Jeremiah Johnson

Jeremiah Johnson is quite possibly the best movie ever made. It just portrays such a gnarly character loosely based off of an even bigger bad ass. The real Jeremiah Johnson was terrifying. Homeboy ate the livers of the people he killed and wrestled bears. The Sydney Pollack film though, shows a lighter side of the mountain man who basically hated everyone, and wanted to live on his own in the mountains. Sound familiar? Into the Wild was a recently released movie about the same idea, but Emile Hirsch’s character in that film has nothing on Jeremiah.


The films starts out with one of the most awkward things you can sit down and watch in a movie, an overture. My suggestion for this part is to eat lots of steak, blast your own music (preferably metal), and drink heavily. By that point, you’re ready for the first scene of Jeremiah Johnson. The films starts showing a clean cut Robert Redford heading out into the wilderness. As the film progresses, it shows Jeremiah go from shooting fish in a stream to killing bears at close range.


He also takes shit to an all new level of brutal stumbling upon another mountain man frozen to death, and takes his gun. There are so many other awesome things this guy does, but you need to see it for yourself. The film builds up to the legend of this character that ate the livers of the people that crossed him, gambled, partied hard, and fucking kicked! Jeremiah Johnson was the only mountain man that would lay kicks down in a fight. The film is a tenderer look at this historical mountain man, but does a better job at portraying fighting for survival in the wilderness than any movie ever filmed.


If you want to see bad ass in its purest form, see this film. It is long, but pay attention, and don't fuck this up! By the end of the movie, you will have probably grown fifty thousand beard hairs. When my kids hit puberty, I am not telling them shit about the birds and the bees. I am just going to have them watch Jeremiah Johnson.

-paw