Corvo Rosso non avrai il mio scalpo!

Sydney Pollack's return to the western four years after THE SCALPHUNTERS was to be a completely different experience. Following the trials and tribulations of a deserter of the Mexican War who disappears in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado to become a mountain man, JEREMIAH JOHNSON eschews the conventions of the western as a genre in such a way as was only made possible for American cinema in the tumultuous era of early 70's with such visceral movies of frontier survival as MAN IN THE WILDERNESS and A MAN CALLED HORSE paving the way.

As Jeremiah Johnson (Robert Redford) wanders the mountains like a fugitive stricken by disaster, a solitary figure against awe-inspiring backdrops of massive rock formations, steep ravines and expansive mesas, you can tangibly feel the film, like the hero, transcending the specific time and place and breaching out vision to become an all-encompassing spiritual journey where the individual characters - fur trappers, bear hunters or Indians - are merely the unwitting parners in a dance of death.

Some viewers may be put off by the lack of straight-forward plot, the episodic, repetitive nature of the movie or the long stretches of silence, but it's from those exact things the movie takes its power. JJ comes unto its own in those small moments of quietude, in Johnson's silent encounters with indians, in the barren, unforgiving wastes of the craggy mountains that reflect so well the psychology of characters wandering in their shadow, in the subtle, heartwarming interactions Johnson has with the Indian woman he's taken for a wife and the mute boy he's taken for a son. There's hardly a word uttered between this peculiar family the entire movie but the ways they learn to overcome the barriers that separate them is a touching sight to behold.

There is some dated montage, a corny soundtrack; how much of this will affect your enjoyment will boil down to your affinity with how cinema was in the 70's. Still, what is left is this beautiful parable of broken humans learning to be whole again. Equal parts visceral, savage and heartwarming.

Text: This story is about mankind. When you look out over the rivers, the hills, and the far horizon with a profound sense of your own littleness in the vast scheme of things, and yet have faith, hope, and courage - which is the root of every virtue. When you know that down in your heart every person is as noble, as vile, as divine, as diabolic, and as lonely as their own self, and seeks to know, to forgive, and to love your fellow humans.

When you know how to sympathize with people in their sorrows, yea, even in their sins - knowing that each person fights a hard fight against many odds. When you have learned how to make friends and to keep them, and above all how to keep friends with yourself. When you love flowers, can hunt the birds without a gun, and feel the thrill of an old forgotten joy, when you hear the laugh of a little child.

When you can be happy and high-minded amid the meaner drudgeries of life. When star-crowned trees, and the glint of sunlight on flowing waters, subdue you like the thought of one much loved and long dead; when no voice of distress reaches your ears in vain, and no hand seeks your aid without response.

When you find good in every faith that helps any man to lay hold of divine things and sees majestic meanings in life, whatever the name of that faith may be. When you look into a wayside puddle and see something beyond mud, and into the face of the most forlorn mortal and see something beyond sin.

When you know how to pray, how to love, how hope. When you have kept faith with yourself, with your fellow man, with your God; in your hand a sword for evil, in your heart a bit of a song - glad to live, but not afraid to die! Such a person has found the only real secret of life, and the one filmmakers continue to try to give to all the world.

Thank you kindly. I remember from allegories, conferrals, and degrees of work among actors, crews, and more importantly, writers!

Summary: What you do for yourself alone will die with you, what you do for others and the world will remain and be immortal. When warranted because of quality of story and significance of filmmakers and actors, I recall memories of beautiful stories portrayed on stage with trusted people to my side helping everyone equally as best they could. Jeremiah Johnson is a stand out film in my opinion only expressed here hopefully among trusted film lovers. Needed now more than ever before. 1 / 6 / 2021. *I am still alive after Covid-ruptured gallbladder 08-18-2022. SMIB.

Jeremiah Johnson is directed by Sydney Pollack and is inspired by two books, Raymond Thorp and Robert Bunker's Crow Killer: The Saga of Liver-Eating Johnson and Vardis Fisher's Mountain Man. Script was written by John Millius and Edward Anhalt and cinematography is by Duke Callaghan. It stars Robert Redford, Will Geer, Stefan Gierasch, Delle Bolton and Josh Albee.

Hardened after the war with Mexico, and fed up with everyday life, American Jeremiah Johnson (Redford) leaves civilisation behind to live life as a mountain man. He intends to be self-sufficient as a trapper, but he finds that mother nature can be tough, and out here in the mountain wilderness he is not alone. There are others here, and Jeremiah must face many challenges if he is to truly survive.

Filmed entirely on location in the vast wilderness beauty of Utah, Jeremiah Johnson is light on plot but all the better for it. Film basically constitutes Redford's mountain man learning to survive up in them thar mountains, and, earning the right to do so. A number of issues will arise to test his metal, giving him a number of hardships and adventures to define his transformation from average Joe to a fully fledged mythical man of the Earth. Redford is wonderfully at ease in the title role, and very quickly he gets the audience on side to share in his journey. But ultimately it's the landscapes that you take away from this movie. Not only gorgeous, but also the critical character that frames Johnson during his isolation and battle for survival. 8/10

Jeremiah Johnson is a starkly simple story well told. It is the journey of a man who seeks to re-make himself. Johnson becomes disillusioned, like Thoreau and even Ulysses S. Grant, by the Mexican War and deserts to become a mountain man. There he finds the Rockies starkly beautiful and completely without mercy for him or anyone else. Will Geer plays the older trapper who teaches the 'Pilgrim,' a very solid performance by Redford, how to survive. The film's treatments of Whites and Native Americans is profoundly even handed, and Milious's fingerprints are noteworthy in the robust and calculated course of the narrative.

This extraordinary Western results to be a slice of life about a hermit man and a hostile environment .The picture narrates the odyssey of an adventurer that one time dreary of civilization goes to Rocky Mountains becoming into mountain man , a young who is part of the wildlife of the landscape.He early develops his senses from his first feeble and failed attempts at survival to an expert hunter who shoots efficiently his preys and turning into an exciting new myth , the great Jeremiah Johnson . When he trespasses holy land is continuously pursued by Indians and vice versa, because he seeks vengeance , going on a relentless chase. Meanwhile the Indians attack his farm. Crow Indians set out to track down the mountain man on savage raids until an inconclusive final .

Solid western with interesting events , violent fights , emotions , thrills and spectacular outdoors . From the initiation until the final are proceeded continuous battles against nature and a survival fighting versus wintry wilderness , enemy trappers and savage Indians, among others . The story is a crossover of various films, the battle against nature of ¨Man of a wilderness land¨ and Indians as ¨ Man called horse ¨ and the obstinacy and stubbornness of relentless enemies who fight with no rest such as ¨The duelists¨. The magnificent cast is starred by an excellent Robert Redford , a simple man who has no taste for cities and becomes a tough and two fisted mountain man obsessed a bloody revenge . Supporting cast is featured by various actors in brief performances as Jack Colvin , Matt Clark , Charles Tyner and special mention to Will Geer as feisty old trapper . Splendid cinematography in Panavision and glimmer Technicolor by Duke Callagham as is reflected on spectacular outdoors filmed in sighting, rousing natural parks from Rocky Mountains. Lively and evocative musical score by usual secondary actor John Rubinstein and beautiful songs by also actor Tim McIntire . The motion picture is stunningly directed by the recently deceased Sidney Pollack (Yazuka, Three days of the condor, Way we were, Out of Africa). Rating : Better than average . This outstanding film will appeal to Robert Redford fans and landscape lovers .