Jeremiah Johnson (1972)


Robert Redford          Jeremiah
Will Geer               Bear Claws
Stefan Gierasch         Uwe
Delle Bolton            Indian Girl
Josh Albee              Caleb
Joaquin Martinez        Painted Shirt
Paul Benedict (II)      Farmer
Charles Tyner           Robidoux

Directed by:            Sydney Pollack
Produced by:            Joe Wizan


Sydney Pollack directs this notable picturesque film in which a solitary man named Jeremiah Johnson 
(Robert Redford) battles ruthless Indians, who use him as the target of a long-awaited vendetta, and the 
merciless elements of nature, in search of peace. Set in the mid-19th century, after the Civil War, the 
film centers on Jeremiah as he becomes disillusioned with the ways of his civilization and the ravages 
of war, and he sets out determined to survive in the Rocky Mountain wilderness by himself.

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A mountain man who wishes to live the life of a hermit becomes the unwilling object of a long vendetta 
by Indians when he proves to be the match of their warriors in one-to-one combat on the early frontier.

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An American soldier goes west to escape the Mexican War and becomes a mountain man. He is taken in by an 
old trapper who teaches him how to survive. After unavoidably violating an Indian burial ground, he loses 
his new Indian wife and their adopted child to vengeance, and a vendetta between him and the Crows ruins 
his idyllic life as a fur trapper. Gorgeous scenery and a great role for Will Geer in a thoughtful 
meditation on the American West.

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This tale of isolation in the great rocky mountains, perhaps reflects America's mood as the Vietnam war 
was coming to a close as much as anything else. Johnson, seemingly war weary, yet with a sense of respect 
for indigenous cultures as if one informs the other. The only thing he seems to want is to share utopia 
with those who were there before him and perhaps leave his implied past behind. But even in the vacuum of 
an isolated life, Jeremiah Johnson seems doomed by threads to culture he cannot completely escape. As with 
"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," one can't help but feel that along with Indians and animals with 
which he shares the land, "A Brave New World will soon rush in and overrun them all.