Same here.
As for the movie, I thought it was terrific – when I could think of it as fiction and not like I needed to make a judgment as to how realistically or sympathetically it portrayed the actual individual. Beautiful landscapes, great acting, good music, and I truly got shivers of sympathetic coldness just watching the Alaska parts. Brrr.
Pol Pot?
Hitler?
Stalin?
Nobody?
I agree with that. I thought it was the best film of the year (and I’ve seen most of the good ones). I’m surprised the film is not getting more consideration for awards.
(And yeah, McCandless had a deadly combination of arrogance and naivete, but that’s not really what the film is about.)
I wouldn’t say he “deserved it”. However, if he had just brought a map, he would have seen there was a ranger station full of food and other emergency supplies within walking distance of where he starved to death. Trapped by the river? Well the map would have shown him that nice pulley system they’d set up only a half mile from the trail where he was standing, for the express purpose of crossing it.
No one should get the death penalty for being stupid. But he made an extraordinary effort to avoid an emergency back-up plan in case anything went wrong, and that mitigates my sympathy rather significantly.
Maybe not, but there is this Heinlein quote:
IIRC he had poisoned himself by eating a plant that looked very much like another plant. He was very, very sick and that caused him to starve to death. He wasn’t in any shape to go marching a mile in winter.
I read a positive review of the movie and actually considered seeing it. But not any more. At least I won’t pay for it. Maybe I’ll check it out from the library to see the shots of Alaska.
Sean Penn playing a 22-year old? 
Maybe it should generate Oscar Buzz for “Best Make-up”.
Sean Penn is the director, not the lead actor.
I think the pitting was for the character more than the movie itself. Most people seem to like the movie. 80% fresh at rottentomates
I don’t see where deserving even enters into this situation. “Deserve” seems to place a moral judgment where none belongs. I can fully agree that no human living in human society should starve to death, and I donate my time and resources (admittedly not as much as I could) to that end. But that’s in human civilization. This fellow deliberately took himself off the grid and out of civilization, putting himself into the middle of amoral nature. Saying he deserved or didn’t deserve to starve is as irrelevant as saying an antelope deserves or doesn’t deserve to get eaten by a lion.
I don’t think it was stupidity exactly that drove this kid. I don’t think he put himself in a situation where he was sure to die out of stupidity, I think he did it on purpose. Some people commit suicide by taking a handful of pills, some people put a gun in their mouth, some people jump off a bridge, he wandered off alone into the Alaskan winter.
That’s ridiculous. The kid lived on the road/rough for a long time before the last fatal leg. Do you think the desert trips and sleeping on the streets were all failed suicide attempts?
If some bum had stabbed him for his wallet while sleeping under an overpass, would he have “gotten what he deserved”?
He died in August. Even in Alaska, that’s not winter.
There are people out there who wish they were dead–they long for death–but who lack whatever driving force it is that would motivate them to actually kill themselves, so instead they put themselves in harm’s way.
We jokingly call it a “death wish” when someone we know behaves foolishly, dangerously, but there really are people out there with a death wish.
So the deliberate placing of himself in danger off the grid, in places like “on the road” and “the desert” and “Alaska with no skills or equipment” could just be that he wanted to be dead, but wasn’t actually, actively, suicidal.
I read the book, and that’s what I got out of it.
So the 3 months foraging, hunting and the attempt to get back to town were all part of the elaborate subconscious suicide plan? Sorry, doesn’t make sense.
eta: Youthful zeal and overconfidence born from a sharp mind seem the obvious explanation.
I read the book too, and I didn’t get any death wish vibe. I got more of an undiagnosed mental illness-y vibe coupled with idealistic dreams of youth.
I think what makes his story unique is, unlike most, he was willing to live it (however briefly) while others stay within the realm of “normal life.” I’m not defending him or judging him for it, just making an observation.
I just can’t imagine anyone (not saying you) could say he “deserved” it. A foolish young person deserves starving to death for bad choices? I’d hate to live in that person’s mind, especially if they’re applying this nonsense to all of us.
I should have included that I haven’t read the book. Is it compiled from notes by his sister or something? Is the book simply his journal?
I guess my bile goes out to the sanctimonious lines I kept hearing from the movie, so book…I dunno.
He wouldn’t have “deserved” it- few people deserve to die- but neither would his death, in reality or the overpass example, have been sympathetic since in both he had an alternative. It’s a bit like leaving $100 bills on your dashboard in a bad area of town. Nobody has the right to rob you, but at the same time it’s totally your own damned fault if you’re robbed.
I don’t think he was suicidal, but I don’t think he much cared whether he lived or died. The great irony of his life is that had he lived and written a book he’d be hailed as a great Henry David Theroux meets Jack Kerouac character, and that in death many still see him as such.
I was irked by the fact that he gave his $20,000+ savings to various charities. The reason that irks me is that, unless I’m wrong, they weren’t really “his” savings but money left from a trust his parents had started. Whether his folks needed the money or not, he should have given it to them.
It is getting a lot of consideration for awards. Many people are predicting an Oscar nomination, though the competition is fierce so I don’t know if it’ll make it. Here’s what it’s been nominated for and won so far:
Into the Wild
American Film Institute:
Top Ten American Films
Austin Film Critcs Awards:
Top Ten Films of the Year
Broadcast Film Critics Assoc. (Critics’ Choice Awards):
Best Picture Drama
Best Director, Sean Penn
Best Actor, Emile Hirsch
Best Supporting Actor, Hal Holbrook
Best Supporting Actress, Catherine Keener
Best Writer, Sean Penn
Chicago Film Critics Awards:
Best Picture
Best Supporting Actor, Hal Holbrook
Best Adapted Screenplay, Sean Penn
Detroit Film Critics Awards:
Best Picture
Best Director, Sean Penn
Best Actor, Emile Hirsch
Best Supporting Actor, Hal Holbrook
Best Supporting Actress, Catherine Keener
Dallas Fort Worth Film Critics Awards:
Best Picture (Runner Up #6)
Best Director, Sean Penn (Runner Up #5)
Best Actor, Emile Hirsch (Runner Up #5)
Best Supporting Actor, Hal Holbrook (Runner Up #5)
Golden Globes:
Best Original Score, Eddie Veder, Michael Brook, Kaki King
Best Original Song, “Guaranteed” music and lyrics by Eddie Veder
Gotham Awards:
Best Feature (Winner)
Breakthrough Actor, Emile Hirsch
Golden Satellite Awards:
Best Original Song, “Rise”, by Eddie Veder
Los Angeles Film Critics Awards:
Runner Up: Best Supporting Actor, Hal Holbrook
National Board of Review Awards:
Top Ten Films of the Year
Best Breakthrough Performance by an Actor, Emile Hirsch (Winner)
Southeastern Film Critics Awards:
Best Picture (Runner Up #10)
St Louis Gateway Film Critics Awards:
Best Picture
Best Director, Sean Penn
Best Script, Sean Penn
Best Cinematography, Eric Gaultier
That’s just the beginning. Lots more critics’ awards are still to come.
I agree that he probably wasn’t overly concerned with his own death. I’m not sure how other people get “death wish” from the book when the author himself says in the original article: