"He called it shadow casting: Keeping his line above water long enough and low enough to make a rainbow rise. And I realized that in the time I was away my brother had become an artist."
- A River Runs Through It
In the summer of 1991, I was a college grad fresh off a comm arts degree in film and television study. Norman Maclean's acclaimed novella, A River Runs Through It, was being adapted as a film and I joined the crew. The production presented a well-timed professional opportunity, as well as a personal journey that took me back to my roots as a fly fisher.
I caught my first trout not far from Storm Castle peak in Montana's Gallatin River drainage. Nearly 20 years later I was back in essentially the same spot. This time, though, it was as a fly-fishing double for the character of Paul, Norman's brother.
Unlike my boyhood uniform of jeans and cowboy boots, I was dressed in period wardrobe. My graphite rod was painted as faux-bamboo and came with an aerodynamically challenged Bunyan Bug lashed to a rope of a leader. My creel held a walkie-talkie.
The script and storyboards called for angling incantations flowing from rod and line, creating the shadow of a fly skimming across the water. Practically, the Shadow Cast was stitched together from several existing techniques. The process began before my time on set, and finished with the call of "Action!"
In the final cut only a few seconds pass, but it's enough to lift Paul into his own realm. In that moment, pivoting there on that rock, it felt as if my angling journey had come full circle.
Sadly, I would never get the chance to ask Norman what he thought. I can only hope his reply would have been:
"It was beautiful."
In the summer of 1991, I was a college grad fresh off a comm arts degree in film and television study. Norman Maclean's acclaimed novella, A River Runs Through It, was being adapted as a film and I joined the crew. The production presented a well-timed professional opportunity, as well as a personal journey that took me back to my roots as a fly fisher.
I caught my first trout not far from Storm Castle peak in Montana's Gallatin River drainage. Nearly 20 years later I was back in essentially the same spot. This time, though, it was as a fly-fishing double for the character of Paul, Norman's brother.
Unlike my boyhood uniform of jeans and cowboy boots, I was dressed in period wardrobe. My graphite rod was painted as faux-bamboo and came with an aerodynamically challenged Bunyan Bug lashed to a rope of a leader. My creel held a walkie-talkie.
The script and storyboards called for angling incantations flowing from rod and line, creating the shadow of a fly skimming across the water. Practically, the Shadow Cast was stitched together from several existing techniques. The process began before my time on set, and finished with the call of "Action!"
In the final cut only a few seconds pass, but it's enough to lift Paul into his own realm. In that moment, pivoting there on that rock, it felt as if my angling journey had come full circle.
Sadly, I would never get the chance to ask Norman what he thought. I can only hope his reply would have been:
"It was beautiful."
Syllables of Shadow
Shadow casting is more than a sum of its cinematic parts. Norman used it as way to convey his beloved brother's prowess with a fly rod, and to illuminate him like candlelight in vapor, swirling above the river's timeless flow.
The combination of Norman's words and my own experiences lead me to write 17 syllables across 3 lines. Within them perhaps you will also find echoes of something that once was which cannot be again.
under a big sky
shadows cast in a rhythm
perfect memories
Storyboards from A River Runs Through It (J.Borger personal collection).
Shadow casting stills from publicity shots for A River Runs Through It (J.Borger personal collection).