Legends of the Fall/Recap
The film begins in the aftermath of the American Indian Wars. Colonel William Ludlow (Hopkins) had become disgusted with his own side's constant betrayal of any peace treaty or truce. Having just retired, the Colonel retires with his family and a few helping hands to a farm in remote Montana. He seeks peace and isolation. His wife Isabel Ludlow (Christina Pickles) doesn't like their new home and the couple separates. Their three sons stay with the father. Ludlow doesn't mind. He has company. His loyal friend One Stab (Gordon Tootoosis), and the Decker family of servants. It consists of husband Decker (Paul Desmond), his Cree wife Pet (Tantoo Cardinal), and their daughter Isabel Decker (Karina Lombard). The latter receives the nickname Isabel II to avoid confusion.
Time passes and the three boys turn into young men. With different personalities. The eldest Alfred (Aidan Quinn), has turned into a responsible young man, cautious by nature. Middle child Tristan (Pitt) has a tendency to wander alone in the nature around them, taking risks against wild animals. Samuel (Henry Thomas), the youngest, is bookish and the only one who seeks college education. He returns from Harvard with his fiancée Susannah Fincannon (Ormond). With both elder brothers finding themselves falling for their prospective sister-in-law.
The drama of three brothers in love with the same woman has to be interrupted. In 1914, World War I begins. Samuel believes it is a just war and wants to fight it. Since the United States aren't involved yet, the young man volunteers for the Canadian Expeditionary Force. His brothers had always thought him too naive to survive on his own. They decide to join him in the Force, mostly to keep an eye on him. Susannah will have to wait until their return to marry. The scene shifts to the battlefields of the War. All three brothers are taking extraordinary risks. But it is Samuel who pays for it with his life. Tristan who witnesses his death without being able to help takes it hard. He gains a new habit of scalping deceased enemies. Leading the commanding officers to give him an early discharge.
Sometime later, back in Montana, Alfred and Tristan separately return home. Alfred immediately proposes to Susannah ... who rejects him. Instead the moody Tristan is the one attracting her. They start a sexual relationship. A jealous Alfred criticizes them before leaving to find his own destiny. The new relationship is doomed from the start. Tristan suffers from guilt over the death of Samuel and the self-exile of Alfred. His inner demons lead him to end the relationship and leave to wander the Earth. Susannah is left behind in the farm with the increasingly infirm Colonel.
A decade passes. By the mid 1920s, Alfred has become a congressman, with several business interests on the side. In order to better serve his interests, Alfred has found himself allying with bootleggers and gangsters. He has even convinced Susannah to marry him, only because she can't stand seeing the old farm deteriorate around her from neglect. Tristan returns a bit too late to get the girl. But instead falls for his childhood friend Isabel II. They marry and have a couple of brats. To support his family, Tristan joins the bootlegging business.
Since there are several rival operations, some of them use enforcers to threaten their opponents. A Dirty Cop send on such a mission accidentally kills Isabel II. With both Ludlow brothers seeking rather bloody vengeance afterward. Susannah has picked the wrong time to win Tristan again. He wants nothing to do with her, resulting in her suicide a little later. There is no time to grieve for her. The Colonel, Alfred and Tristan have to join forces for a while against people gunning for them. Since there are several corpses around, including a local sheriff, they quickly figure that the police would need someone to blame. Tristan agrees to take the blame and become a fugitive from the law, figuring he has nothing to lose. In exchange Alfred will have to take care of his children.
The scene shifts to 1963. Gravestones in a rundown cemetery are all that remains from every member of the Ludlow family. Everyone that is except Tristan. He has spend thirty years living in the woods. Now he has to face his final battle, a grizzly bear. He fought one before, but when he was considerably younger. The film ends with Tristan trying to use a knife against it and a narrator informs us "It was a good death."