MOVIEWEB: Exclusive: The Tao of Caldwell, or Zen and the Art of Fly Fishing
June 15, 2023
Director Joshua Caldwell spoke beautifully about his film Mending the Line with Sinqua Walls and Brian Cox as veterans overcoming PTSD by fly fishing.
"There's really one movie made about fly-fishing, which is A River Runs Through It," said Joshua Caldwell, the director behind the new film, Mending the Line. Is there an audience for fly-fishing films, though? Caldwell would argue that, while the idea is certainly grounded in the act and art of fly-fishing, the actual essence of the concept relates to peace and centered focus. A cinema of fly-fishing is a Zen cinema of the present moment. That's why Mending the Line is important.
The new film follows a Marine, John Colter (Sinqua Walls), who goes to Montana after enduring the horrors of modern war. He begins rehab therapy and psychological testing to see if he's fit to tour again, and is tasked with a new therapeutic method for veterans — fly-fishing. He joins a Vietnam War veteran with medical issues, Ike (Brian Cox), and neither one of them are particularly interested in spending time together, but they both end up finding a kind of peace and stillness through fly-fishing.
Caldwell spoke with MovieWeb about the film, in a way that was at one poetic and deeply self-aware. It was a meaningful, deeply thoughtful conversation, and indicates that Caldwell is a filmmaker of the highest order with a fascinating career ahead of him.
