Product Description

The first of the modern fishing films, Tarpon features early guides and anglers as they fly fish for tarpon in the wilderness of the Florida Keys. The film captures the essence of the sport in dramatic footage and in the appearance and commentary of popular authors Thomas McGuane, Jim Harrison and Richard Brautigan. Colorful scenes of Key West from another era with treasure hunters, smugglers, hippies and eccentrics are background to stunning cinematography and tarpon fishing at its finest. To top it off, Jimmy Buffet also composed original music for the film.

MOVIE TRAILER—Visit MidCurrent website. The 1974 film Tarpon, which was shot in Key West, Florida by UYA Films, has been a well guarded cult classic in fly-fishing's underground. You were the envy of your circle of friends, if you owned a bootleg copy or a buddy let you watch his. Now fans everywhere can leap and splash like a tarpon, because UYA Films has finally released a fully-restored DVD of Tarpon commercially.

The film was born from a 1972 visit to the Florida Keys by filmmaker Christian Odasso and Guy de la Valdene, an avid angler who already had a few years of experience in fly fishing for Keys tarpon. Enraptured by the aesthetics and ethics of the catch-and-release fishing, Odasso paired with de la Valdene to co-direct the film. With a mostly French crew, the shoot took approximately seven weeks and the resulting film was edited in Paris. Saved by the filmmaker's daughter from a dripping barn in the Normandy countryside where it lay untouched for the last 35 years, the film was recently restored and digitized for DVD by Guy de la Valdene.

While the footage focuses on the magnificence of tarpon, the directors chose to interview many of the top guides and conservationists of the era and include their observations and concerns about the future of the fish they pursued. The film's message about the importance of releasing fish was far ahead of its time and prescient in highlighting the increasing pressure on fish by sportsmen, tourists and boaters. It reinforced an ethic among thousands who managed to get a pirated copy of the film in the 35 years since its making. The sharp contrasts drawn by the film perhaps best exemplified by a scene in which tourists recoil in fascination from party boat crew members clubbing and throwing sharks and sport fish into barrels made it difficult for the producers to find a distributor when the film was completed. At the time, PBS was interested in screening the film in the U.S., but most distributors expressed reluctance to work with the film unless the producers removed scenes like this which highlighted the wasteful practices of the era.

Besides including some of the only footage of Richard Brautigan, the cult 60s poet and novelist, Tarpon also features commentary by legendary guides Woody Sexton, Steve Huff, Gil Drake, Vaughn Cochran, as well as Page Brown, an ardent Keys conservationist.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19808 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-05-28
• Format: NTSC
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 53 minutes

Review
Tarpon; remastered to DVD, shot at Key West in 1973 and co-directed by Christian Odasso and Guy de la Valdene, with brief appearances by Richard Brautigan (Trout Fishing in America, Tom McGuane Ninety-two In the Shade), and Jim Harrison (Dalva), and background music by Jimmy Buffett. Available through thebookmailer.com, 53 minutes, $34.95.

"WE GO THROUGH LIFE WITH A DIMINISHING portfolio of enthusiasms, Tarpon fishing provides an immense jolt of electricity that freshens up your feeling about being alive." This is a Jim Harrison quote from this bloosey life snapshot of hippy drug life and tarpon fly fishing around Duval Street in key West Florida in the 1970s.

But the snapshot is worth the admission, simply because it includes rare footage of the outdoor writing troika—McGuane, Harrison, and Brautigan (deceased) in their youthful salad days when their writing was young, fresh, sparkling, and wonderful: and their nouveau Hemingwayesque lifestyle included flats bouts with tarpon amidst a '70s counterculture of treasure hunters, hippies, smugglers, and Key West eccentrics.

A little history about this lost nonepic helps. The film lay abandoned for 35 years in a "dripping barn in Normandy" before it was saved by Valdene's daughter and digitized for DVD production. It was originally filmed during seven weeks in 1972 by Odasso, Valdene, and a French film crew, and includes interviews with guides Steve Huff, Bob Montgomery, Woody Sexton, Gil Drake, and other tarpon conservationists. The news release says Tarpon was never accepted for sale by distributors because it included bloody party-boat footage of deckmates clubbing sharks and gamefish to death. Apparently it has had a pirated underground sale for years among tarpon fly fishers.

