The Jeremiah Johnsons

In the movie Jeremiah Johnson, there is a scene at the end where the main character, conveniently named Jeremiah Johnson, is visited by an old trapper friend who helped Johnson in his early days as a mountain man. The old trapper says to him, “You’ve come far, pilgrim.” Johnson replies, “Feels like far.” The old mountain man then says, “T’were it worth the trouble?” Johnson replies, “Ha? What trouble.”

It is a great scene in an underrated movie. The point of the scene is to highlight the fact that Johnson came into the wilderness looking for a different life and wound up becoming an entirely different man. Johnson thought he could still be Johnson but living in the wilderness. Instead, he was transformed by the wilderness. The question the movie leaves unanswered is whether the experience was worth it.