Movie and Book Review: Into the Wild
Comparing Jon Krakauer's Book with Sean Penn's Film
Sep 15, 2009
Into the Wild is based on the true story of Chris McCandless who, after graduating with honors from Emory University in 1990, gave his $24,000 savings to charity and went to live alone in the Alaskan wilderness. Both the book and film follow McCandless, aka Alexander Supertramp, on his twenty month journey as he hitchhiked across the continental United States from Georgia to Alaska.
Transcendence of time: Structure and Chronology
In particular, the film consistently transcends the notions of time and space, thereby prioritizing McCandless’s adventurous spirit over the factual elements of his life. For instance, it disregards chronology by maintaining three temporal narratives. The first narrative assumes the present tense and looks at McCandless in Alaska, isolated from society and living happily (and hungrily) on a bus. The second narrative shows the months just before his stay in Alaska as he travels aimlessly across the country. The third narrative reverts back to his childhood and the emotional trauma he experienced from domestic instability. The narratives continually parallel and intersect one another, exemplifying the philosophy by which McCandless lived: he sought to completely abandon all forms of structure.
In contrast, the book does not follow time periods of McCandless’s life at all, but rather the general order by which Jon Krakauer learned about him. For instance, Krakauer opens the book with an account of McCandless entering Alaska, then goes on to describe how he was found dead in a bus (3-14). By opening a story with death, the book immediately sets a tone of hopelessness and loss. Krakauer explains that the “hero” of the story inevitably dies, and thus forces the reader to identify with every other person except McCandless himself. Similarly, the book ends with Krakauer and the McCandless family visiting the bus in Alaska, illustrating how Krakauer’s book actually concerns the people who McCandless affected (200-203).
Presentation of McCandless: the dangers of fact and fiction
The film contains numerous scenes of McCandless alone. For instance, one scene shows McCandless singing and celebrating in what he refers to (in his journal) as the “magic bus,” the abandoned vehicle that he found on the Stampede Trail. Such scenes rely heavily on the pictures and journals that McCandless himself created to memorialize his journey. In this vein, numerous scenes begin with written excerpts from his journal as well as his voice reading several letters. The book, alternatively, defers to the memories of others to piece together a narrative. For instance, the entire first chapter is based on the memory of one man, Jim Gallien, who dropped McCandless off on the Stampede Trail (3). Thus the book opens and closes, not necessarily with McCandless’s experiences, but with those of strangers, including Krakauer himself (203).
Yet the film’s choice to focus solely on McCandless means that it inevitably merges fiction with fact. For instance, the film depicts his death by implying that McCandless thought of his parents at his last moments and wondered if they missed and loved him. Since he was too weak to write any such musings as he died, the film makes a considerable, though not improbable, assumption about his state of mind.
Factual truth vs. spiritual truth
By leaving out more negative elements of his character, the film almost deifies McCandless, and thus introduces the most poignant distinction between it and the book: the former appears more concerned with spiritual truth while the latter confines itself to factual truth. The enigmatic and idealistic nature of the film illustrates its desire to see McCandless’s story through McCandless’s eyes, to understand the spirit of his journey rather than the particulars of it. Moreover, the nature of film allows the audience to almost experience his adventures as he does. Rather than reading about a stranger’s opinion of him, an audience can see and hear actual, albeit fictionalized, examples of McCandless’s interactions with and effects on the people he met. In contrast, the book, as a work of nonfiction, inherently restricts itself to memory and documentation. Krakauer does make several personal musings about McCandless throughout the text, but never deviates from the information that he has found.
Conclusion:
The film is certainly guilty of lies of omission, of perhaps overromanticizing McCandless’s story. It celebrates his life and the optimism with which he began his journey, and in doing so inevitably simplifies him. Yet the book is guilty of much worse: it confines McCandless to structure and fact, thereby rejecting the very freedom that he sought by abandoning his family and obligations. It is a simple biography full of facts while the film is more of an idealistic fairy tale full of spirit. Therefore, in considering the differences between the text and the film, one must essentially consider the nature of truth. The book may have gone in search of it, but the film found it.
Read other movie articles by Christine Hernandez.
 |
