Jeremiah Johnson

Plot synopsis:
The opening scene depicts an early Rocky Mountain riverside trading post bustling with activity. Indians, trappers and traders of all stripes freely mingle. A young ex-soldier named Jeremiah Johnson (Robert Redford), fleeing civilization, equips himself with the needed foodstuffs, gear and pack mule required for life as a solitary mountain man.After a short time in the high mountains, Johnson finds himself critically short on both food and basic survival skills. While comically struggling to retrieve an elusive trout from a swift mountain stream, Johnson is startled to discover a bemused Indian brave silently watching him. The brave quietly rides downstream. After failing in his attempt to kindle a warming fire in the deep snow, Johnson comes upon a dead mountain man, frozen against a tree. A note attached to the dead man's coat identifies him as Hatchet Jack and explains that he was mauled and disabled by a grizzly bear. He bequeaths his prized .50-caliber rifle to whoever finds him. Johnson uses the gun to bag his first deer.Johnson awakens the next morning to find that his horse has died in the night. He continues through the deep snows on foot, leading his pack mule. He is soon surprised by a venerable old mountain man whose bear hunt he has inadvertently spoiled. The old mountain man, Bear Claw (Will Geer), patiently teaches Johnson the ways of the mountains. While hunting elk, Johnson and Bear Claw are surrounded by a Crow Indian party, but Johnson successfully barters their way out of trouble. The leader of the Crows is the same brave who observed Johnson's abortive fishing attempt earlier.After parting with Bear Claw, Johnson comes across a cabin where an Indian band has killed several white settlers. One child survives, along with his grieving, traumatized mother who has clearly gone mad. She frantically places her equally traumatized son in Johnson's charge, apparently intent on killing herself. Since the boy is unable to speak his own name, Johnson names the boy Caleb. As their journey continues, the pair comes across another mountain man, Del Gue (Stefan Gierash), buried up to his neck in burning sand by the same Blackfoot raiding party that attacked the settler cabin. Johnson rescues him and they track down the raiding party, intent on recovering Gue's horses and weapons. Against Johnson's wishes, Gue ambushes the Blackfoot party that night, and the Indians are killed with Johnson's reluctant assistance. Del Gue scalps the dead Blackfeet.This works to Johnson's advantage when they are subsequently surrounded by Flathead Indians, who are the Crows' blood enemies. Seeing the captured Blackfoot ponies and fresh scalps and believing Johnson to be a great warrior, the Flathead chief honors Johnson by giving his daughter to him as a bride. Del Gue goes his own way, and Johnson leads his newfound family deeper into the wilderness.Despite a mute "stepson" and a wife he cannot communicate with, Johnson finds fulfillment in his new life. They build a fine cabin alongside a mountain stream before Johnson leaves to hunt for buffalo. A few days after his return, a cavalry detail arrives at the cabin looking for a mountain guide. A small wagon party has become stranded in the high country and is in danger of starving in the freezing cold. Johnson is goaded into leading the rescue attempt.Once in the high mountains, the party encounters a sacred Crow burial ground blocking a mountain pass. Johnson explains they will have to go around, adding considerable distance to the journey. The cavalry officers are skeptical, explaining that the detour could result in many dead settlers. Against his better judgement, Johnson tells the troopers to stay quiet and follow along in single file through the burial ground. It is of no use; the Indians soon know of the desecration. After locating the wagon train, Johnson parts with the white men and traverses the burial ground again, suddenly becoming spooked. He rushes back to his cabin to find his wife and stepson dead, murdered by the Crows. Johnson is wracked with guilt and grief. After some time, he tenderly places the boy and his wife in the bed, covers them, and sets fire to the cabin.Johnson tracks down the murderous group of six or seven Crow warriors and attacks their campsite, without concern for his own life. He wipes out the entire group, becoming wounded in the process. His reprisal invites a seemingly endless series of solitary attacks upon Johnson as he travels the mountains. One by one, the Crow warriors ambush him, only to die in the process. Johnson himself is wounded many times. He becomes a living legend among the Indians and the white settlers alike. During this period, Johnson crosses paths once again with both Bear Claw and Del Gue, who are aware of his predicament. They wish him well and take their leave.After months of attacks, a weary Johnson sees one more Crow warrior approaching in the distance. He warily cocks his rifle and readies for a fight. Suddenly, the Indian raises his hand in tribute and in peace. It is over. Johnson breaks into a wide grin- it is the same Crow who watched him struggle to catch a trout long ago.

