Sydney Pollack · 1972 · survival

Sydney Pollack's 1972 film. A soldier walks away from the war and goes up into the Rockies to trap and live alone, and very nearly starves before an old bear hunter teaches him how not to. He acquires a mute boy, a Flathead wife and a cabin - and then leads a cavalry column across a Crow burial ground, which costs him all three.

1. 1
   The Rocky Mountain Front

   Johnson buys a rifle and supplies at a trading post and walks up into the mountains to become a trapper, on the strength of no experience whatever - and spends the first winter learning that the country will kill him if he lets it.

2. 2
   Crow country

   He builds a life he did not plan on - a silent boy, a Flathead wife given him by her father, a cabin and a valley - and then guides an army relief column through a Crow burial ground because he is asked, and cannot refuse.

3. 3
   The Wind River Range

   The Crow come for what he owes them, one at a time, all the way through the high country - and the feud runs for years until a chief raises an open hand to him across a snowfield and the killing simply stops.