Rating: 
Summary: Robert Redford's personal favorite film role
Review: I had the pleasure of seeing "Jeremiah Johnson" in the theatre soon after it first came out at Christmas 1972. On the big screen you could really appreciate the magnificent cinematography and the majestic scenery. It loses something when transferred to the small screen. So I recommend watching the letterboxed version on a larger screen TV(at least 27inches or larger.)It has fine direction by Sydney Pollack whom Robert Redford has worked with in more than a half dozen films. The movie takes place in Redford's own neck of the woods,the mountains of Utah.The late Will Geer,(the grandfather on the television series "The Walton's" back in the '70's),is very enjoyable as a bear trapping mountain man named Bear Claw. And,Delle Bolton is impressive in her movie debut as Jeremiah's young indian maiden bride named Swan. I don't believe I've seen Ms. Bolton in anything since this film.The film also has an atmospheric music score by John Rubinstein. I haven't read the two books this movie is based on "Crow Killer" by Raymond W. Thorp and Robert Bunker and "Mountain Man" by Vardis Fisher and I hear the books are much more intense and graphic and if the screenplay had followed them more closely the film would have generated a more adult R rating instead of the family friendly PG rating that it has. Redford said in an interview back in the '80's that of all the films he has done that "Jeremiah Johnson" was his personal favorite. I think that's really saying something considering all the fine films Mr. Redford has done.This is one of his best along with "Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid" from 1969, "The Sting",(the OscarTM winner for Best Picture of 1973),"The Great Waldo Pepper" from 1975,"Three Days of The Condor",(also directed by Sydney Pollack),"All The President's Men" from 1976,"Brubaker" from 1980, "Ordinary People"(which was his directorial debut and was the OscarTM winner for Best Picture of 1980 and he won Best Director honors),"The Natural" from 1984,"A River Runs Through It" from 1992,which Redford directed and was the narrator,"Quiz Show" nominated for Best Picture of 1994,(it didn't win), and "The Horse Whisperer" from 1998(which he both directed and starred in. Among Director Sydney Pollack's best are "The Way We Were" from 1973,"The Yakuza" from 1975,"Tootsie" from 1982 and "Out of Africa",the OscarTM winner for Best Picture of 1985,with Mr.Pollack winning Best Director honors). Robert Redford and Sydney Pollack are two of America's finest filmmakers.
Rating: 
Summary: "The day that you tarry is the day that you lose ..."
Review: He was a big man, maybe even growing in physical stature with the growth of his myth; deadly with his Bowie knife and his gun alike. He'd been a fighter in the U.S.-Mexican war, but left the lowland's ways behind in favor of a mountain man's: the lonesome hunt, the wild outdoors, and the confrontation with nature rather than his fellow men. And he came to be known as "Crow Killer" and "Liver Eating Johns(t)on" when he took war to the Crow nation after they killed his wife. Based on Raymond Thorp/Robert Bunker's "Crow Killer" and Vardis Fisher's "Mountain Man" and scripted by John Milius and Edward Anhalt - with input from frequent Redford/Pollack cooperator David Rayfiel - Sydney Pollack's and Robert Redford's 1972 movie loosely traces the mythical hunter's legend, opening with his arrival at the fort where he buys his first horse and gun. "Ride due west as the sun sets. Turn left at the Rocky Mountains," is a trader's goodnatured answer to Johnson's naive inquiry where to find "bear, beaver and other critters worth cash money when skinned." But soon he finds that his lowland skills no longer do him any good, almost starving in the freezing mountainous winter before being taken in by old "griz" hunter Bear Claw Chris Lapp (Will Geer in a stand-out role - his and Redford's deadpan exchanges alone make this movie worth its price). Setting out on his own again the following year Johnson fares better, even gaining the respect of a Crow warrior prosaically named Paints His Shirt Red (Joaquin Martinez), the first person he encountered in the mountains. After assisting a settler's wife who had to watch her family massacred by Indians (Allyn Ann McLerie) and reluctantly agreeing to take charge of her son (Josh Albee) - a boy grown mute by the horrors he witnessed, whom he names Caleb - he comes across white hunter Del Gue (Stefan Gierasch), buried up to his head in sand by a band of