In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter…
Prefaced by the above text, Jon Krakauer’s nonfiction bestseller Into the Wild mythologizes the plight of Chris McCandless, who spent the final two years of his life in exile from every relationship he had theretofore established, and in revocation of even the most basic amenities of comfort. McCandless’ fate is tragic, but his is a tragedy pursuant to an innate necessity for truth and freedom.
Krakauer’s book was given to me the summer after I graduated from high school, and to my mind there is not a more potent text to enchant the impressionable mind of a seventeen-year-old. Reading it for the first time (and multiply since) accompanied a nascent want of individuality, as well as the realization that I, for the first time in my life, was going to be on my own. McCandless’ story made the circumstances more exciting than they were frightening.
Several years later, and thousands of miles removed from my home and family, another aspect of Into the Wild has become increasingly evident to me. During McCandless’ travels, he makes no mention of his family to those he meets, which is symptomatic of a larger, more pressing issue: that his search for freedom is also and more deliberately a flee from a source of great discomfort. This facet of McCandless as a character is contrary to his utility as a mythological exemplar of freedom, because what independence he has achieved is shamed by an incentive to reject common familial notions of comfort.
(That said, there is a crucial detail to Chris’ past I am omitting: prior to his travels, Chris discovers of his father’s previous marriage, which remained undisclosed to Chris. This detail is never confronted between he and his father, and as such evidences my claim that Chris rejects his relationship with his family instead of responsibly attempting to mend it.)
Krakauer opens McCandless’ story by shifting between his hike into an uncompromising Alaskan wilderness (this is the last point at which he was seen by another person) and the aftermath, the period in which his family has been informed that he has died in a place further away from them than most any other in North America. His parents and sister arrive at the site of the bus that would house his last days and return home with Chris’ modest belongings. This establishes a series of dialectics—between tragedy and sacrifice, selflessness and self-absorption, fate and circumstance. Chris McCandless’ death is tragic and yet celebratory by some measure as it magnifies a larger, collective search for truth. But it remains ambiguous as to whether this particular search is noble or selfish. In Krakauer’s words:
In coming to Alaska, McCandless yearned to wander uncharted country, to find a blank spot on the map. […] In 1992, however, there were no more blank spots on the map—not in Alaska, not anywhere. But Chris, with his idiosyncratic logic, came up with an elegant solution to this dilemma: He simply got rid of the map. In his own mind, if nowhere else, the terra would thereby remain incognita.
Reading of McCandless’ final two years, it is difficult not to imagine it as an adventure. This is admittedly one of the more compelling aspects of Krakauer’s book, and it’s something that disables Sean Penn’s film from fully articulating the dynamic of its central character. And Penn visualizes McCandless’ story robustly: in one rather climactic instance, McCandless kayaks down the Colorado river, and the overall, introspective journey pauses for this brief moment of exhilaration. The forward of his kayak bounces aloft in the rapids, and McCandless’ enormous smile is still evident within the mighty surf. What’s absent from this scene in the film is McCandless’ sporadic reasoning for doing this—that despite the potency as adventure, it is another in a chain of actions intent to further mute the memory of his family.
To Penn’s credit, his film picks up a rhythm as it progresses. In establishing McCandless as a character, the film describes his industriousness and good nature; later, his desperation becomes unveiled, and it is this desperation that determines his final actions. It is easy to celebrate the figure of Chris McCandless because it embodies an unfamiliar independence; more difficult is it to demean this figure, for fear of downplaying his noble intentions. That Penn’s film begins to honor both of these aspects is telling of his intimacy with Krakauer’s source. I admit this with some hesitance, and I should note that my reverence for the book is so strong that any adaptation of it (this is not to mention the inherent flaw of fictionalizing nonfiction) I would not embrace with even comparable esteem. This is the case with Penn’s film, and it is with derision and sincere admiration in equal measure that I consider it a wholly and unexpectedly decent enterprise.
