Jeremiah Johnson was a real mountain man who, as legend has it, killed, scalped, and ate the livers of some 300 Crow Indians. From what I’ve read he seems like a pretty rough-and-tumble guy. Director Sydney Pollack teamed up with Robert Redford and turned him into some kind of folk hero in their film based upon the legend.
Redford plays Johnson as a man who initially heads to the mountains to get away from society and truly become something, some kind of man. He isn’t naive or untrained like Chris McCandless from Into the Wild. He has some skills hunting and surviving in the wild. Just getting to the Rockies in the late 1800s was an adventure in itself.
But life in the mountains is different than life in the plains. Johnson find himself in trouble. He struggles making fire in the cold, wind, and snow. He can’t catch a fish in the mountain streams. He has better luck with wild game, but not much.
Cold and nearly starved, he stumbles across an old grisly bear hunter named Bear Claw (Will Greer). The old man teaches him how to survive in the mountains. He becomes good at it. He thrives. He learns the ways of the various Indian tribes in the area, but doesn’t befriend them. He’s a man who likes to be alone.
In time he comes across a cabin that has been attacked by Indians. A child was killed, and the husband is missing. A young boy has survived and his mother who has gone crazy from the ordeal. Johnson begins caring for the boy. Later Johnson makes a mistake in a trade with a Flathead tribe and finds himself with a wife.
This man of solitude now finds himself with a family. It is hard on him at first, especially since he does not speak his Crow wife’s language and the boy is mute, but he learns to love them and they make a life together.
Then tragedy hits and Johnson becomes the liver-eating man of legend.
Pollack and cinematographer Duke Callaghan film it like poetry. Pollack calls it his silent picture and there are long scenes in which not a word is spoken. Shot in and around the Rocky Mountains in Utah it is often stunningly beautiful. Redford does some of his best work. All of this is periodically puncturated by songs from Tim McIntire and John Rubinstein. They are sung in the Appalachian folk tradition and are a little too on the nose declaring the themes of the film. Also they are just bad.
It is interesting that they turned this story of a rugged mountain man, known for his ruthless slaying of countless natives into the story of a good man who just wants to be left alone, at peace in nature. He rarely takes action himself, the mountains or outsiders force him into it. Even in the end when he becomes the Crow Slayer, it is always them who attack him. It does feel like they are turning into a folk hero. I doubt that is where the truth really lies. But we’ll never really know the truth anyway, as the true story was turned into legend long ago and the facts have long since been lost.
Not that it matters. True or not the film is quite good, longing and beautiful. A tale of a time long past, but of mountains that still amaze with their grandeur.
themidnightcafe.org 
Jeremiah Johnson is loosely based on Idaho author Vardis Fisher’s book, “Mountain Man.” Fisher was born in Annis, Idaho; some 11 miles from where I used to live: Rexburg, Idaho. And he died in Hagerman, Idaho; some 23 miles from where I now live: Jerome. The book is in my collection but I have yet to read it. Fisher’s historical novel CHILDREN OF GOD discusses the plight of the Mormon pioneers crossing the plains beginning in 1847. My 3rd Great Grandparents joined the Mormon Church in England. In 1852 they immigrated to the Utah Territory and settled in the Rexburg area where Iived for 27 years. As a native Californian I never thought Idaho would become my home. My late wife is buried in the same Rexburg area cemetery where the children of my Mormon pioneer ancestors are.
Back to the film. Most of the Utah area filming takes place in and around Redford’s Sundance ski resort. In many shots you can see Mt. Timpanogas looming in the background.
Over the years I have heard people complain about how silent the film is. I think director Sidney Pollock intended this. Jeremiah Johnson was in the mountain wilderness by himself. We hear what he heard…nothingness.
That’s an interesting famil history, thanks for sharing. I read that it was mostly shot around Redfords ranch. He owns hundreds of acres out there I guess. Beautiful country.
Pollack has called it his silent movie, and I appreciate that it spends a lot of time with Redford out in the mountains in the quiet. As someone who has lived in place in which I do not speak the native language I also appreciate communicating with people with whom you cannot actually talk to. I did find it funny that Redford’s character so often expects everyone to speak to him in English, and he seemed to make no attempt to learn any of the native languages himself.