Blackfeet. Revenging that act unwittingly leaves Johnson with a wife, in exchange for bestowing the Blackfeet's ponies and guns on Flathead chief Two-Tongues-Lebeaux (Richard Angarola): the chief's daughter Swan (Delle Bolton). Although neither embraces the match enthusiastically, over time Jeremiah and Swan learn to appreciate and, eventually, love each other. But then fate strikes: Against better judgment pressured into guiding a cavalry company through Crow burial ground, Johnson finds Swan and Caleb murdered upon his return. He sets out after the Crow who invaded his home ... and plants the seeds of his myth. "Jeremiah Johnson" was Redford's and Pollack's second of seven collaborations after 1966's "This Property is Condemned." What most obviously characterizes this movie is the breathtaking manner in which its cinematography uses Utah's mountains (doubling for the story's actual Montana setting): despite studio budgetary limits shot entirely on location, the film had Redford acting as a virtual tour guide to the magnificent Wasatch, which he had recently made his home himself. But the movie also shows enormous restraint, particularly given its violent underlying story. There's no blood-gushing "Braveheart"-style, no dramatic score; fights are mostly one-on-one, occurring as they would in real life - silently, with only the opponents' grunts being heard - and despite his fearsome epithet we never actually see Johnson eat a dead Crow warrior's liver. (Reportedly a script change on which Redford insisted: wisely so.) Similarly, Johnson's and Swan's relationship builds on small symbolic gestures, moving from his coarse attempts to teach her English and refusal to learn her language to conversations in Salish (Flathead); and from her submissive expectation of his exercising his marital rights on their wedding night (which rather repulses him) to later-exchanged tender glances and smiles: Thus, we only learn about their marriage's belated consummation when one morning Swan points to his beard in response to his question about her reddish cheeks. - Further, there's no dramatic conclusion; no final battle: as Johnson's myth begins to grow and he withdraws deeper and deeper into the mountains, he retraces his steps and meets in reverse order the people he encountered after his arrival: Del Gue, the settler now living in Caleb's mother's cabin, Bear Claw Chris Lapp; and finally Paints His Shirt Red who, although a Crow, created a monument in Johnson's honor and sends him off with a last salute, which Johnson reciprocates; ending the movie in an immortalizing freeze-frame shot - again, a feature insisted on by Redford, doubtlessly reminiscent of "Butch and Sundance" (and repeated one way or another in several subsequent movies). Despite its languid pace and although just under two hours long, "Jeremiah Johnson" formally takes an epic approach, complete with overture, entr'acte and narrator (uncredited, but I think Willie Nelson), whose subtle voiceovers and brief songs provide key narrative bridges. While the latter match the movie's overall style and the overture at least corresponds with Johnson's mythical stature - albeit also setting up ultimately unfulfilled expectations of a dramatic finale - adding an entr'acte may have been a bit much, particularly in the middle of the ride through the Crow burial ground (incidentally a screenplay addition designed to give the Indians a reason to punish Johnson and not make them appear as mindless killers). In my view this breaks the dramatic tension rather than enhancing it; problematic insofar as virtually all that remains thereafter is Johnson's gradual withdrawal into the mountains and fights with the Crow. But no matter. This is a terrific movie, featuring great banter with Johnson's fellow hunters as well as some wonderfully delicate scenes with Swan, showcasing some of North America's most dramatically beautiful scenery, and growing on you more and more the more often you watch it. And some say he's up there still ... "The way that you wander is the way that you choose. The day that you tarry is the day that you lose. Sunshine or thunder, a man will always wonder where the fair wind blows ..."
(Lyrics, Jeremiah Johnson's theme.)
Rating:
Summary: The marrow of the world
Review: Sometime in the mid-1800s, presumably after the onset of the US war with Mexico (1846-48) but prior to its conclusion (How goes the war with Mexico? It is over. Who won?) a young man, Jeremiah Johnson, shakes off the dust of civilization to begin a new life in the wild mountains of western America.
