … but people who love him die young (Samuel, Susannah, Isabel)
Revenge (the voice of bear inside is silent or roaring): death of Samuel, his dear brother and death of Isabel, his beloved wife
Question: He loved Susannah, but why did he leave her, and even later he wrote a letter, saying, “all we had is dead as I am dead, marry another”

21. Analysis of the characters
Sophisticated, knows what should or shouldn’t do (older than his own age), leaves home and turn to business when Tristan got married with S whom he said, “I love still”, and served the government (a congressman, why father not like him) , follow all the rules (the god’s and the man’s) but lose the love and understanding from father, brother and even wife (who committed suicide) , but finally regained what he lost: love of father and brother (take care of Tristan’s children)

22. Analysis of the characters
Susannah: I still sometimes dream that I’m the mother of your children. (Laughing sadly) I wanted her to die. Maybe I even wanted Samuel to die.
Tristan: (Pause) You had nothing to do with Samuel’s death. And you had nothing to do with Isabel’s death.
Susannah: Didn’t I?
Tristan: Go home. Go home to Alfred.
Analysis of the characters
Love all of them, esp. Tristan and beloved by all of them
Question: why she committed suicide after talking with Tristan who was put in jail because of his revenge?
Dialogue

23. Analysis of the characters
A girl of the Indian Family (Decker and Pet), name after Isabel, the mother of brothers to express their gratitude to the family, educated by Ludlow and Susanna later
Want to marry Tristan when 13 years old, call herself Tristan lady, her dream came true, got married and had two children
Die for no reason (an accident, a bullet from the police gunfire)

24. Questions and Reviews
Among the three brothers, whom does Colonel Ludlow love most? Can you explain why?
Colonel Ludlow loves Tristan most. Of all the three sons, Tristan resembles him very much in character, wild and undisciplined, but courageous and ready to help the poor. Tristan attaches to nature very much, and is adept at hunting as well as conquering nature just like his father. While Alfred is sophisticated, and Samuel is naive. Colonel Ludlow tries to be fair with his sons in love, but after Samuel's death and Alfred's service to the government, his love to Tristan is more obvious, even indulgent, as he is too weak to keep that balance.

25. Questions and Reviews
The brotherhood changes twice in three periods. The first change takes place when Samuel dies in the war and the second change appears in the end when Susannah commits suicide. How do the two changes affect the brotherhood?
love each other, have fun together,
close, tight, united brotherhood
brotherhood splits up
brotherhood reunited
Samuel's death
Susannah's role
Susannah's suicide
Alfred's change

26. Questions and Reviews
An invisible force that, more often than not, leads one with the opposite of what one desires to have. And no matter how hard people have tried to organize their lives, there is no escaping of their respective destinies. For example, the father, Colonel Ludlow, out of his hatred for wars and dislike of the government, settles his family in a remote mountain area to steer clear of the madness of the world, and yet has to watch his sons leaving him for the war. Can you give more examples from the perspective of other characters?
Tristan: want to protect everyone around him, but all who loves him dies early
Alfred: follows all the rules, does his best to please everyone, but can't get the real love he wants.
Susannah: only wants a warm family life, gets her Mr. Right, but her fiancé dies, then she falls in love with Tristan who can't marry her, and marries Alfred whom she doesn't love.

27. Legends of the Fall Film clips in the Unit Clip 1 Family reunion
Clip Fight in the war
Clip 3 "I loved her, and i love her still "
Clip The oddest news

28. Thanks