Describing the film, novelist Carl Hiaasen says: "This long-lost gem of a film has acquired cult status in the fly-fishing world, and with good reason. It has the most breathtaking footage of the tarpon-stalking experience that you'll ever see. Like the fish itself, this is a work of art."

You may not agree with the "work of art" bit, but fly fishers everywhere will cheer the hooked and leaping tarpon, if not the fighting techniques. It's unfortunate that the deep aquamarine blue of the Keys waters did not survive on film after 35 years in the barn and digital transfer.

Tarpon has a strong conservation message—the increasing man-made pressure on tarpon and other fish requires catch-and-release sport fishing to assure their future. That this ethic was being practiced by a small group of keys fly fishers in the early '70s—led by the guides who are presented in the film and others who are not presented—is important because the writers conveyed the catch-and-release message in their works of fiction and nonfiction. They helped to establish the modern ethic among sports fishers everywhere.

It is unfortunate that Valdene did not include more from the writers in Tarpon. For a more complete view of the sport of tarpon fishing and the Key West lifestyle in the '70s, read McGuane's Ninety-two in the Shade.

—Fly Fisherman magazine, December 2008

TARPON ROLLING
Fly fishing's cult-classic film finally makes it to the small screen

More than 30 years ago, French filmmakers Guy de la ValdÈne and Christian Odasso began shooting a movie about fly fishing for tarpon in Key West. The cast was comprised primarily of ValdÈne's artist-angler friends writers Tom McGuane, Jim Harrison, and Richard Brautigan. Another then-obscure artist, Jimmy Buffett, wrote the musical score. The sum of their talents resulted in the cult classic Tarpon, groundbreaking not only in subject and production value but also in the conservation ethic it propounded. Nearly 35 years after the movie's completion McGuane and Harrison are world renowned authors, Brautigan died in 1984, but not before penning one of angling literature's most curious and engaging works, Trout Fishing in America. And it's difficult to believe that Buffett hasn't always been famous. Tarpon, however, was never formally distributed and for three decades survived only on bootleg video cassettes, while the original reels remained stores in some leaky barn in France. Thankfully, the movie is now available on DVD for anyone to enjoy. Tom McGuane was kind enough to tive us his thoughts on the film's history.

How did the movie come about, and how did you become assicated with it?

Guy de la ValdÈne and I were just fishing friends and were the only non-guides we knew in the lower Keys who could pole a boat. I was writing novels and Guy had artistic aspirations of his own, especially at that time photography and writing. My principal home is in Montana and I brought down my angling friends from there and Michigan: (Russell) Chatham, Harrison, Brautigan. Buffett was a local key West friend, early in his own career. Since we all hung out together anyway, we became part of the cast for Guy's movie.

The piece seems as much about Key West as it does fly fishing for tarpon. What was the purpose of showing each so distinctively?

Key West at the time was a place of infinite enchantment, almost entirely undiscovered, not only by tourists but by anglers. There was no way the town would not be a "character" in the film.

Did you realize that the tarpon-release scene just seemed radical compared to the mindset of anglers at the time?

The catch-and-release issue was always in the air. I suppose we thought at the time that if we caught a world-record fish we might kill it but maybe not. I have caught many hundreds of tarpon and have never considered killing one. I don't think this is necessarily new. My dad was a catch-and-release fisherman 80 years ago.

Did you ever get the feeling you were actually on a movie set? From watching the movie, I suspect that you all would have spent your time exactly as you would have even had a camera not been present.

As to our attitude toward the film itself, I suppose we saw it as a home movie. Its spontaneity comes from the fact that we were young people with no reputations to make or protect. We were just out fishing for tarpon long before that activity became fetishized.

Looking back, what are your feelings about having worked with Harrison, Brautigan, and Buffett on a project that may never rise above cult status, and the subsequent careers each of you enjoyed?