Sydney Pollack's 1972 JEREMIAH JOHNSON is grand entertainment, a sprawling story of man-in-nature filmed in some of the most beautiful country in America. Jeremiah Johnson (Robert Redford) begins the adventure as a callow youth who can't fish or keep a fire going to save his life. He clatters through the wilderness and lets his smell precede him. At the rate he's going he won't be going much farther.
Enter Bear Claw, a white wizened old mountain man who's wise in the ways of the wild and a great friend and hunter of grizz'. Boisterously played by Will Geer, Bear Claw acts as mentor to young Johnson. Bear Claw is the first of many colorful characters peppered throughout JEREMIAH JOHNSON. Later Johnson will happen upon a woman whose family was massacred. The indians will not bother you on account of because you are touched, Johnson assures her. Bear Claw must have taught him a LOT in that ten-minute scene of their'n. Yet later we meet Del Gue (Stefan Gierasch), head shaved, buried up to his neck in sand, asking for a hat and desperately trying to blow an irritating feather out of his nose. Like Bear Claw before him, Del Gue is a picturesque and somewhat eccentric mentor.
JEREMIAH JOHNSON needs all the colorful mountain men and Blackfeet and Shoshone and Flatheads it can get because Redford's character is as flat as hardtack and as colorful as a toad's belly. Custom built for its star, the movie revolves around an introverted and introspective lead, something that works most of the time, although it's probably good they didn't give personality tests to prospective mountain men back then. Redford doesn't fit the type. This film would be a tough, long and dry read indeed without its wild men (and women) of the wild.
The short, contemporary featurette on the dvd tells us that JEREMIAH JOHNSON is a saga about a young man in the wilderness, "completely unaided, wholly responsible for himself." You could argue with that appealing tagline whose chief merit is that if fits on a billboard and plays to the Redford Mystique. In any event, any movie whose main character hunts and fishes and messes around in the outdoors every day has a tremendous built in edge with a certain percentage of the moving watching public. Better yet it has an obedient son (adopted from the touched woman) and a beautiful young indian bride. Best, neither speaks a word of English! The boy can't - sorry, cannot (we do not contract words in this movie), the boy cannot sass because he is mute, the woman cannot argue because you do not speak her language, and she do not speak your'n.
For the most part, then, JEREMIAH JOHNSON is bully entertainment. The location shots range from beautiful to breathtaking. The action scenes are well composed and exciting, for the most part, anyway. The wolves attack scene doesn't work - it relies too heavily on close-ups of snarling wolves clamping down on heavily padded arms and medium shots of a life sized ragdoll wolf or two being bounced against horse withers and fetlocks. Heartily recommended for anyone who enjoys a rousing adventure played against a glorious background.
Rating:
Summary: A Classic
Review: The first time I saw this film, it went straight from my eye to my heart. No stopping in between.
Rating: 
Summary: A great movie, dissapointingly edited
Review: The original Jeremiah Johnson was a beautiful, violent, tragic, epic of love, hate, vengance and redemption. It was with great dissapointment and some anger that I discovered that the producers of the DVD have shortened the movie, eliminating most of the scenes of violence and basically rendering it a collection of nice shots of the Utah mountains. This has been done without explaination, apology or even warning; the movie is now less than two hours long (but with intermission intact) and contains many clumsy cuts in the last third, during the indian fighting scenes. The remaining film still contains a shadow of the original epic but I wish it had remained intact.
Rating:
Summary: Fine adventure film. From greenie mountain man to legend.
Review: It is hard to believe this movie is now more than thirty years old. I watched it last night with my youngest son who is just starting to camp out with his scout troop. He enjoyed this movie a great deal and it does have a lot to offer a young man about learning the skills of the outdoors. It is also so effective in making outdoor life, even in the winter, so appealing that millions of city folk like me grow almost wistful of the "pure life" in the mountains. This is in spite of having experienced all the joy there is in sleeping out in a winter storm at ten below zero with frozen hands and feet. This is the power of the dream over experience.
