Jeremiah Johnson (film)

Jeremiah Johnsonis a 1972 AmericanWesternfilm directed bySydney Pollackand starringRobert Redfordas the title character andWill Geeras "Bear Claw" Chris Lapp. It is based partly on the life of the legendarymountain manJohn Jeremiah Johnson, recounted in Raymond Thorp and Robert Bunker's bookCrow Killer: The Saga of Liver-Eating JohnsonandVardis Fisher's 1965 novelMountain Man.
The script was written byJohn MiliusandEdward Anhalt; the film was shot at various locations in Redford's adopted home state ofUtah. It was entered into the1972 Cannes Film Festivalon May 7, 1972, and was later released on December 21, 1972 byWarner Bros. Pictures.
The film received very positive reviews from critics, and was a box office success, earning $44.7 million against a budget of $3.1 million, making it the 6th highest grossing film of 1972.
Mexican Warveteran Jeremiah Johnson takes up the life of amountain man, supporting himself in theRocky Mountainsas atrapper. His first winter in mountain country is difficult, and he has a run-in with Paints-His-Shirt-Red, a chief of theCrow tribe. He starts out with a.30-caliberHawken percussion rifle, which he uses as his main rifle until he finds the frozen body of mountain man Hatchet Jack clutching a.50-caliberHawken rifle. Jack's will gives his rifle to the man who finds his corpse. With his new rifle, Johnson inadvertently disrupts thegrizzly bearhunt of the elderly and eccentric Chris Lapp, nicknamed "Bear Claw", who mentors him on living in the high country. After a brush with Crows, including Lapp's acquaintance Paints-His-Shirt-Red, and learning the skills required to survive, Johnson sets off on his own.
He comes across a cabin whose inhabitants were apparently attacked byBlackfootwarriors, leaving only a woman and her uncommunicative son alive. The woman, maddened by grief, forces Johnson to adopt her son. He and the boy, whom Johnson dubs "Caleb", come across Del Gue, a mountain man who has been robbed by the Blackfeet and buried by them up to his neck in sand. Gue persuades Johnson to help recover his stolen goods, but Johnson counsels against violence when they find the Blackfoot camp.
The men sneak into the camp at night to retrieve Gue's possessions, but Gue opens fire and the mountain men then kill the Blackfeet. Gue takes several Blackfoot horses and scalps. Johnson, disgusted with the needless killing, returns to Caleb. Soon afterward, they are surprised by ChristianizedFlatheads, who take them in as guests of honor. Johnson unknowingly places the chief in his debt by giving him the Blackfeet horses and scalps. According to Flathead custom, to maintain his honor the chief must now either give his guest a greater gift or kill him. The chief gives his daughter Swan to be Johnson's bride. After the wedding, Gue goes off on his own and Johnson, Caleb and Swan journey into the wilderness. Johnson finds a suitable location to build a cabin. They settle into this new home and slowly become a family.
This idyllic life is interrupted by the arrival of aU.S. Armycavalryrescue party tasked with saving a strandedwagon trainof settlers. Although Johnson is reluctant, he is pressed into guiding the rescue party through the mountains, leaving his family alone at their cabin. During the journey, Lieutenant Mulvey orders the party to proceed directly through a sacred Crow burial ground against Johnson's advice. Afterward, Johnson returns home by the same route and notices that the graves are now adorned with Swan's blue trinkets; he rushes back to the cabin, where he finds both Swan and Caleb have been killed.
Johnson sets off after the warriors who killed his family and attacks them, killing all but one, a heavy-set man who sings his death song when he realizes he cannot escape. Johnson leaves him alive and the survivor spreads the tale of the mountain man's quest for revenge throughout the region, trapping Johnson in a feud with the Crow. The tribe sends its best warriors one at a time to kill Johnson, but he defeats each one. His legend grows and the Crow come to respect him. He meets Gue again and returns to the cabin of Caleb's mother, only to find that she has died and a new settler named Qualen and his family are living there. Nearby the Crow have built a monument to Johnson's bravery, periodically leaving trinkets and talismans as tribute.
