Some folks say, he’s up there still…

As a kid I had a habit of checking out the magazine and book section of Magic Mart, which is where I most likely bought a book called, “Mountain Man” by Vardis Fisher.  The book was filled with action, love, and the joy of living in the wilderness and free, just the way a man should live: all the things that appealed to my young mind.

And then the movie came to the theater.

——————————————

I must have been fourteen or fifteen when Robert Redford slogged through deep snow to stride onto the screen at the old Liberty Theater in Malden, Missouri.  He carried a “genuine Hawken” and “traps and other truck…” as he strode into our imaginations.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been fifty years since Sidney Pollock and Robert Redford got together to produce one of the most popular “guy movies” of all time, “Jeremiah Johnson.”

Johnson was a war veteran.  I didn’t get it from the movie itself but people who know better than I, tell me the main character of the movie had fought in the Mexican War.

A lot of men who have been through something as traumatic as war find themselves in need of…something.  They go off saying they are searching for adventure, but what they are really looking for is purpose, and understanding, and well…themselves.

——————————————

So a young man named Jeremiah Johnson steps off a flatboat heading downriver.  “He was a man of proper wit and adventurous spirit, suited to the mountains.”

“He was looking for a Hawken gun, .50 caliber or better.  He settled for a .30 but, d—n it was a genuine Hawken.  He couldn’t go no better.  He bought him a good horse and traps and other truck that went with being a mountain man and said goodbye to whatever life was down there below.”

It was an exciting time to be a young man.  You could head out west and carve a life out of the wilderness…that is, if you weren’t afraid.

Johnson asks a storekeep, “Just where is it I can find bear and beaver and other critters worth cash money when skinned.”

The man responds, “Ride due west as the sun sets.  Turn left at the Rocky Mountains.”

The directions smack of a land wide-open for a man to grab life by the…uh, throat…and Johnson does just that.

——————————————

One of the wondrous things about being a young man is the ability to venture into the unknown in total ignorance…and survive.  As we see in the movie, Johnson knows next to nothing about trapping or living in the wilderness for that matter.  As so many young men are, he’s too dumb to know how much he does not know.  He ventures forth, smooth-faced and inexperienced, only to be smacked in the face by his own ignorance.  He snuggles under a protective evergreen in a snowstorm and begins to build a fire.  He strikes steel to flint as disappointment follows failure until he manages to get one spark to catch.  He bends to breathe life gently into it.  The spark becomes a tendril of flame and, just as Johnson begins to regain confidence, a dollop of snow falls from a bough to smother it.

At one point Johnson finds the frozen body of mountain man Hatchet Jack, whose hand-written note leaves his own .50 caliber Hawken to whoever finds his body.  Jack points out that it is a good gun and “kilt the bear that kilt me.”

Johnson now has his .50 caliber Hawken.

——————————————

Another time, a bear-like figure approaches him through the trees.  It is a grizzled old mountain man.  Surprised and relieved, Johnson says, “I ain’t seen a live man in two months.”

The man replies, “I am Bear Claw Chris Lapp!  Blood kin to the grizzer that bit Jim Bridger’s a–!  YOU are molestin’ my hunt!”

Bear Claw (Will Gere) is probably my favorite character in the movie.  His coarse wit and sharp tongue are only equaled by his well hidden soft heart.

When Johnson tries to introduce himself the old man cuts him off with, “I know who you are!  You’re the same pilgrim I’ve been hearin’ for twenty days and smellin’ for three!  Why ain’t you been scalped?!”

Bear Claw decides he likes Johnson and takes on the role of mentor, teaching the younger man how to trap and live in the mountains.  Of course, first he has to try the young man’s mettle.  As the two head toward his cabin, the old man asks, “You know how to skin griz?”

Trying to maintain his appearance of competance, Jeremiah answers, “I can skin most anything.”

Bear Claw stops and turns to face Johnson, “You sure are cocky for a STAR-vin’ pilgrim.”

As Johnson goes into the old man’s cabin to make himself comfortable, Chris Lapp says he has a chore to finish and asks in an oddly lilting tone, “ Uh, boy?  Are you sure that you can skin griz?”

Johnson says he can and goes on in.  He is soon alerted by the sound of the old man’s laughter.  He looks out and sees the old mountain man running through the snow, followed closely by a grizzly bear.

The old man dives in the front window of the cabin and out the back, leaving the bear inside with Johnson.  Bear Claw yells back, “Skin that’n, pilgrim, and I’ll git you another.”

As I said, the old man takes on the job of teaching the younger, and makes good use of the the time-honored men’s method of teaching; expect the student to watch and listen.  As my dad said when I was teaching my own sons, “tell ‘em once, then let ‘em take it in or fall on their face.  Either way they’ll learn.”

Such is the case when Bear Claw is putting down a bed of coals and covering them with dirt.  As he spreads his blankets over the warm earth, he says, “These coals will simmer ‘til sunrise.  You better go do likewise.”

Later the younger man leaps up, flinging off his blankets which are smoking and threatening to burst into flame.  Bear Claw stirs and mumbles, “Didn’t put ‘nuff dirt down.  Saw it right off.”

A hard way to learn, but quite effective, I’d say…from experience.

