Distinctly Montana Magazine

D I S T I N C T LY M O N TA N A • S P R I N G 2 0 1 7 46 F OR MORE THAN 100 YEARS, PRODUCTION COMPANIES HAVE BEEN COMING TO MONTANA TO CAPTURE ITS ELEMENTS. From the earliest known 1897 travel promotion film Tourist Train Leaving Livingston to major studio films such as e Horse Whisperer, A River Runs rough It, and Ne- braska, Montana has hosted nearly 100 feature films. e state is divided roughly into thirds. On one border there is Glacier National Park and three of the five entrances to Yellowstone National Park are in Montana. e east is rolling plains; the mid-section, high plains with isolated, towering mountain ranges, buttes, mesas, pristine river valleys and canyons; and the west is mountainous. In between is the stark beauty of the Missouri breaks and the high desert of Charlie Russell country. Central Montana's also a haven for independent filmmakers whose use of the landscape informs the narratives of thoughtful, intro- spective films—like Northfork, starring James Woods, Nick Nolte and Darryl Hannah, a film with Biblical undertones involving a young orphan, a hydroelectric dam and — perhaps — Noah's Ark. Location sites have been far-flung and varied. Di- rector Steven Spielberg made his first cinematic foray into adult romance in Libby with Always. Montana filled the need for a flaming forest in Spielberg's story of forest fire retardant bomber pilots. For a while, those connected with Always thought they'd always be searching for the right location — it was over a year's time before Spielberg and company finally settled on Libby as the primary backdrop. e dramatic story was enhanced by the 1988 fires in Yellowstone National Park, which provided Spielberg the opportunity to capture footage of an actual fire. S H O T I N M O N T A N A A H I S T O R Y O F B I G S K Y C I N E M A by B R I A N D 'A M B R O S I O Published by Riverbend Publishing, 2016 FROM THE INTRODUCTION: Montana is a realistic feast for filmmakers. It is not surprising that Hollywood selected Glacier National Park, as the mythical setting to depict heaven in the 1998 Robin Williams movie, What Dreams May Come. Filmmakers captured the surreal beauty of one of the world's greatest treasures so vividly that critic Roger Ebert declared What Dreams May Come as "one of the great visual achieve- ments in film history."

• Cover