Loading ..."Into the Wild" was released this past Friday in New York and Los Angeles. Unfortunately it won't be released to the rest of the U.S. until October 5th. I wasn't aware of the limited release until I started looking for the movie times. I posted here when the trailer was released and I'm pretty excited about this film since I read the book.
It is inevitable however that this film will stir some debate. (Spoiler ahead, if you don't know what happens in this story, stop reading) In the book and I'm sure in the film as well, the main character Christopher McCandless strikes out on a journey across the US. He ends up roaming the US, Canada, and Mexico throughout his adventure. In the end McCandless dies, mainly due to ill preparation for living in the wilderness through an Alaskan winter.
McCandless is seen by many as an icon of that youthful desire to explore and to find oneself. To others, he is looked at as an example of just how deadly that unchecked wild spirit can be. Some will think that this story might inspire copycat attempts. People who will attempt to walk into the wild themselves and survive. Personally I feel like the story represents a young man looking for what many of us are or were looking for at that age, ourselves. McCandless' story is more than just a story of an immature yet wide eyed young man. It's the story of that person who has been in all of us at one time or another. I think he found himself on that journey. Unfortunately he just went about it the wrong way.
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First off, it was an Alaskan summer that he couldn't make it through. And there I think is the rub. You see, there were supplies up there nearby and bridges to get out. But, since McCandless refused to get a map of the area he didn't know that those items for survival were there just for the taking.
Many of his supporters have said that he would not have wanted to know that supplies and help were easily attainable nearby, that the whole point of his adventure was surviving the unkown. But, that's the probalem many of us who grew up out west have with his story. Going into the wild unprepared is not only stupid and suicidal, it shows a certain lack of respect for the very forces of nature he insisted he wanted to get in touch with.
Good point Bill. I think ultimately the book speaks to two different truths.
1. A good jaunt across the country or the globe can open a persons eyes wider than they ever imagined.
2. Disrespecting nature can be the worst mistake you'll ever make, and the last.
My reading of Krakauer's original article in Outside was that he was mostly a victim of bad luck.
He avoided crossing a raging river and waited for it to recede -- that shows and elemental respect for nature -- but he got sick and couldn't hunt/forage for food because he was too weak. Krakauer theorized he ate a poisonous root similar to an edible potato, but that's only an educated guess.
The world's best climbers fall off cliffs and die; avalanches kill premiere alpinists.
I've just seen the Sean Penn film of this story.
Of course it was "suicidal", or rather reckless. He couldn't take having been lied to about his origins and I think he was trying to uproot himself and start afresh. Trouble is you can't.
And underneath recklessness is anger, grief. He was a lost child.