——————————————

The movie continues with adventure after adventure as Johnson hunts, traps, finds love, while constantly helping others, all against a backdrop of the most beautiful mountain landscape that the Rocky Mountains and the state of Utah can provide.

Johnson finds a woman driven crazy by the death of most of her family at the hands of attacking Indians.  She is crazy but is not so out of her mind that she doesn’t know she is incapable of carrying for her son, the only other survivor of the attack.  The woman gives her son to Johnson to care for.  Like his mother, the boy was affected by the killings, and has been struck mute.

The boy can’t tell his name so Johnson names him Caleb.

Another time, Jeremiah finds a man buried up to his chin in the sand.  Del Gue has been robbed and buried by the Blackfeet.  With his indomitable spirit, Del Gue quips that he is OK, as “I have a fine horse under me!”

Johnson rescues him anyway.  The pair find the Blackfoot war party and decide to reclaim Gue’s stolen property.  Because of Gue’s enthusiasm the two end up fighting and killing the raiding party.

Riding, Del hears a party of Indians and, before Johnson hears them, slips the scalps he took from the Natives they had killed, onto Johnson’s saddle.

Needless to say, Gue is more than a little self-serving and shady.  I guess we all have friends like that.

The Flatheads invite the three back to their village where the chief, Two-Tongues, treats them well.  Johnson gratefully gives the chief the scalps and ponies they took from the Blackfeet.

In his misguided attempt to show gratitude, Johnson has run afoul of Flathead tradition.  Now the chief must either give Johnson a greater gift, or kill him.  Luckily for moviegoers and Jeremiah too, he gives the mountain man his daughter, Swan.

In one of the better touches taken from the book, “Mountain Man,” Johnson is a man of honor and respect, and treats Swan well.  The two form a respect for each other, and fall in love. 

The three build a cabin and Jeremiah, Swan, and Caleb form a happy family.

——————————————

The movie is full of life-lessons shown in an entertaining way.  When Johnson is hunting buffalo he hears his pack animals in distress.  He runs to find a pack of wolves attacking his horses and mules.  The man joins in the fight and the equines and man fend off the attackers. 

Sometimes, the only way a man can take on a problem is to just wade in and think fast.

——————————————

In the process of helping a bull-headed missionary, Johnson runs afoul of the Crow Indians and the movie takes a darker turn.  The hardships provide more opportunity for growth by Johnson as well as some great action sequences for us viewers.

——————————————

Later, as the movie approaches the end, Johnson is cooking a rabbit.  Bear Claw strides out of the forest and joins Jeremiah beside his fire.  The older man says, “You’ve come far, Pilgrim.”

Johnson replies, “It feels like far.”

Lapp asks, “Was it worth the trouble?”

Johnson raises his head and says quietly, “Huh, what trouble?”

As I’ve told my sons, “Life is full of troubles.  The mark of a man is how he deals with them.  Some of the troubles we’ve had would drive others to the brink of insanity.  We chose to treat them with no more importance than they demanded, and at times to just go on living and heal as best we could and time allowed.”

A few moments later, Johnson asks, “Would you happen to know what month of the year it is?”

Lapp thinks a moment and says, “No, I truly wouldn’t.”

Sometimes when you are busy living, little things like days and dates fade in importance.

——————————————

When the old man mounts his horse to leave, he hesitates a moment to say, “You have done well to keep so much hair when so many’s after it.  I hope…you fare well.”

As he rides away, leaving Johnson sitting by the fire, the strains of the song, “Ballad of Jeremiah Johnson,” bring the story to a close.  The soft words, sung by Tim McIntire, say, “The way that you wander is the way that you choose.  The day that you tarry is the day that you lose.  Sunshine or thunder; a man will always wonder where the fair wind blows.  Jeremiah Johnson made his way into the mountains.  He was bettin’ on forgettin’ all the troubles that he knew.”

Whether Johnson was able to forget all the troubles that he knew, one wonders if it was worth all the troubles he experienced in the mountains.

As Johnson told Bear Claw, “Huh, what trouble?”

If he hadn’t risked the troubles, he wouldn’t have known all the excitement, adventure, and love.

The words of the song fade into a native flute before the singer says softly, “Some folks say…that he’s up there still.”

——————————————

Directed by Sydney Pollock, the movie was written using two books, the aforementioned “Mountain Man,” by Vardis Fisher, and “Crow Killer,” by Raymond W. Thorp and Robert Bunker.  The script was written by John Milius and Edward Anhalt.  It is fifty years old now, and every bit as good as it ever was.  I wish I was as untouched by time.

If you haven’t seen “Jeremiah Johnson,” you should.  It offers a lot of entertainment, and even some great life-lessons.

Just sayin’.

——————————————

PLEASE SUBSCRIBE AT THE UPPER RIGHT. IT’S FREE!

You will ONLY receive notifications when I post new entries to my blog.

Go to the top of the right hand column where it says, “SUBSCRIBE TO BLOG VIA EMAIL”.  Fill in your email and hit the “Subscribe” button.  You will receive a verification email.  Please confirm that you want to subscribe by clicking, “Confirm Follow” and you will be set!  Thanks!

It doesn’t seem to work from a cell phone, only a computer.  I don’t know why.  Sorry.  If there’s a problem, send me your email address and I’ll sign you up.

——————————————