The great photography, the riveting dequences that took such patience to acquire and above all the innocence of this film are what gives it its rather eternal quality. I foresee an increasing reputation for Tarpon as those great days become more remote.

—Russ Lumpkin, American Angler, September/October 2008

I have never been a huge fan of fishing or hunting based productions, for that matter, a few years ago I almost stopped watching them all together. Usually it is some clichÈ bore some redneck raping and exploiting the wildlife which we pursue for what we ‘call’, a sport. To me watching two overweight bums, biding their time watching Jerrry Springer in a kush, fully furnished hunting blind resting over a food plot, or Joe and Tom Nascar fishing the Gulf for Lemonsharks, live-lining with a balloon in 6 feet of water is not what I call a sport. It’s ridiculous and honestly, it is quite disgusting . It is not the killing or the catching, but rather, the way with which it is accomplished. Not only does it create a negative typecast for the outdoorsman, but think to where it leads our youth? Screw video games and movies stripping our children of their innocence, it’s you Jimmy Houston. Where did Fred Bear go, I’m know he’s dead, but really? Where have our romantic, awe inspiring outdoor oriented films and productions gone? Where is the love for the pursuit and the challenge? Where is the love for fishing, not catching? I assure you this DVD will answer these questions and more.

Filmed in the transcendental Florida Keys landscape, we see fishing at its finest, presenting its fundamental and intangible essence. The film is a Keruoac-est angling classic with a beat generation innocence and zeal. I quote author Thomas McGuane, “Tarpon is a gem and, frankly, a window on better days. Without a profound respect for tarpon, this celebration of their majestic power and the enchantment of their pursuit, could never have been made. Tarpon fishing was and is a dream, and this may be the only time it’s been captured.” Here, McGuane speaks with candor and poignancy. This DVD is a masterpiece and ultimately serves as a mold, and status quo, for fishing films to come. Originally filmed in 1974, the short film was lost to time; like a forgotten artwork appearing in your grandmother’s attic, and quite literally in this case, it reemerged recently from a barn in Normandy, was remastered and finally put into production by Guy de la ValdÈne. Authors Thomas McGuane, Richard Brautigan, and Jim Harrison are featured in the film, along with top guides and conservationists of the area, and with original music for the DVD created by Jimmy Buffet (pre-margaritaville…just pure slide guitar genius).

Thomas McGuane refers to this film being “a window on better times”, and similarly this window applies to the DVD itself. Beautifully produced, incredibly filmed, and composed with an eclectic like-minded group of passionate individuals, it has an inherent sincerity, with an earnest humility and honest nature. The film is simply joyous; an exposition of true candor, and a beautiful thing so rare to see. Not just a fish movie, the creators imbued the film with underlings, if not overtones, emphasizing conservation and ecological perspective. These progressive anglers and lateral thinkers extended a hard-earned, wholesome respect for the animal that is the Tarpon, caring deeply for the protection and extenuation of their ecological health as a species. Ideas which then lay dormant, and far ahead of their time, the cast ominously reveal their sentiments about the probable diminishment of the species through human pressure along with a need for a wholehearted effort in protecting the species and the conservation of aquatic life in general. They make connections and predictions in citing “the same thing in Palm Beach with Snook that used to be up on the flats”, ultimately going far enough to say “(he) thinks (they) are seeing the end of it”, the end of the Tarpon era. They include a ten minute segment highlighting a half-day trip aboard a 1970’s party fishing boat. You watch as thirty some odd vacationers pull everything and anything out of the sea, eventually being heaved onto meat hooks back at the docks for picture time. There is no commentary during this bit, and none is needed. Without being injurious or overzealous, they present a situation for you to view and become opinionated about all on your own. This film might not just be a look on better days, but also on worse; let us be thankful for the leaps and bounds humanity has taken over the past thirty years with regard to conservation.

