Jeremiah Johnson (1972, PG)

Essentially, Jeremiah Johnson is not a good movie. It's not a good movie, because it's a great movie! Robert Redford gives one of his most mature and accomplished performances of his career. Director Sydney Pollack gives a nice turn in as the director. And we are given several splendid cinematography shots of the Rockies in Utah.

Filmed entirely in the state of Utah, Jeremiah Johnson recounts the legend of the titular mountain man, from the beginning of his life as a mountain man, to where he becomes a legend, feared by both the whites and the natives.

Jeremiah Johnson is a great cinematic expierence, because it focuses so much on what one man is going through. Johnson, played by Redford, winds up winning the daughter of the chief of the Flathead tribe, and adopts a boy who's family has been murdered by the Blackfeet. Johnson raises his family, builds a cabin, and life in the mountains goes good. Then a US Army contingent arrives, looking for Johnson to be a guide for them in finding lost families threatened by Indian attacks. Johnson reluctantly goes with them, and then returns to find his family murdered by the Crow tribe. The remainder of the movie becomes a dark morality tale of vengeance, Johnson going on a rampage against the Crow.

At this point in the film, we can look back. Johnson's first Rocky Mountain winter nearly kills him; he survives only by the help of a fellow mountain man (Will Geer) who's obsessed with hunting and killing Grizzlies. Gradually, as the story progresses, Johnson has matured from an inexpierenced mountain man, into a nearly heartless, vengeful, and ruthless man, who defies the odds by surviving nature and constant attacks from the Crow.

In many ways, Jeremiah Johnson serves quite well as a western. And it's without a doubt one of the more accomplished westerns of the 60s-70s era. The cinematrography is excellent; there is some dialogue, not much, but the dialogue there is well spoken; the acting is pretty darn good, especially by Redford; the direction by Pollack is good though not overlly impressive.

The film ends on a blank note, and one that leaves you hanging. We don't know what happens to Johnson in the end; we don't know his fate. The last shot of the film is Johnson waving towards a warrior from the Crow tribe, signalling peace between Johnson and the Crow, as yet another Rocky Mountain winter storm starts to stirrup.

Jeremiah Johnson is a near-excellent movie. It serves as a western, a survival story, but also as an engaging, personal story about one man; in this case: Johnson.

I would recommend this pic to anybody. I can understand why some people won't find this to be among their more favorite movies. For avid movie goers, it's a film definitely well-worth seeing. In fact, Jeremiah Johnson remains today, for me at least, one of the more defying movie expierences.

                                                 **** ½/5