One of My Favorite Movies

In 1972, director Sydney Pollack teamed up with actor Robert Redford to make Jeremiah Johnson. It's a remarkable film in many respects. While the movie is very deep, with a rich plot zig-zagging with complications and character development, there is very little dialogue. Pollack's eye and Redford's talent combine to tell most of the story silently, if not always peacefully. Shot entirely in Utah, Jeremiah Johnson helps me understand why a Hollywood elitist like Redford would buy up thousands of acres and live on the outskirts of civilization. The natural beauty of the place is beyond description. Adjectives like "majestic," awesome," and even "spiritual" come to mind, but they only scratch at the surface and hint at the essence. It's also a heartbreaking and inspirational story. It starts off with a brief (and perfect) narrative intro. It's done as a voice over, following Johnson as he arrives at a town that is more of a camp:

His name was Jeremiah Johnson, and they say he wanted to be a mountain man. The story goes that he was a man of proper wit and adventurous spirit, suited to the mountains. Nobody knows whereabouts he come from and don't seem to matter much. He was a young man and ghostly stories about the tall hills didn't scare him none. He was looking for a Hawken gun, .50 caliber or better. He settled for a .30, but damn, it was a genuine Hawken, and you couldn't go no better. Bought him a good horse, and traps, and other truck that went with being a mountain man, and said good-bye to whatever life was down there below.

It then follows him as he heads into the Rocky Mountains as a disenchanted fool, the kind who needs to learn that the rest of the world, especially mother nature, could give a damn that he's pissed off or depressed.

He begrudges civilization and assumes that he'll find what he's looking for in the solitude of the mountains. He does so almost arrogantly, and quickly finds that nature is apathetic, and sometimes downright hostile. His struggle to survive early on in the film makes me recall Stephen Crane's short poem (which is really not much more than a musing):

A man said to the Universe,
"Sir, I exist!"
"However," replied the Universe,
"The fact has not created in me
"A sense of obligation."

However, with a healthy dose of determination and some good luck, Johnson manages through his first winter.

I don't want to spoil the film for you, so I'll sum up the rest quickly.

Johnson, who came into the mountains "Bettin' on forgettin' all the trouble that he knew,"* to be alone, ends up finding much more than solitude, only to lose it, and then avenge it.

In many respects, the movie is as vicious as it is beautiful (though not visually), and that is part of it's allure. It's humanity in a nutshell. All that a man can do, good and bad. All that nature is, good and bad. Life and death, love and hate, joy and pain.

Ultimately, the film is triumphant, not just in its protagonist, but in its message and overall quality.

Rent it this Friday night.

*From the ballad that runs throughout the movie.