The film is not only a call to arms for conservation, but in my opinion, is also an angling manifesto. Brautigan refers to the sport as “massively miraculous, a very powerful force, extraordinary; so extraordinary as to create immediate unreality in the process upon contact with the fish.” They all note that “the challenge and fun of that ‘play’ has a great deal to do with the enjoyment of this fishing”, showing their deepest adoration by referring to the fish as “children of Atlantis rising from the sea.” So many of the things I have felt about fishing, yet have never been able to fully express, are substantiated, and decompressed in this film; an austere created and a passion unfolded. Revealing these sentiments, I end with a quote from Jim Harrison on his feelings about fishing, as he magnificently sums up the spirit of this cinema classic: “Who said that we go through life with a diminishing portfolio of enthusiasm?...So you try to seek out in life, moments that give you this immense jolt of electricity. It is a tranquilizer better than any chemical tranquilizer. So you try to have something that gives you this electricity, and freshens up your feeling about being alive.”

—TheFin.com, July 23, 2008

I was wrong, I admit it.

Like most anglers I have attributed the birth of a new generation fly fishing films to the boys from Angling Exploration Group and their Trout Bum Diaries DVD. Until recently I have never heard of the 1974 film Tarpon, which was shot in Key West, Florida by UYA Films and I would guess that I am not alone in my ignorance of its existence. For 30+ years this film seemingly disappeared from the public gaining a cult like status amongst the select few that were lucky enough to own or know somebody that owns a bootleg copy.

For me, the fact that this film was filmed in the early 70s only adds to the fascination I have with it. This is all before my time and to see the casts they made, the fish they caught and the gear they used was simply amazing. Everything from the clothing and hair styles to the film scratches during the film absolutely scream the 70s and gave me a glimpse into the fly fishing world before I was even born and almost 30 years before I first picked up a fly rod.

The film also dives into the fishing culture of the 70s, a time when catch and release was not as common of a practice as it is today. During one sequence of the film a fishing vessel was gaffing dozens of sharks, permit and other species throwing them into a barrel which leads into this group of guides discussing the importance of releasing and protecting this magnificent species for future generations. While we still have a long way to go to promote the importance of catch and release (even more so in the oceans) this films shows us some of the pioneers that paved the way and lit the torch that we all most carry.

Today, for a few thousand dollars anybody can produce their own fly fishing DVD and while it is exciting to see this new chapter emerge Tarpon; may be the film that all other films are measured against. Tarpon shows us what real professional filmmakers can accomplish and the result was epic and should be the source of inspiration for today's videographers. Some of the battle scenes between the angler and silver king are legendary and the slow motion captures of aerial displays and simply astonishing. If all of this wasn't enough Tarpon can boast the fact that Jimmy Buffet is credited as the composer of the soundtrack that blends beautifully with film. Everything about this film is first class. I may be thousands of miles from the nearest tarpon and may never experience casting and hooking one of these massive silver beasts but through Tarpon I can live the experience for a few short moments and those few short moments was spectacular and exhilirating.

In closing, I could not be more excited about this film finally being released on DVD simply because I doubt that I would have ever known of its existance otherwise. After seeing this I have to wonder where would fly fishing be today if more people had seen this film over the years. Today, we read about the doom and gloom of fly fishing not being embraced by the new generations of young people. If 30 years ago other companies and filmmakers built upon the foundation that UYA Films laid perhaps fly fishing would be enjoying the success that snowboarding is today.

Tarpon delivers incredible insight from a few of the pioneers of fly fishing for tarpon, an important message for conservation during a time catch and release was not a common practice and stunning gratutious fish porn that has not been duplicated in the thirty years since this film was made. A big thank you to everyone involved with bringing this film out of the basement and into the public. This film deserves the recognition of being the first modern fly fishing films.

—Will Mullis, Hatches Magazine

Review
Fish Stories A Film Follows a 1970s Boating Trip by Some Leading Writers

A recently restored film featuring a trio of writers fishing for tarpon in Key West in the early 1970s has started to attract attention in literary and fly fishing circles. The movie, Tarpon, features the late poet Richard Brautigan and the novelists Jim Harrison and Thomas McGuane, and includes original music written and performed by Jimmy Buffett.

The 53-minute documentary opens with a trolley-car ride in Key West and then segues into a narrative that features lots of salt water fly-fishing, and scenes that aim to capture the flavor of life among outsiders in Key West during the period. The movie also offers brief but entertaining views of a trio of writers who would later become well-known. Mr. Harrison, for example, is the author of the novella Legends of the Fall; the 1994 film version starred Brad Pitt and Anthony Hopkins.

