Jeremiah Johnson is a 1972 American Western film directed by Sydney Pollack and starring Robert Redford as the title character and Will Geer as "Bear Claw" Chris Lapp.
The script was written by John Milius and Edward Anhalt; the film was shot at various locations in Redford's adopted home state of Utah.
After a brush with Crows, including Lapp's acquaintance Paints-His-Shirt-Red, and learning the skills required to survive, Johnson sets off on his own.
He and the boy, whom Johnson dubs "Caleb", come across Del Gue, a mountain man who has been robbed by the Blackfeet and buried by them up to his neck in sand.
This idyllic life is interrupted by the arrival of a U.S. Army cavalry rescue party tasked with saving a stranded wagon train of settlers.
During the journey, Lieutenant Mulvey orders the party to proceed directly through a sacred Crow burial ground against Johnson's advice.
He meets Gue again and returns to the cabin of Caleb's mother, only to find that she has died and a new settler named Qualen and his family are living there.
It is at this poignant meeting between student and teacher that Lapp realizes the heavy toll that fighting an entire nation alone in a vast and lonesome frontier has taken on Johnson.
In April 1968, producer Sidney Beckerman acquired the film rights to the biographical book Crow Killer: The Saga of Liver-Eating Johnson by Raymond W. Thorp Jr. and Robert Bunker.
[7] The role of Jeremiah Johnson was originally intended for Lee Marvin and then Clint Eastwood, with Sam Peckinpah to direct.
After auditioning for another role, actress Delle Bolton was spotted by the casting director, followed up by her participation in the UCLA School of Theatre Arts Hugh O'Brian Awards competition.
"It was a film where you used to watch dailies and everybody would fall asleep, except Bob and I, because all you had were these big shots of a guy walking his horse through the snow.
Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gave it a "Fresh" rating of 91% based on reviews from 23 critics, with an average score of 7.1/10 and the site's consensus stating: "Jeremiah Johnson's deliberate pace demands an investment from the viewer, but it's rewarded with a thoughtful drama anchored by a starring performance from Robert Redford.
[27] The New York Times film critic Roger Greenspun noted in his 1972 review, "That it does not succeed entirely is perhaps less the fault of the actor or of the conception than of a screenplay that tends to be ponderous about its imponderables and that every so often sounds as if it might have been written by the authors of the Bible ...
"[2] A report in Variety from Cannes stated: "The film has its own force and beauty and the only carp might lie in its not always clear exegesis of the humanistic spirit and freedom most of its characters are striving for.
It is not a new-type Western, with its demystifications, dirt and underlining of the brutishness of the times, as well as its heroic aspects, but it does show a deeper insight into the Indian–white relations and benefits from superb direction, excellent lensing and sharp editing.
"[28] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film 3 stars out of 4 and wrote, "Oddly enough, it is the violent scenes, the ones that don't work within the story, in which Pollack excels.
Making fire with flint and steel looks the miserably frustrating job it is; hunting and fishing look as exasperating as they are; snow looks as cold as it is and hands have the numbed and purpled look it gives them.
"[30] Gary Arnold of The Washington Post dismissed the film as "rather ponderous" as it "just sort of moseys along, in an academically efficient way, without ever generating enough emotion or accumulating enough personal history.
"[31] Tom Milne of The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote, "Good as it is, with fine performances and superb camerawork by Andrew Callaghan, Jeremiah Johnson still disappoints because it aims lower than it might have and does some sleight-of-hand to conceal the fact.