Tags: bleak, realism, revenge, murder, atmospheric

Review:
The movie tells the story of Jeremiah Johnson (Robert Redford) a veteran of the Mexican American war who decides to journey into the High Alpine Rockies to become a Mountain Man. Based very loosely on the novel by Vardis Fisher, the hero seeks the life of a trapper which offers Solace, wild adventure, aboriginal encounters and a chance for legendary exploits.
Following the trials and tribulations of a deserter of the Mexican War who disappears in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado to become a mountain man, JEREMIAH JOHNSON eschews the conventions of the western as a genre in such a way as was only made possible for American cinema in the tumultuous era of early 70's with such visceral movies of frontier survival as MAN IN THE WILDERNESS and A MAN CALLED HORSE paving the way.
As Jeremiah Johnson (Robert Redford) wanders the mountains like a fugitive stricken by disaster, a solitary figure against awe-inspiring backdrops of massive rock formations, steep ravines and expansive mesas, you can tangibly feel the film, like the hero, transcending the specific time and place and breaching out vision to become an all-encompassing spiritual journey where the individual characters - fur trappers, bear hunters or Indians - are merely the unwitting parners in a dance of death.Some viewers may be put off by the lack of straight-forward plot, the episodic, repetitive nature of the movie or the long stretches of silence, but it's from those exact things the movie takes its power.
Filmed in the snow-covered vastness of the Utah Rocky Mountains, Robert Redford plays well a deserter from the Mexican War who wages a bitter struggle against the elements and Indians in order to lead a life of solitude He heads into the mountains, only to find that there is the wind that never seems to stop Sometimes he swears he is going insane while the storms that he has never seen screech booming with their thunder Around him, snow squalls that kill everything that is unprepared Jeremiah's first winter proves almost fatal because of his inexperience in coping with the harsh Rockies Fortunately, he meets a real mountain man seasoned to the ways of the wild Bear Claw takes Johnson in and shares his knowledge with him Travelling the untamed wilderness, Jeremiah finds out that it is a land fit only for the savages, and he has seen what they are like But he has seen worse when he happens upon an Indian massacre of a settler's family or upon a bald man buried to his neck in sand by Blackfeet Indians And much worse after violating the Crow sacred burial ground while helping cavalry men find some lost settlers.
Jeremiah Johnson is unlike most films of its kind, which is a subgenre of the adventure film that follows a lone mountain man disillusioned by society who escapes to the frontier in order to become one with nature and reinvigorate himself.
Anyways, Robert Redford is surprisingly effective as the quiet, tough and determined title character who remains focused on his ultimate goal of remaining aloof and alone from all connections to anyone.Unfortunately, he is bamboozled into a most peculiar family situation involving a mute son of a crazy pioneer woman and the daughter of a French-speaking Native American chief.
One gets a little tired of John Wayne getting saddle-sore, killing indians and wooing women; at times watching `Jeremiah Johnson' I cannot help comparing a little with `Dances with Wolves' (qv), not because of any story similarity but more from certain situations being played out.
This extraordinary Western results to be a slice of life about a hermit man and a hostile environment .The picture narrates the odyssey of an adventurer that one time dreary of civilization goes to Rocky Mountains becoming into mountain man , a young who is part of the wildlife of the landscape.He early develops his senses from his first feeble and failed attempts at survival to an expert hunter who shoots efficiently his preys and turning into an exciting new myth , the great Jeremiah Johnson .
