Can you imagine a French (or any European) “Jeremiah Johnson”? Maybe you know of a movie?
I’m sure this isn’t just an American thing… but nature doesn’t seem to be stressed as much as American movies, where it’s sometimes central to the movie, or at least constantly there, in the background of discussions between characters. Bergman was interested in Faro Island, but I can’t think of any movies.
There’s the French film La guerre du feu (Quest for Fire), but I think that’s not exactly what you’re looking for.
I mean, I have no way of providing a relative count of movies, but the first one that popped into my head was Aguirre, the Wrath of God, a German movie that positively wallows in the steaminess of the Amazon.
But maybe you could be more specific about the role that nature plays? I’m not sure if that fits.
Jean de Florette was the first film I thought of, but that was farmland not wilderness.
This must qualify, it was certainly the first I thought of.
Nature: Fuck your feelings.
-Herzog
Pre-WWII, there used to be a whole genre in the German speaking world of “Bergfilme”, “mountain films”, that played in the Alps and mostly were about climbing and skiing. Luis Trenker from South-Tyrol was its big star, and Leni Riefenstahl got her start in the business acting in mountain movies.
But generally, the OP has a point, and my theory is that because Europe is so densely populated, there are fewer wide and open landscapes like in the US that can play a role in movies, like the plains in US westerns.
Thought of another one: in Roberto Rossellini’s “Stromboli”, the island and volcano play the major role.
Would the Clint Eastwood “spaghetti westerns” count?
I remember my mom finding out that Sherwood Forest of Robin Hood fame was only about 19000 acres at its largest, and being offended. That’s only about 5.5 miles on a side. “How could they not find Robin Hood in that tiny little place?!?”
She was thinking in terms of Canadian forests, which cover half the damn country.
This is a semi-ninja’ing of what I was about to post-- Europe has been civilized for hundreds and hundreds of years, and there are really no great forests of Europe. Not in the same sense as the vast trackless wilderness of North America which created romantic, adventurous notions of the ‘wild frontier’ and ‘manifest destiny’.
At the actual time period of a movie like Jeremiah Johnson which was referenced in the OP, the wilderness was seen as a thing to be tamed and exploited for monetary gain. By the time of the movie Jeremiah Johnson, the notion of the vast wilderness had become romanticized in a way that it hadn’t been at the time. I’ve long had a fascination with the way Western TV shows and movies show romanticized, highly fictional notions of the old west or the ‘wild frontier’ through the respective prisms of 1950s, 60s and 70s sensibilities.
Also the “potato westerns”, the German movies after Karl May novels that played in the American West, but were actually filmed in Croatia. The landscapes always played big roles in these movies.
“Walkabout” and “Fitzcarroldo”?
I can think of one or two British movies about people in their relationships with wildlife, but in a rather domesticated way:
Perhaps also A Lion Called Christian
Don’t forget Born Free. The characters were Kenyan, but the actors and the film were British.
How about Local Hero? I have no idea how well known it is in the US, but the beach and the sea are central to the movie.
j
The first film to come to mind is Jean-Jacques Annaud’s The Bear (1988)
One of my favorite movies. And what a soundtrack!
“Nature” and “vast wilderness” aren’t synonyms, something like The Big Blue very clearly has a Nature backdrop. Also, lots of films (not just Bergman) set on islands or the coast.
I haven’t seen it in years, and mentioned cold weather struggles, having to make a fire, and that kind of struggle (along with the usual), but the water is definitely central to this movie with a very eerie atmosphere. I think I’ll try to remember to give this a second viewing. I think I gave it a 7/10
Does an American film made in Europe count? The Way was filmed in France and Spain and while “nature” is not the focus of the film, scenery and weather play a big part in it as the characters are outside most of the time.