This tale is based upon the experiences of a real trapper named Joe Johnson, but this is clearly a fable. Jeremiah comes from where we don't know, he wants to live in the mountains, but is clearly unprepared. He struggles and is spared by an Indian and saved by a kindly old mountain man named Bear Claw. Soon he becomes a skilled mountain man and through no fault of his own he becomes a fierce and feared fighter.
Even though there are some extended fight scenes and images that were considered somewhat shocking when the film came out, they all seem pretty tame today, but are still effective. The movie is actually very quiet and even melancholy rather than violent. There are some very humorous scenes and scenes of compassion and tenderness that do balance out the action sequences and delineate how brutal life in the wild could be.
Robert Redford does a fine job of holding the camera with few words and keeping everything interesting and moving along. The director, Sydney Pollack and the film editor should get a great deal of credit. Their choice of music has held up pretty well, even if it does sound like the 70's faux folk western music it is. But many films from the eighties have scores that sound much more dated.
The supporting cast does a fine job. Some of them are only on screen for a few minutes, but remain indelibly in our memories (Allyn Ann McLerie as the crazy woman or Stefan Gierasch as Del Gue are only two examples).
The movie is also visually beautiful. Watching this film really is a couple of hours well spent.
Rating:
Summary: Just gets better with age
Review: I first saw this movie at the theater with my parents when I was 5 in Colorado. We drove to Colorado Springs to see it, and in retrospect I can't believe they let me see this film at that age. It left a lasting impression of what determination can do for the human spirit and I've used this example many times in daily life. OK, so you might think I'm reading too much into this movie, but even for just the film-going factor this movie's worth it! There are none of the silly special effects of the matrix just the real deal struggles of man vs. the elements and the Crow Indians. As years have gone by, the movie is still entertaining to watch and a real eye opener about how far our modern day lifestyles have come. Next time you're hungry, think about how you're going to feed yourself. Will it involve a rifle, a rabbit, a bowie knife and a spit? Probably not. There are many elements to this film, man vs. nature, man vs. man, man vs. himself, it's good stuff...
Rating:
Summary: "The day that you tarry is the day that you lose ..."
Review: He was a big man, maybe even growing in physical stature with the growth of his myth; deadly with his Bowie knife and his gun alike. Formerly a fighter in the U.S.-Mexican war, he had left the lowland's ways behind in favor of a mountain man's: the lonesome hunt, the wild outdoors, and the confrontation with nature rather than his fellow men. And he came to be known as "Crow Killer" and "Liver Eating Johns(t)on" when he took war to the Crow nation after they killed his wife.
Based on Raymond Thorp/Robert Bunker's "Crow Killer" and Vardis Fisher's "Mountain Man" and scripted by John Milius and Edward Anhalt - with input from frequent Redford/Pollack cooperator David Rayfiel - Sydney Pollack's and Robert Redford's 1972 movie loosely traces the mythical hunter's legend, opening with his arrival at the fort where he buys his first horse and gun. "Ride due west as the sun sets. Turn left at the Rocky Mountains," is a trader's goodnatured answer to Johnson's naive inquiry where to find "bear, beaver and other critters worth cash money when skinned." But soon he finds that his lowland skills no longer do him any good, almost starving in the freezing mountainous winter before being taken in by old "griz" hunter Bear Claw Chris Lapp (Will Geer in a stand-out role - his and Redford's deadpan exchanges alone make this movie worth its price).
Setting out on his own again the following year Johnson fares better, even gaining the respect of a Crow warrior prosaically named Paints His Shirt Red (Joaquin Martinez), the first person he encountered in the mountains. After assisting a settler's wife who had to watch her family massacred by Indians (Allyn Ann McLerie) and reluctantly agreeing to take charge of her son (Josh Albee) - a boy grown mute by the horrors he witnessed, whom he names Caleb - he comes across white hunter Del Gue (Stefan Gierasch), buried up to his head in sand by a band of Blackfeet. Revenging that act unwittingly leaves Johnson with a wife, in exchange for bestowing the Blackfeet's ponies and guns on Flathead chief Two-Tongues-Lebeaux (Richard Angarola): the chief's daughter Swan (Delle Bolton). Although neither embraces the match enthusiastically, over time Jeremiah and Swan learn to appreciate and, eventually, love each other. But then fate strikes: Against better judgment pressured into guiding a cavalry company through Crow burial ground, Johnson finds Swan and Caleb murdered upon his return. He sets out after the Crow who invaded his home ... and plants the seeds of his myth.