Crow Indians set out to track down the mountain man on savage raids until an inconclusive final .Solid western with interesting events , violent fights , emotions , thrills and spectacular outdoors .
The story is a crossover of various films, the battle against nature of ¨Man of a wilderness land¨ and Indians as ¨ Man called horse ¨ and the obstinacy and stubbornness of relentless enemies who fight with no rest such as ¨The duelists¨.
Anyway Jeremiah Johnson is a great movie to watch on a cold night when the wind is blowing and it's good to be inside.
Jeremiah Johnson is directed by Sydney Pollack and is inspired by two books, Raymond Thorp and Robert Bunker's Crow Killer: The Saga of Liver-Eating Johnson and Vardis Fisher's Mountain Man. Script was written by John Millius and Edward Anhalt and cinematography is by Duke Callaghan.
It stars Robert Redford, Will Geer, Stefan Gierasch, Delle Bolton and Josh Albee.Hardened after the war with Mexico, and fed up with everyday life, American Jeremiah Johnson (Redford) leaves civilisation behind to live life as a mountain man.
There are others here, and Jeremiah must face many challenges if he is to truly survive.Filmed entirely on location in the vast wilderness beauty of Utah, Jeremiah Johnson is light on plot but all the better for it.
I'm a sucker for a film that has Indians like this (Black Robe, Little Big Man, Last of the Mohicans).Will Geer is great and so are the rest of the cast.
Fantastic Utah locations and great cinematography enhance this off-beat, free-spirited and very seventies look into the rugged life of self-made mountain man Jeremiah Johnson and his experiences when he leaves civilization behind to become a trapper, sometime before or during the Mexican American War.In the title role, Robert Redford is good.
However, the film is stolen from him by feisty bear hunter Will Geer and the eccentric, bald-headed Stefan Gierasch, as senior mountain men showing Johnson the ways of the wilderness.Interesting is it's depiction of Indians, in that it neither shows them as "red" savages or weak victims.
Because of all these inaccuracies, I love "Jeremiah Johnson"--a film that de-romanticizes the west and shows what life was really like in the early days of western expansion.The things I also love about this film are its slow pace, underplayed acting (aside from a memorable scene with Will Geer and a bear) and sense of beauty in the great outdoors.
Perhaps Robert Redford was not the perfect choice to play Jeremiah, perhaps his soft good-looks do not complement what we would like to see in this semi-mythic character, perhaps he undermines just a tad of our credibility...
Like many great films, it's a movie that either makes you think or you can simply watch, picking up small details each time viewed.
A mountain man by the name of Jeremiah Johnson abandons his life as a townsman and takes up a new residence trapping, hunting, and fighting for his very survival in the bitter and hostile wilderness of the Rocky Mountains in the days of the frontiersmen.
Not only must he deal with the environment, hunger, and Indians, but with a new family that he's been entrusted to take care of against his desire.From the moment I saw "Jeremiah Johnson", I came to highly appreciate the film.
And then there's the wonderfully tranquil scenery shots of the breathtaking Rocky Mountains to bring back serenity to the film before moving on to the next big scene.I loved "Jeremiah Johnson" so much that after the first time I saw it, me and some friends decided to make our own movie.
This film provides a great look at the life of the mountain man in the Rockies during the 1860's.
It has a quiet atmosphere, letting the scenery, the subtle acting and the simple but profound dialog speak for itself.While not quite a ten (which I reserve for blow out of the water classics particularly from the 30s and 40s with few exceptions) Jeremiah Johnson is a quality film for all times and ages..
Robert Redford and Sydney Pollack team up for a movie that tells a story about a man who decides to journey into the mountains to become a "mountain man." He has no other choice than to learn the hard way.