I quite like Robert Redford, and it does sound pretty interesting. However i am often displeased at how Hollywood portrays Native Americans, throughout history with a few exceptions, the general theme is one of “them” and savages.
For sure Hollywood has done a terrible job with their treatment of Native Americans. This one is better than most in that regard, but still not wonderful. I watch a lot of westerns and I often have to cringe in the depictions of Native Americans.
Indeed it’s pretty bad really, hopefully it may change. I feel the same with a lot of indigenous populations, progress and civilisation generally did not treat them well. Good review though Mat, and it’s a film i have not heard of.
This is something I struggle with. So many old movies are terrible with their depictions of minority. But what do you do about it? If you don’t watch those films then you are missing out on a lot of great movies, and a piece of cinematic history. Its the same thing when I write about them. Some of those movies are really great in many other ways. I want to watch them. I want to write about them. But I don’t want to have to write several paragraphs on why these films depictions are bad in every review.
For me I can recognize that an old western for example had a terrible depictions of Native Americans. That it treated them like savages, etc. Or that lots of classic movies take the point of view of the South in the American Civil War without even touching on slavery, etc.,etc. etc. Yet I can still watch those movies and like them by recognizing all the things they do well.
I mean sometimes things are just too terrible and I can’t look past them. Sometimes the film loses me. Sometimes I have to point that out in a review.
Its the same when dealing with actors or directors or writers who were terrible people. What do you do with their art?
I understand what you are saying, i happen to like a lot of Roman Polanski’s films. I know the details of what he did years ago, and it is truly disgusting. Yet as you say what do we do, destroy all his films and boycott him. I know my example is a particularly worrying and disturbing case, yet i remember watching Repulsion and thinking it was superbly made. It’s quite fraught really. Again i cannot stand racism, but we cannot rewrite history. I don’t know the answer to be honest, generations ago things were very different, that’s not to say we can’t acknowledge it. I think we need to learn from it though, otherwise it’s like generational trauma which can follow families for years. Interesting and thought provoking post Mat.
Polanski is a good example of what I’m talking about. What he did is pretty awful, but he’s made some great movies. Can we (should we) ignore those films all together? That would be wiping away some important bits of film history. Should I write about them and praise them? Should we purchase the blu-rays or go see them in the theater knowing it will be putting money into the hands of a child rapist? I dunno. But I certainly think about those things a lot these days.
Yes it’s only understandable to feel conflicted, and i have thought about it many times. It’s just very difficult especially when the films and works have been out there for so long. No easy answer really, and i think it’s up to the individual. There are some who will feel only boycotting certain things or people will do. Others who do still want to just see the art, it’s a very uncomfortable dilemma.
For me I’ve mostly decided that I’m going to watch/listen/read/appreciate the art. I can generally separate the art from the artist. Sometimes that becomes too difficult like Bill Cosby and the Cosby show. Hard to watch him on screen as a good family man knowing what he’s guilty of. I also tend to draw the line at paying money to the artist. But if I already own the DVD or CD or are able to watch it without buying it then I do that.
Writing about this stuff is a little more challenging. I don’t have any hard and fast rules. Sometimes I feel the need to point out something in a film, sometimes I let it slide. With things like westerns I tend to let it slide unless whatever happens is especially bad, mostly because writing about how westerns so poorly represented native Americans over and over and over again gets a bit repetitive.
That makes sense, i also feel that with some things as bad as they were, historically we can look back and acknowledge certain things, customs, etc shouldn’t have happened. However it’s ok to still look with an enlightened mind. It doesn’t have to mean you excuse it, it differs obviously as to the individual context. I also agree with the Cosby reference, used to think he was very good , and funny. I now hope he dies a long slow death! The amount of manipulation, and damge caused, i could never watch what certainly looked like a wholesome and very funny show. I do not believe in censorship however, and i think we have to be careful. It’s like reading a book that was wrote in the 1930’s, things were dramatically different then for most people. We cannot expect the same culture we have now, we can be mindful of maybe offensive tropes etc, but we can still read it in a place of knowing the time it referenced. It’s quite a deep and emotive subject really.