I’ve just watched Jeremiah Johnson again. I think the first time I saw it was in the late-'70s. I really liked it at the time. The fishing, skinning the bear, poor Gue up to his neck in trouble… But upon watching it again, 30 years later, and acknowledging the good bits are still there, I now find the style dated. The movie was released in 1972, which some have called 'the last year of the ‘60s’. I find it to be rather introspected. The singing on the soundtrack sounds funny now, much as the synth music in Gallipoli does. I think Jeremiah Johnson is better suited to its time.
Still a worthy Western for the video shelf, though.
This is a film I will ever be unable to view objectively. It was my mom’s favorite movie, and when I was told I’d be showing it in high school–I was the projectionist for our weekly movie nights–I calculated I’d already seen it 12 to 15 times. I saw it four more times that weekend, and probably for or five times more in the intervening years. Likely more.
My family quotes from it constantly. One of the most frequently used quotes is, “Skin that one pilgrim and I’ll gitcha another.” This is appropriate to any situation in which you’re collaborating with someone on a project. Drying dishes, dyeing Easter eggs, wrapping presents, loading luggage–“Skin that one pilgrim and I’ll gitcha another.” You’d be surprised how frequently this quote can pop up in everyday situations.
The other most frequently used quote is, “I *been *to a town.” This is appropriate to any situation wherein someone is trying to get you do something you’ve already done and aren’t too keen on repeating. It’s analogous to “Been there, done that,” only more resonant, if you ask me. Lucy: “I promise, Charlie Brown, this time I won’t move the football when you try to kick it.” Charlie Brown, over his shoulder as he walks off the field: “I *been *to a town.”
I often find myself singing the theme song in the shower, or waiting for a bus. It’s a frequent earworm for me.
So while it’s not in my lifetime top ten, it’s something of a comfort movie, and yes I have a copy of it sitting on my shelf right now.
I’ve always enjoyed this film. It allowed Redford to shed the pretty-boy image, which he did remarkably well. The supporting cast was outstanding, from Will Geer to the Indian warriors, and the storyline still holds up well.
I just saw this again recently, and I thought it held up remarkably well. I was worried it would be one of those movies that I remembered liking a lot but which didn’t live up to its memory. But it did.
The one thing I had forgotten was how deliberately paced the movie is. It’s not boring, but it takes its time about things. There’s a lot of quiet in the movie. I rather like that. It made it more introspective. It also made the bursts of violence more startling and memorable.
I also really liked the fact that it didn’t shy away from depicting the warrior culture, and that Jeremiah respected it even as he fought for his life against them. He understood why they were out to kill him, and didn’t even really blame them for it. Still, it was his job to stay alive, so he accepted the situation and simply fought them to the death. Then when the tables turned and he took the side of the avenging party, they even respected him for it.
I’d lump the middle two together for sure and I can see lumping the outer two together, but I wouldn’t lump all four together. I don’t get the quasi-hippy vibe from the westerns that I do from the other two. I guess LBM is kinda anti-establishment, but more in a deconstructive way ( Custer as a strutting jackass and US cavalry as less than heroic )than the rebel-with-a-flower-power-cause of BJ and BtBatC. JJ doesnt strike me as even that.
I guess I mean they have a similar grain and feel in their inherent cinematography, direction, and story. They are all fairly long movies, representative of the culmination of a movie and lyrical era, 70through72 and were released consecutively in the order that I listed them in.
Well, sure. Or at least you could certainly make that argument for Billy Jack. But honestly my narrow, parochial, traditionalist definition acknowledges no film that is set after WW I as being an unqualified “Western” :). Films like Outland or Lone Star are more like members of specialized subgenres that I sort of lump separately.
But that aside, BtBatC as a gunfighter film? Not really getting that.
Some people categorize movies as Westerns by their props, or setting. I.e., any movie with a lot of dust or cowboy hats in it is a Western.
But for me the soul of the Western, so to speak, is the theme of Western Expansion: the clash of civilization with, in general, the unknown–with its attendant fears and dangers–as civilization expands westward. While many, many movies may have one or another of these components, for me a true Western is a Western in both theme and setting.
So I largely agree with Tamerlane. I can buy Billy Jack as a subspecies of Western–the dust and hats, of course, but also the clash of civilization and, well, hippies–puts it somewhere within the tradition. I have to scratch my head at BtBatC though; I see the dust, but otherwise it’s a coming-of-age story, isn’t it? Thematically closer related to A Separate Peace or Lord of the Flies, no?
But if the idea is to have a group of movies based in the Old West carrying 1960’s counterculture freight, Billy Jack and Bless the Beasts & Children wouldn’t fit. Billy Jack, albeit patterned after Shane, was a sequel to a biker exploitation film, with rednecks instead of bikers this time, and neither movie was set in the Old West.
(You could do the entire Billy Jack saga: Born Losers, Billy Jack, The Trial of Billy Jack, and Billy Jack Goes to Washington. Maybe one of those Hindu yogis who stare into space for years and years could endure it)
For the “Hippes in the Old West” festival, could you substitue McCabe an Mrs Miller and the (awful, awful) Soldier Blue instead?
