Plot summary

This tale of isolation in the great rocky mountains, perhaps reflects America's mood as the Vietnam war was coming to a close as much as anything else. Johnson, seemingly war weary, yet with a sense of respect for indigenous cultures as if one informs the other. The only thing he seems to want is to share utopia with those who were there before him and perhaps leave his implied past behind. But even in the vacuum of an isolated life, Jeremiah Johnson seems doomed by threads to culture he cannot completely escape. As with "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," one can't help but feel that along with Indians and animals with which he shares the land, "A brave new world" will soon rush in and overrun them all.—TR