I'll never forget the scene in Jeremiah Johnson where Robert Redford is in front of a lonely campfire deep in the Rocky Mountains. Snow is knee deep, and Redford is bearded, scarred up, and quiet. He's been fighting Crow for years, and the battles are taking their toll.In the distance, an old man rides up. We watch him from a long way off, trudging through the snow. When he gets to Johnson's fire, we recognize him as Bear Claw, the old man who helped train Johnson in ways of the Mountain Man.
During their brief, slow conversation, Johnson looks at Bear Claw and asks, "Would you have any idea what month of the year it is?"
I always loved that scene, and Jeremiah Johnson is one of my favorite movies. Sydney Pollack directed it, and it was one of his best.
Over Pollack's career, he had a lot of successful pictures as a director and producer. He also helped make Oscar nominees out of a ton of actors (though Harrison Ford is rumored to have never wanted to work with the man again, after the strange debacle that was Random Hearts).
Pollack's lifelong friend Robert Redford appeared in seven of his films, almost all of them good ones. Three Days of the Condor and Jeremiah Johnson are my top two Redford/Pollack flicks; Out of Africa comes in last, though the ladies and the Academy liked it.
He was acting in more films and television lately, and I thought that he'd be around for a lot longer. He was quite a good actor, and his turn in Michael Clayton led me to believe that he might start taking bigger roles. This was wishful thinking on my part, as Pollack had been sick with cancer a while before his death.
If you're interested in looking at some of Pollack's stuff, here's my picks for this weekend: Jeremiah Johnson, Absence of Malice, They Shoot Horses Don't They, and Tootsie. If you're more the tear-jerker type, scratch out Malice and re-run The Way We Were instead.
Whatever you decide, watch Tootsie last, and let Pollack leave you with a few laughs.
Photo: Hollywood Film Festival
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