Into the Wild culminates with Chris’ inevitable death (the film is interspersed with scenes that capture his days in Alaska), and it builds to a crescendo that will sound hackneyed in description. Nonetheless, it is a satisfyingly apt, if melodramatic conclusion, both a celebration and a eulogy.
Rumsey Taylor / © 2007 notcoming.com
What strikes me about “Into the Wild” is Penn’s unusual sensitivity to the actual speech patterns and gestures of people- it is a very well-observed film. I also think Penn resisted the melodrama inherent in the story very well, allowing Chris’s final action to seem as deeply rooted in his character as it is contrived for its poetic meaning. The film is rooted to Chris’s perspective to an unprecedented degree: Penn asks that we feel every scene with Chris. This effectively prevents the film from becoming overtly sentimental, even when the material would allow it.
This guy was no hero he was an ill prepared nut job who met his end like you would expect one to die in such circumstances. The real tragedy here is you can be sure someone else will idolize this idiot and go off to do the same thing.
If this guy had done ten minutes of research on Alaska he would have never taken one step in the bush as unprepared as he was.
This guy will forever be in the company of mentally imbalanced fruit cakes like Timothy Treadwell.
Chares Darwin is again vindicated.
The film is sympathetic toward him. He was a bright but flawed person, who found a place where he was truly out of his depth. Michigan Mike is too hard on him, despite being correct. Maybe he intended to self-destruct, or just made the final mistakes out of hubris. We’ll never know. But obviously he could have walked out before starving!
I have to agree with Farley. I think Chris was an intelligent person who just couldn’t face what the world, and society had become. I know what he means. He chose not to prepare in anyway for Alaska, thinking that if he died trying to live his dream of freedom, then that would be better than living a life, trapped, and full of lies. I get his drift. He was clever enough to know that he would die if he failed to hunt properly and he knew he couldn’t do so with the supplies and equiptment he brought with him. I think he wanted to die out there on the Stampede Trail, even if it did come a bit prematurely for him. I dont believe he had any intention of coming back. I hadn’t heard of Chris McCandless until I watched Into The Wild one night I couldnt sleep. It captivated me. Not just Sean Penn’s amzing story-telling, but Chris’ own amazing story. Im a 24 year old construction worker from Falkirk, Scotland, UK and I believe that this story will be an inspiration to millions of people arond the world. Of course, there will always be the people that say’ Wow, why did he give away $25,000, I would have bought this and done that…’. Society has made people think like that. Society has made us think we need as lot more than we actually do and to be truly happy in society, u must hurt people an d take away someones eles happines and Chris, simply, wasn’t prepared to do this. The strange thing that gets me is why he didn’t ever get in touch with his sister. I hope someone reads this and lets me know what they think.
The book and the movie are a lie. Mccandless did not burn all of his money. He did not enter the wilderness without a map. He did not die from eating a poisonous plant. You can find all of this out online—the coroners lists of possessions of Mccandless are there for you to see for yourself. As well as the contents of his WALLET found in his backpack. So, there are some big wholes in the story that become less mythical and more tragic. If he had a map—-Why didn’t he leave when he couldn’t find enough food. He obviously tried right—-said so in his journal. Perhaps he wasn’t able to physically make the hike up the river to the trolley, or to the braided section of the road. Perhaps he was INJURED as he said he was in his SOS note left on the bus. Funny how real life flies in the face of romanticism. Ill prepared man injures self and dies of starvation in the bush of Alaska. Krakauer should be sued for writing this book and calling it nonfiction. The toxicological results were released the book was printed. Hes a fraud and the book is too. Stick to fiction if you need heros and themes, people. Real life has nothing but troubled souls stumbling around trying to sort their shit out.
CAROLYN.. “the coroners lists of possessions of Mccandless are there for you to see for yourself”
where can i find this information, from good source?
Directed by
Sean Penn
Source
Paramount Vantage 35mm print
Posted on
11 October 2007
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7613 times
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6
Jeremiah
30 January 2008
12:31 PM