Johnson and Lapp meet for a final time. It is at this poignant meeting between student and teacher that Lapp realizes the heavy toll that fighting an entire nation alone in a vast and lonesome frontier has taken on Johnson. Lapp indicates as much when he remarks that Johnson has "come far", to which Johnson replies "Feels like far."  Lapp then queries "Were it worth the trouble?" "What trouble?", Johnson replies. Johnson later has a wordless encounter with Paints-His-Shirt-Red, presumed to be behind the attacks. While sitting astride their horses far apart, Johnson reaches for his rifle, but Paints-His-Shirt-Red raises his arm, open-palmed, in a gesture of peace that Johnson slowly returns, signaling an end to their conflict. The film ends with the song lyrics, "And some folks say he's up there still."
In April 1968, producerSidney Beckermanacquired the film rights to the biographical bookCrow Killer: The Saga ofLiver-Eating Johnsonby Raymond W. Thorp Jr. and Robert Bunker. By May 1970, the rights were acquired byWarner Bros., who assignedJohn Miliusto write a screen adaptation.Based roughly onCrow Killeras well asMountain Man: A Novel of Male and Female in the Early American WestbyVardis Fisher,Milius first scripted what would become known asJeremiah Johnsonfor $5,000 (equivalent to $39,000 in 2023); however, he was then hired to rewrite it several times and eventually earned $80,000 (equivalent to $630,000 in 2023). According to Milius,Edward AnhaltandDavid Rayfielwere brought in to work on the screenplay only for Milius to be continually rehired because no one else could do the dialogue. Milius says he got the idiom and American spirit fromCarl Sandburgand was also influenced byCharles Portis's novelTrue Grit.
The role of Jeremiah Johnson was originally intended forLee Marvinand thenClint Eastwood, withSam Peckinpahto direct.However, Peckinpah and Eastwood did not get along, so Peckinpah left and Eastwood decided to makeDirty Harryinstead.Warner Bros. then stepped in and set up Milius's screenplay forRobert Redford.Without a director, Redford talkedSydney Pollackinto it; the two were looking for another film to collaborate on afterThis Property Is Condemned(1966).
Casting for the role of Swan, Jeremiah's wife, took three months. After auditioning for another role, actress Delle Bolton was spotted by the casting director, followed up by her participation in the UCLA School of Theatre Arts Hugh O'Brian Awards competition.Bolton then interviewed alongside 200 Native American women and eventually won the role,even though she herself was not Native American.
After Warner Bros. advanced Redford $200,000 to secure him for the film, Warner decided that the film had to be shot on the Studio's backlot due to cost constraints. Insisting that it must be shot on location inUtah, Redford and Pollack convinced the studio that this could be done at the same cost.To prepare for production, art directorTed Haworthdrove over 26,000 miles to find locations.Ultimately, it was shot in nearly one hundred locations across Utah, including:Mount Timpanogos,Ashley National Forest,Leeds,Snow Canyon State Park,St. George,Sundance Resort,Uinta National Forest,Wasatch-Cache National Forest, andZion National Park.
Principal photography began in January 1971, but unexpected weather threatened production.Even after Pollack mortgaged his home to supplement the limited budget, production remained constrained."The snows of St. George in southern Utah were terrible," said Pollack, "and we were usingCinemobilesas the lifelines. There was no way I was going to let it overrun, and Bob was a superb partner in keeping us tight. In the end it was the greatest way to learn production, because I was playing with my own money."Struggling with weather and the budget, rarely were the crew able to shoot any second takes.
The film took seven and a half months to edit. "It's a picture that was made as much in the editing room as it was in the shooting," said Pollack. "It was a film where you used to watchdailiesand everybody would fall asleep, except Bob and I, because all you had were these big shots of a guy walking his horse through the snow. You didn't see strongnarrativeline. It's a picture made out of rhythms and moods and wonderful performances."
