Film Fan: Jeremiah Johnson (5 Stars)

Saturday, 20 September 2025

Jeremiah Johnson (5 Stars)

Robert Redford died earlier this week, but today is my first chance to watch a film in his honour. I was busy with the Stuttgart Fantasy Film Festival and various other things. I even went on a wine-tasting trip to Weingut Weihbrecht the day after the festival. It was an interesting experience. It's a small vineyard, only seven hectares (17 acres), which is probably the smallest a vineyard can be to remain profitable. They harvest the usual Württemberg grapes (Trollinger, Lemberger, Schwarzriesling), but they're increasing the production of Mucaris, a new grape variety that was created in 1987. It's a very sweet wine. Normally I don't drink sweet wines, but the taste fascinated me, and I bought a few bottles to take home with me.

But let's get back to Robert Redford. He's truly a great man of cinema. Unfortunately, "Jeremiah Johnson" is the only film I have in which he plays the main role. He also appears in some of the recent Marvel films. I rewatched "Jeremiah Johnson" today, and I'll probably look for some of his other films over the next few weeks.

I already knew that the film is based on a real life character, but it wasn't until today that I learnt that he was a famous hero of America's Wild West. The last mountain cabin he lived in was moved to the tourist information centre in Montana, where he can be remembered forever. He was given an honourable grave in a small cemetery, admittedly far from civilisation, but it's a celebration of his life.

His grave might look overgrown and uncultivated, but it's deliberate. It's a picture of the rough life he had living alone in the mountains.

The events in the film aren't given a date, but after checking Jeremiah's life story, the majority of the film takes place from 1846 to 1847. He was disillusioned in the Mexican-American War and deserted. He wanted to get away and live by himself, so he moved into the mountains of Montana. It didn't turn out quite as he planned. He adopted a mute boy called Caleb, and he married an Indian that he was given as a gift by a tribal chief.

This is his wife Swan, played by Delle Bolton. Strangely, this was her only film role.

This was Jeremiah's family. It was a quiet affair. Swan couldn't speak any English, and Caleb couldn't speak at all.

The family life didn't last long. Swan and Caleb were murdered by Crow Indians, and Jeremiah spent years wreaking vengeance on them. He supposedly killed over 300 Indians single-handedly in the next few years. This is only shown briefly at the end of the film. Evidently, the director wanted to concentrate on the positive aspects of his personality in his early life. It's difficult for me to see him as a hero, because he must have been a terrifying man.