Sean Penn directorial master piece, Into the Wild was a moving picture. The story of a young man searching for fulliment in his life goes on a journey of self discovery that ultimately costs him everything.
A family torn to the core because of issues with the parents drive a young man to turn his back on everything they stand for.
Deep down I think we all have had our own adventure in which we can relate to Alexander Supertramp (his traveling name) seeking truth through travels.
The adventures, the people, the risks and in the end the realization that happiness is only real when shared.
This is the real life accounts of Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch) who left his family, his future and his identity in order to discover a life few ever experience.
Casey—
Thanks for the movie review… great post. However…
[Warning: plot spoiler follows]
After reading John Krakauer’s Into Thin Air, I read the late Anatoli Boukreev’s The Climb. Through my struggle to discern the more credible account of that fateful climb, which Boukreev eventually won after considerable persuasion by my wife and father, I nevertheless came away with an appreciation for Krakauer’s voice and writing style. So, when I received a copy of Into The Wild (ITW) for Christmas ‘96, I tore into it with high expectations.
I could not have been more disappointed. While Krakauer’s writing did not disappoint, his choice of subject did. I haven’t read anything by Krakauer since.
I can remember reading this book, mouth agape over the abject stupidity of book’s main character, Chris McCandless (a.k.a. Alexander Supertramp). Now, I see that Sean Penn has written and directed a movie based on ITW. That Penn would be attracted to this account of the reality-addled McCandless surprises me not at all.
ITW sentimentalizes McCandless as a twenty-four year old man who stops talking to his parents (who Penn will most certainly characterize as rich Republicans) and donates his life savings to Oxfam International, but not before buying a big bag of rice, a .22 caliber rifle, and a copy of Tanaina Plantlore, a field guide to Alaska’s edible plants. Despite diary entries that describe killing and attempting to preserve the meat of “a moose”—which Krakauer sheepishly concedes was a caribou—McCandless did not go directly from the comforts of home in Atlanta to the wilderness of Alaska. There were a few turns along the way, which ITW recounts in a manner that panders to the naïve social worker in everyone.
When his car breaks down near Lake Meade in July 1990, McCandless abandons it and burns his remaining cash in some kind of “the Universe shall provide if I only listen” catharsis. After a year of kicking around the southwest, hitchhiking and jumping freight trains, he winds up at Alaska’s Stampede Trail near Denali National Park. When he comes upon an abandoned bus, he thinks “shelter.” Approximately 112 days later, the bus’ function turns into “mausoleum.”
During his education at Emory University, if McCandless wasn’t paying attention during the lecture on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, perhaps he was busy dismissing human physiological needs in favor of the wholly illogical notion that such rules did not apply to him. But forget about the whole shelter, heat, water, and food thing. The simple foresight to procure a map of the area would have given McCandless more than enough information to save himself.
There will be some who, like Krakauer and Penn, can find it in themselves to romanticize McCandless. I cannot. Clearly, McCandless sought an understanding about human existence that he lacked, and it is a tragedy that this search cost him his life. If only McCandless had lived long enough to read Aaron Ralston’s Between a Rock and a Hard Place. Maybe that would have bought him enough time to figure out that Thoreau went home on weekends…
Pardon me if I pass on this one…
Cheers,
trade the English pride of Robert Falcon Scott for the dreamy manna and providence from the skies and you get Mc Candless. Dogs and skis instead of horses and boots or a map and botanical experience instead of hopeful karma and a schoolbus. Really stupid.
Ed,
Now there’s a parallel that would never have occurred to me, but now that you point it out, it makes some sense: let us call it the Falcon Scott-McCandless convergence.
Once the Discovery Expedition eeked out the South Pole, the only form of worldly expedition left was the Himalayas, principally Mt. Everest, which Hillary (namesake of Mrs. Clinton) would subdue in 1953.
Contrast that with McCandless, an Emory U. grad who abandons all worldly possessions and explores the inside of an abandon bus on the side of Alaska’s Stampede Trail.
Yea, there’s a convergence, er, a collision there…
Cheers,