At the end of “Autumn Legends”, it is no longer Brad Pitt who embodies the character of Tristan, without explanation. However, there are one or two reasons for this. Warning, spoilers!
SPOILERS – “Warning, the article below reveals the end of “Legends of the Fall”. If you do not wish to know the content, please do not read the following…”
Legends of the Fall boasts an impeccable cast to tell the story of three brothers, Alfred (Aidan Quinn), Tristan (Brad Pitt) and Samuel (Henry Thomas), raised by their father, Colonel William Ludlow (Anthony Hopkins) and his Indian friends. But the arrival of Samuel’s fiancée (Julia Ormond) and then the war will change everything.
But if brad pitt embodies Tristan throughout the film, why doesn’t he play him aged during the last sequence of Edward Zwick’s feature film? The reason is quite logical and has to do with two factors.
At the time, the team made make-up tests with Brad Pitt trying to age him, but nothing helped. The actor shoots the film the year of his 30th birthday, and even with all the possible tricks, it is not credible to transform him into an elderly person. A solution was found: resort to Doug Seus.
Seus is an animal trainer who worked on Jean-Jacques Annaud’s L’Ours (1988), Croc-Blanc (1991), Minefield (1994), Doctor Dolittle 2 (2001), Into the Wild (2007) or Peter and Elliot the Dragon (2016). On Legends of the Fall, he trains Bart the bear, who embodies a terrible threat at the end of the film.
TriStar Pictures Doug Seus
Indeed, who better for a fight scene between a man and a real bear than the trainer himself? Thus, the worry of make-up posed by the youth of Brad Pitt and the risk of missing the scene by having it doubled by someone less able to face the animal! And that’s how Tristan changed his face.
Note that the filmmaker David Fincher will manage, years later, to age Brad Pitt in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button!
TriStar Pictures
Brad Pitt, 30 years old
Following the shooting, Pitt made a commitment to the protection of these animals by agreeing to shoot an episode of the show Growing Up… Grizzly for free in 2001. He is the narrator of the life of Bart the bear and we can see him in the company of another bear, Tank, and two cubs named “Honey Bump” and “Little Bart”.
The documentary show Growing Up… devoted each of its episodes to a particular animal and Brad Pitt had participated in the first episode, which centered on a grizzly like no other. Pitt had vowed to get involved while filming Legends of the Fall and a few years later kept his word. Well done, Brad!