When people ask me what my favorite movie of all time is, I always tell them “Jeremiah Johnson.” JJ came out in the 70's when I was in high school and still entertained dreams of doing things that I was probably suited best for, fisherman, farmer, lighthouse keeper, or in the case of Jeremiah, a solitary mountain pilgrim. I've watched it twice recently and was struck by how much I still connect with it. I don't know why I watched it twice.. perhaps it was to review in detail how far I have strayed from my better self... who knows.. The film isn't for everyone. For example, I tried to share my love of this movie with the kids when they were just too young, and it scarred them. The slow pace and lack of constant dialog haunts them still. The mere mention of the title now elicits eye rolls and sighs. My mistake – I should have waited until they were much older. Perhaps they never would have gotten the point at any age.. Oh well. Live and learn. There is so much that I love about "Jeremiah". The settings are all in National Parks and Monuments. Breathtaking. The overarching theme of the movie – that you can't leave your life behind for something 'better' is one that I should well have paid closer attention to during the past 40 years or so. I loved all the main characters, and the dialog, sparse though it is, is quite witty. One of the central threads of the film is the very cool student teacher relationship that develops between the wise mountain man Bear Claw (played with absolute joy by Will Geer) and Jeremiah. Jeremiah meets Bear Claw in the mountains while unintentionally molesting Bear Claw's hunt. Bear Claw essentially rescues Jeremiah from his ignorance and teaches him the ways of the Mountains. Here is one of their very Buddhist conversations: Bear Claw: Didn't like it down there? Jeremiah: Ought to have been different. Bear Claw: ls that so? Many a child journeys this high to be different. To get from here what their natures couldn't get them below. lt comes to nothing. Can't cheat the mountain, pilgrim. The first time I saw this film I was a teenager and completely disillusioned with school and teachers. I got fabulous grades, but thought the whole thing was a game. I carried that opinion of education all the way through college. But this film – this film planted the seed in my mind of another way, a different example of the student teacher relationship. It is something I look for to this day. The movie also had in it the notion of Church as I know it now. There is a scene towards the end where Jeremiah and another mountain man Del Gue part ways. Del Gue goes riding off into the horizon bellowing the praises of the great Rocky Mountains: “These here are God's finest sculpturings and there ain't no laws for the brave ones! And there ain't no asylums for the crazy ones! And there ain't no churches except this right here. And there ain't no priests excepting the birds! l are a mountain man! And l'll live until an arrow or bullet finds me. And then l'll leave my bones on this great map of the magnificent....” |
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