CINEMA: East Of Eden, South of Canada

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LEGENDS OF THE FALL TEACHES US an important lesson: do not impose a mythically resonant name on a child. The responsibility is likely to make him surly, if not downright bloodthirsty. And his tormented thrashings are likely to bring misery, if not downright death, to all who -- mysteriously -- love him.

Old Colonel Ludlow (Anthony Hopkins) and the wife who has very sensibly left him named their firstborn Alfred and their last born Samuel, and both are pretty normal, boring American boys -- the former (Aidan Quinn) perhaps a little too priggish and self-serving, the latter (Henry Thomas) perhaps a little too simpy and idealistic. But in the middle there's Tristan (Brad Pitt, with a long, irritating mane of hair, doing his James Dean imitation).

As a young man growing up on a vast Montana ranch early in this century, Tristan is unduly influenced by One Stab (Gordon Tootoosis), the Native American who narrates the tale in movie Indianspeak -- stilted language with ( many references to nature ("It was in the moon of the red grass," he says solemnly when he wants to date something). Tristan takes to cutting out the hearts of fallen prey to free their spirit and develops a lifelong, mutually unhealthy relationship with a grizzly bear. He never fully escapes the call of the primitive, but at a certain point he does begin carrying on like his Wagnerian namesake, giving himself over to romantic brooding, hopeless love, careless violence and long sea voyages.

When Samuel gets himself killed in World War I, Tristan, of course, blames himself, curses God and scalps a few Germans in order that they may share his pain. After that, he and Alfred get to squabbling over their brother's fiancee, played, thankfully, by the lovely Julia Ormond, who gives the movie's only unaffected performance. At this point your thoughts may turn back to East of Eden, which was a gloss on the biblical tale of Cain and Abel. When the Colonel suffers a stroke, just as the patriarch in that film did, you may begin to entertain suspicions of ripoff -- not to mention thoughts of escape from this tangle of portentous cross-references.

Edward Zwick, the director, and Susan Shilliday and Bill Wittliff, the screenwriters, are under the impression that they are bringing forth a tragic epic, not a silly melodrama, and therefore much blood must be spilled before whoever is left standing at the end is granted peace and wisdom. That most of the dying results from a bootlegging operation Tristan starts up during Prohibition tends to short-circuit whatever impulses toward terror and pity we might still have. Running hooch in from Canada is not an occupation we usually associate with profound drama, especially when it is centered on a figure who is literally a deadly bore.

Unless you happen to be a tribal elder with a taste for geological metaphors. To the old chief, Tristan is the rock everyone "broke themselves against," and a good thing too, since from their suffering he gains "his honor and a long life." Swell, but we're left with our stifled laughter and a very long movie.