"Jeremiah Johnson" was Redford's and Pollack's second of seven collaborations after 1966's "This Property is Condemned." What most obviously characterizes this movie is the breathtaking manner in which its cinematography uses Utah's mountains (doubling for the story's actual Montana setting): despite studio budgetary limits shot entirely on location, the film had Redford acting as a virtual tour guide to the magnificent Wasatch, which he had recently made his home himself.
But the movie also shows enormous restraint, particularly given its violent underlying story. There's no blood-gushing "Braveheart"-style, no dramatic score; fights are mostly one-on-one, occurring as they would in real life - silently, with only the opponents' grunts being heard - and despite his fearsome epithet we never actually see Johnson eat a dead Crow warrior's liver. (Reportedly a script change on which Redford insisted: wisely so.) Similarly, Johnson's and Swan's relationship builds on small symbolic gestures, moving from his coarse attempts to teach her English and refusal to learn her language to conversations in Salish (Flathead); and from her submissive expectation of his exercising his marital rights on their wedding night (which rather repulses him) to later-exchanged tender glances and smiles: Thus, we only learn about their marriage's belated consummation when one morning Swan points to his beard in response to his question about her reddish cheeks. - Further, there's no dramatic conclusion; no final battle: as Johnson's myth begins to grow and he withdraws deeper and deeper into the mountains, he retraces his steps and meets in reverse order the people he encountered after his arrival: Del Gue, the settler now living in Caleb's mother's cabin, Bear Claw Chris Lapp; and finally Paints His Shirt Red who, although a Crow, created a monument in Johnson's honor and sends him off with a last salute, which Johnson reciprocates; ending the movie in an immortalizing freeze-frame shot - again, a feature insisted on by Redford, doubtlessly reminiscent of "Butch and Sundance" (and repeated one way or another in several subsequent movies).
Despite its languid pace and although just under two hours long, "Jeremiah Johnson" formally takes an epic approach, complete with overture, entr'acte and narrator (uncredited, but I'm told Redford's "Brubaker"-costar Tim McIntire), whose subtle voiceovers and brief songs provide key narrative bridges. While the latter match the movie's overall style and the overture at least corresponds with Johnson's mythical stature - albeit also setting up ultimately unfulfilled expectations of a dramatic finale - adding an entr'acte may have been a bit much, particularly in the middle of the ride through the Crow burial ground (incidentally a screenplay addition designed to give the Indians a reason to punish Johnson and not make them appear as mindless killers). In my view this breaks the dramatic tension rather than enhancing it; problematic insofar as virtually all that remains thereafter is Johnson's gradual withdrawal into the mountains and fights with the Crow. But no matter. This is a terrific movie, featuring great banter with Johnson's fellow hunters as well as some wonderfully delicate scenes with Swan, showcasing some of North America's most dramatically beautiful scenery, and growing on you more and more the more often you watch it.
And some say he's up there still ...
"The way that you wander is the way that you choose. The day that you tarry is the day that you lose. Sunshine or thunder, a man will always wonder where the fair wind blows ..."
(Lyrics, Jeremiah Johnson's theme.)
Rating:
Summary: Jeremiah Johnson: a note on the theater
Review: Just a note about this wonderful movie. I saw it when it first came out. JEREMIAH JOHNSON the title page screamed, "with Robert Redford" next in small fonts. A few years later I was back at the theater to watch it again. ROBERT REDFORD the title page screamed, "in Jeremiah Johnson" next in small fonts. This movie (and a few others) had introduced Robert Redford to the world.
This movie should be appreciated by every movie lover. Among other things, it demonstrates how words, if chosen carefully, can be memorable in their sparseness.
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