Robert Redford plays "Jeremiah Johnson."The film shows Johnson's battles with the Crow Indians, his family life after he is "stuck" with an Indian bride and a young boy and some of the tragedies that befall all of them, as well as a few other people.Will Geer, a wonderful Native American actor, gets good billing in here but is only in the last 20 minutes!
He's usually interesting and he's always in beautiful movies, photography-wise.The scenery - filmed in Utah - is great stuff and looks awesome on widescreen DVD.
In patience if not true time, this is one of the longest movies I ever sat through.Robert Redford is Jeremiah, a Mexican War veteran who has clearly had enough of civilization and wants to strike out for land where no white man has been.
None really are around very long, as Jeremiah's loneliness and individualism is pretty much the theme of the picture.A film that feels very much of its time, with a folksy singer playing a guitar while a camera pans over miles of snow-covered mountains, "Jeremiah Johnson" has a rugged authenticity that commands respect, without ever spilling over into Granola-hippie platitudes.
Indians massacre whites, whites shoot animals for fur, a sign over the door of a trading post says "White men only," and no one questions why.But the problem with the film is that it is a trial to watch through its slow but meritable first half, then loses its bearings to become a different, quicker, but dumber movie, a revenge story with the once-peaceable Jeremiah becoming "Crow-killer." I understood the transformation, but it feels somehow wrong, with a series of sudden battles between JJ and individual Crow warriors ("Lucky they were Crow.
Still, he inhabits the small scenes well, like the one where he lights a fire or tries to teach his new Indian bride to say "Yes" or tries to take his legacy from the cold, dead hands of Hatchet Jack.At times a good film, at times a dull one, "Jeremiah Johnson" showcases the spirit of western migration.
Based on an amalgamation of real life people including a character named "Liver Eatin' Johnson", who ate the livers of his adversaries in keeping with THEIR customs, I will say that essentially the movie tells the story of a white man who drops from society to escape it's politics and finds himself at war with native peoples of the lands wherein he ends up.
In the era in which the movie was made, perhaps that would make him something of a sympathetic character (in the early 70's lots of people were "dropping out" of society, disillusioned by war.) But that's speculation on my part; Jeremiah's background was never really explored, and so never really explained.The setting alone gives this a certain attraction - as does the fact that Jeremiah is escaping from the world (who hasn't wanted to do that at one point or another?) But as far as story or plot goes, this struck me as largely meaningless..
On first seeing this fantastic film in a theatre, and then watching the VHS video countless times (i know, this movie is addictive), i finally realized what it was in the Crow burial ground that caused Johnson to rush home to find his family massacred.This is very subtle, is it just me that cannot immediately see these details that mean so much to the story?
Or is this so well buried in the images that many others could not see it either?None of the reviews on IMDB mention just what it was he saw, so maybe i'm not the only one who has to watch the movie 30 times to finally get it.Hint:  The prophetic scene where Johnson, Caleb, and his new bride Swan leave the Flathead village.
I got a massive fright when I saw this because I misheard some of the early dialogue when someone says to the title character - " You just came to molest my hunt " which had me thinking the title of the movie should have been BILL CLINTON and not JEREMIAH JOHNSON , but I do assure you I did realise within seconds what the actual line was This is a movie that's let down by a lack of dialogue since much of the narrative involves a lone character who has no one to bounce lines off , that's why a lot of books like Richard Matheson's I AM LEGEND are somewhat unfilmable because many pages are devoted to a character living alone with thought process informing the reader as to what they're thinking It's also a very poorly edited movie where we see wild wolves attack Johnson which is both confusing and laughable .
I avoided viewing this well-known film for many years as I thought that it was merely another "solitary man" flick...Needless to say I was all too wrong...Suze Orman would like Jeremiah Johnson.
In "Jeremiah Johnson", Robert Redford plays the mountain man title character.
Redford's metamorphosis as he moves from the hunter to the hunted is just amazing and the scene with Geer at the end of the film is one of the most poignant in movie history.
