Jeremiah Johnson

On one hand, Jeremiah Johnson showcases breathtaking, wild landscapes that are almost impossible to capture in words—or even on film. Yet, somehow, Sydney Pollack pulls it off. On the other hand, you’ve got a hunter living out his life in this rugged wilderness, telling a compelling, if slightly lacking, story. Still, films like this are a joy to watch. I often catch myself thinking I’d love to live that kind of quiet, solitary life—just surviving day by day. It looks peaceful, but the reality would be much tougher. (09.11.2010)

Jeremiah Johnson is not just a film about one of the American myths, it's a film about how modern myths and legends are created, that they usually have a real basis, which may be more interesting than what popular culture makes of it in the end. We follow the character of a lonely man who, without experience but with great determination, sets off in the mid-19th century to the still-wild American West and gradually becomes a tough and experienced woodsman, one of the pioneers of white civilization. At the same time, he becomes a hero and the main character of storytelling around campfires. Today, we can see in Johnson a prototype of a real man, and such men no longer exist today because there is not enough wilderness, solitude, and the determination to endure hunger, cold, and the absence of modern medicine. The film also interestingly describes the relationship between the white hunter and the original Native American inhabitants. For decades, American westerns portrayed the image of cruel savages who defended the progress of modern civilization and threatened Christian settlers in the most vile way. Since the 70s, this image has gradually been replaced by a sense of multicultural shame, which instead depicts Native Americans as victims of the ruthlessness and greed of the expanding white civilization. In Pollack's film, these ideological views are suppressed, and the director simply depicts them as a logical conflict between two different civilizations, neither of which represents evil or good according to today's value ranking. Both sides simply tried to defend their interests and act according to their traditions and experiences. Logically, the one that was more adaptable, dynamic, and technologically advanced prevailed. Pollack directed his film as a slowly flowing ballad, highlighting the beauty of the American mountains and paying tribute to masculine friendship, when the meeting of two hunters in the wilderness makes do without exaggerated emotions and only with the briefest of speeches which, however, convey great mutual respect. Redford played his trapper with his usual professionalism, and the director appropriately took advantage of his likable appearance. I don't know if Pollock's view accurately reflects the reality of the Rocky Mountains at that time, but at the very least, the wild West could have been like that. Overall impression: 90%. (05.08.2011)

Wilderness, bears, a hirsute Robert Redford with the nod that became a famous meme, Indians and scalps. Jeremiah Johnson is not as adventure packed as it pretends to be and most of it never goes beyond the characteristics of classic filmmaking, but it’s still a very pleasant and at times very appealing spectacle with a story that is a lot more refined and smart that many wannabe artsy competitors. And even if it lacked Pollack’s ballad subtlety, the charisma of Redford, the amazing natural scenery and the good secondary characters could easily carry the film on their shoulders. 80% (11.02.2020)

For my taste, this is too talkative for this type of movie, but when Redford doesn’t happen to be promenading through the wilderness in his stripy red bath robe or if the filmmakers aren’t throwing stuffed wolves at him (in the light of which, even Lugosi’s battle with the octopus looks real), all we are left with is a melancholy trappers (non)western about the impossibility of escaping one’s fate. The nice thing is that Pollack didn’t let himself be tempted by the audience-pleasing, legend-inspiring part of Johnson’s life and so the part about revenge takes up barely the final half hour and the ninety minutes before that focuses purely on his escape from civilization in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in all types of foul weather. And it’s all the better for being so unusual. (14.04.2014)

A balladic hippie western whose reworking of the traditional mythology makes it reminiscent of other revisionist films of the 1970s (Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, Little Big Man, McCabe and Mrs. Miller). Pollack removed from the journey of Redford’s white liberal genre elements in the form of heroic deeds, well-arranged shootouts and rolling prairies. He kept the journey motif itself, though more in the spiritual sense rather than geographical. Rather unencumbered by drama, the film doesn’t move forward, as it rather brings to mind an (un)closed circle. Co-written by John Milius on the basis of multiple sources (could that be the reason for the barbaric wildness of the action scenes?), the screenplay does not depict the Indians as savages, but as an ethnic minority that offers the protagonist some important life lessons on his journey. What is truly important is man and his being at peace with nature, not the petty wars over land that take place on the fringes of the protagonist’s interest. The film’s pervasive non-confrontational nature is at odds with the wilderness in which the story was set. I personally found that the film lacked rawness and authenticity, and its lyricism is significantly more restrained than in, for example, the films of Terrence Malick, which seem to have grown right out of the ground. However, Jeremiah Johnson is still a welcome refreshing film after thirty years of John Wayne-style massacring of Indians. 75% (01.08.2011)