The score was composed byTim McIntireandJohn Rubinstein(sung by Tim McIntire); known primarily as actors, they were also musicians. This was their film composing debut, arising after Rubinstein met Sydney Pollack through his agent.As Pollack recalls in the DVD commentary, McIntire and Rubinstein were "kids that just auditioned with a tape."
The soundtrackL.P.was not released until 1976 byWarner Bros. Records. On October 5, 2009, a restored and extended version of the L.P. was released byFilm Score Monthly.
Jeremiah Johnsonhad its world-wide premiere on May 7 at the1972 Cannes Film Festival, where it was screened in competition.It was the firstWesternfilm to ever be accepted in the festival.The film then held its American premiere on December 2 inBoise, Idaho,with its theatrical release in the United States beginning on December 21, 1972, inNew York City.
The film earned $8,350,000 in U.S. & Canadian rentals by the end of 1973.Reissues in 1974 and 1975 saw it earn additional rentals of $10,000,000and $4 millionrespectively. In the U.S. and Canada it has grossed $44,693,786with a reported reissue gross of $25,000,000.
The film was first released ontoDVDbyWarner Home Videoon October 28, 1997. It was later released ontoBlu-rayon May 1, 2012.
The film received generally positive reviews. Review aggregatorRotten Tomatoesgave it a "Fresh" rating of 91% based on reviews from 23 critics, with an average score of 7.1/10 and the site's consensus stating: "Jeremiah Johnson's deliberate pace demands an investment from the viewer, but it's rewarded with a thoughtful drama anchored by a starring performance from Robert Redford."OnMetacriticit has a score of 75% based on reviews from 7 critics.
The New York Timesfilm criticRoger Greenspunnoted in his 1972 review, "That it does not succeed entirely is perhaps less the fault of the actor or of the conception than of a screenplay that tends to be ponderous about its imponderables and that every so often sounds as if it might have been written by the authors of the Bible ... But for all its involvement with academic cinema art,Jeremiah Johnsonis full of compensations. There are [moments] of great beauty and terror and deeply earned pathos."A report inVarietyfrom Cannes stated: "The film has its own force and beauty and the only carp might lie in its not always clear exegesis of the humanistic spirit and freedom most of its characters are striving for. It is not a new-type Western, with its demystifications, dirt and underlining of the brutishness of the times, as well as its heroic aspects, but it does show a deeper insight into the Indian–white relations and benefits from superb direction, excellent lensing and sharp editing."Gene Siskelof theChicago Tribunegave the film 3 stars out of 4 and wrote, "Oddly enough, it is the violent scenes, the ones that don't work within the story, in which Pollack excels. Jeremiah's battle with a pack of wolves, and, later, a pack of Crow Indians, are stunning examples of direction and editing."Charles Champlinof theLos Angeles Timespraised the film for "a rare and tonic authenticity," elaborating that "the film does not so much reveal a way of life as thrust us inside it. Making fire with flint and steel looks the miserably frustrating job it is; hunting and fishing look as exasperating as they are; snow looks as cold as it is and hands have the numbed and purpled look it gives them."Gary Arnold ofThe Washington Postdismissed the film as "rather ponderous" as it "just sort of moseys along, in an academically efficient way, without ever generating enough emotion or accumulating enough personal history. It's remarkably even and remarkably uncompelling."Tom MilneofThe Monthly Film Bulletinwrote, "Good as it is, with fine performances and superb camerawork by Andrew Callaghan,Jeremiah Johnsonstill disappoints because it aims lower than it might have and does some sleight-of-hand to conceal the fact."
The film inspired the creation of the classicItalian comicscharacter (and his eponymous publicación)Ken Parker. Ken Parker is aWesternanti-hero, based on Redford's portrayal of Jeremiah Johnson.
Like Johnson, Parker is a trapper who had decided to escape from the first city to have appeared in the United States. The comic's stories are mainly set in Northwestern states at first, but when Parker is forced to fleeBostonafter he participates in some strikes (initially as aPinkertonagent and later as a supporter of the workers making the strikes), his new adventures are set along theCanadian frontier.
A moving gif image of Redford nodding during the film has subsequently become a widely used reaction meme/image macro.