Robert Redford is at his peak performance in the role of the mountain man, Jeremiah Johnson.
However, Pollock scrapped that part out of the story and mainly focused on a story about a man's survival in the unforgiving wilderness.After serving the United States military in the Mexican War, Jeremiah Johnson (Robert Redford) decides to retreat from society into the Rocky Mountains wilderness.
Having served in the American army during the Mexican War, a loner by the name of "Jeremiah Johnson" (Robert Redford) decides to become a mountain man and heads into the Rockies to hunt, fish and trap.
In 1972 Robert Redford was at the height of his star power and he decided to make a film very close to his heart- Jeremiah Johnson is shot in his native Utah, in the wilderness and based on a real historical figure by the moniker of "liver eating" Johnson.
In 1972 Robert Redford was at the height of his star power and he decided to make a film very close to his heart- Jeremiah Johnson is shot in his native Utah, in the wilderness and based on a real historical figure by the moniker of "liver eating" Johnson.
The cast is tremendous,Will Geer as Bear Claw and of course Robert Redford plays his best role of his career,a loner in the wilderness.See how the savage of Leaver Eating Johnson survived.
'Jeremiah Johnson' is the story of a fronteirsman who lives in the mountains and befalls some hard times with the Native Americans.
MILLER, PAT GARRET AND BILLY THE KID, this is easily my favorite.Marking the second (and perhaps best) collaboration between director Sydney Pollack and star Robert Redford, JEREMIAH JOHNSON is probably the closest we'll ever get to a cinematic representation of an Emerson poem.Loosely based on the life of the "Crow Killer", JEREMIAH JOHNSON is the story of a young greenhorn (from parts unspecified) who eschews civilization to carve out an existence as a "mountain man".
The choice of Robert Redford for Johnson seems pretty natural for a movie in this time frame.
Redford and his good friend and favorite collaborator, director Sydney Pollack, filmed in pristine, seldom-seen wilderness locations; this is definitely a movie to be enjoyed in a theater or letterboxed on DVD.
Jeremiah Johnson (Robert Redford) is disillusioned with life after experiencing the horrors of the Mexican War. Now his one simple desire is to live the life of a "mountain man".
He will also experience friendship, love, and loss, while once again finding his place in the world.Redford is aces in this well crafted story inspired by a real life trapper named John Johnston, and drawn from sources such as the novel "Mountain Man" by Vardis Fisher and the tale "Crow Killer" by Raymond W.
I have seen many westerns in my time, and a good few were generic or shallow, but Jeremiah Johnson looked like a unique film to me, so I rented it.
In summary, the interactions between people and what it reveals about human nature is what makes Jeremiah Johnson a truly beautiful movie..
So is a brief outline of the real character but this film only uses part of the story (thankfully, Redford doesn't go around eating human livers) in a mythic western tale of man among the elements turning his back on society.
Will Geer, veteran character actor best known as Grandpa Walton excels in support as Bear Claw, the mentor who is Johnsons first encounter when he decides to become a mountain man at the top of the film.
Robert Redford has all the acting talent of a hollow log.The essence of the mountain man in this film (Johnson) is a spoiled putz.
It celebrates his stoic glory but doesn't flinch from a harsh life that very few were fit for.Jeremiah Johnson (Robert Redford) is a man fresh out of the army who wants only to leave the world behind for the mountain wilderness of Colorado.
An American soldier decides to wander into the frontier mountains and live a life of solitude sometime in the 19th century.This is a great man in the wilderness fighting to survive in nature movie.
Life in the mountains is portrayed as tough, violent and dangerous.While I am not a big fan of his, Robert Redford was good enough as Jeremiah Johnson.There were parts of the films which were unbelievable - like the bit where Jeremiah singlehandedly kills a posse of Indians.The part where Jeremiah lives with an Indian woman (to whom he is forcefully married) and a small boy was interesting.