Jeremiah Johnson

In the form of a ballad, Sydney Pollack takes us back to a time when the West was a wild frontier, and the Native American was seen as something between a noble savage and a hunted beast. The film tells the story of a mythic Western figure, divided into three chapters: in the first, Jeremiah, the novice, learns the rules of life and the harsh conditions of a lone mountain trapper. In the second, he is a content man — a complex figure whose life fulfills every hope, a man at peace with himself, who has found a way to balance the demands of wilderness living with a tender love for his family. In the third, Jeremiah becomes a ruthless avenger, his name spoken with a mix of admiration and fear.