The producers of "Tarpon" failed to land a commercial distributor, and soon pirated editions began to circulate. "I was a fly fishing guide in Key West in the 1980s and 1990s, and it was something you had to see," says Marshall Cutchin, publisher of MidCurrent.com, a popular Web site for fly fishing. The movie gathered dust for more than 30 years before its co-director, Guy de la Valdene, decided to restore it and then issue it as a DVD. "It's exactly as it was when we made it," says Mr. de la Valdene, who is the author of For a Handful of Feathers, a hunting book.

Fans have helped get out the word via the Web. Cathy Ransier, co-owner of The Book Mailer, a catalog retailer of fly fishing books and related gear based in Helena, Mont., says she has sold more than 1,400 copies of Tarpon priced at $34.95 since early June. "It's got a cult following," she says. That may change. Mr. de la Valdene says his niece has plans to enter the movie in various film festivals.

—Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, Wall Street Journal, Arts and Entertainment, October 17, 2008

Review
Tarpon is a timeless and beautifully executed film about life, sport and culture. You'll be moved, amused, outraged and, most of all, entertained.

-—Tom Brokaw, Journalist and Author

This long-lost gem of a film has acquired cult status in the fly fishing world, and with good reason. It has the most breathtaking footage of the tarpon-stalking experience that you'll ever see. Like the fish itself, this is a work of art.

-—Carl Hiaasen, Author

Tarpon is a gem and, frankly, a window on better days. Without a profound respect for tarpon, this celebration of their majestic power and the enchantment of their pursuit, could never have been made. Tarpon fishing was and is a dream, and this may be the only time it's been captured.

—Tom McGuane, Author

Customer Reviews

Wonderful movie
This is a timeless classic which every afficionado of the 70s or Key West should own. The visuals and cinematography are stunning and they convey a certain sense of nostalgia for a bygone era. This is also amongst the first documentaries that captures the environmental spirit and dangers that haphazardous fishing can cause.

Most of the film is rather zen, with beautiful slow motion spreads of the Tarpon as they jump out of the water. Interlaced with those moments, you have interviews with various famous fishermen and literary minds and shots of the life and culture of Key West. The deep Floridian accents can be a little hard to follow at times, but one can't help but appreciate the charming sense of contentment with their surroundings the main protagonists display.

One particularly powerful scene displays a contrast between the style of life these fishermen and friends live in, and the beginning of the commercial touristy aspects of Key West.

Aside from that, the film is very nicely timed in the sense that its not too long and not too short and at the end of the day, one is left with a deeply satisfying experience that isn't spoiled by any modern holywood tradeoffs or forced political messages.

Must See Film! - Long Overdue Release
Previously only available as a grainy VHS tape made from a chopped up television broadcast, this film has been a cult classic among flyfishermen and literary types for decades, more talked about than seen. Now, at last!, it is available to all, in glorious color and sound, functioning as a time machine back to a Key West that no longer exists with a cast of literary icons when their careers were just beginning. The film is beautifully filmed and edited, with a high energy soundtrack by Jimmy Buffet that should keep the Parrotheads buzzing for weeks. Tarpon contains the only known footage of the late Richard Brautigan, poet and novelist, and has terrific sequences featuring fellow writers Jim Harrison, Tom McGuane and Guy de la Valdene, all of whom have gone on to the stuff of greatness. Catch and release fly fishing for tarpon and other saltwater fish was in its infancy in the early seventies, the filmmakers accurately capture the mood and spirit of the times and document sustainable fishing practices long before current fashion. Highly recommended!

Classic film; beautiful cinematography!
Really well-done film on flyfishing for tarpon in the Florida Keys in the 1970s. Contrasted with brief footage of standard, bloody sportsfishing. Some spectacular footage, with no talking, of tarpon leaping out of the watter. Some footage of conversations with writers Jim Harrison, Tom McQuane and Richard Brautigan. A classic!!