johno-21 Review of Jeremiah Johnson

Jeremiah Johnson (1972)

Redford wanders the west in search of a site for the Sundance Film Festival

[7/10 · 21 March 2006]

I saw this during it's initial theatrical release and several times on television since but it really should be seen on the big screen to the enjoy the cinematography of Duke Callaghan. This is the second of seven films that Robert Redford would star in for director Sidney Lumet which would include This Property Condemed, The Way We Were, Three Days of the Condor, The Electric Horseman, Out of Africa and Havana. John Milius adapted his screenplay principally from the novel Mountain Man by Vardis Fisher and segments of the book Crow Killer by Robert Bunker and Raymond Thorp. Jerimiah Johnson is the fictionalized account of an real life mountain man John Johnston whose life itself was more legend than fact. Johnston was born John Garrison who served in the Navy during the Mexican American War and deserted after striking an officer. He changed his name to John Johnston and worked in the west cutting wood for the riverboats. His wife was an Apsaroke, river Crow who was killed by a raiding war party of mountain Crow warriors. Johnston swore vengeance by dedicating his life to killing Crow warriors and in a symbol of completing the cycle of revenge he would allegedly eat part of their liver thus earning him the name Liver Eating Johnson (the t was dropped as mountain men passed his name around.) He somehow enlisted in the Union Army and late in his life became a deputy sheriff in Colorado and a the first town Marshall of Red Lodge, Montana where he served several terms before dying in Los Angeles at the age of 76. So is a brief outline of the real character but this film only uses part of the story (thankfully, Redford doesn't go around eating human livers) in a mythic western tale of man among the elements turning his back on society. In the cast is Will Geer in support but the rest of the cast are mostly unknown or lesser known character actors including Josh Albee, Delle Bolton, Stefan Gierasett, Allyn Ann McLerie, Charles Tyner and Joaquin Martinez. A good music score accompanies the beautiful scenic imagery in this interesting film that really has no ending. Even with a beard Redford might be too good looking to be an effective mountain man. Parts of this movie were filmed near Park City, Utah where Redford had bought the Timphaven Ski Resort and renamed it Sundance Resort. Soon after he would found his Sundance Film Festival there. I would give this an 7.5 out of 10.