I enjoyed the book, and wasn’t disappointed by the movie. Most everyone seems to agree that the cinematography is top notch. But I know that people will have reasons to dislike the film…
Yeah, the critics are right: it’s a long movie. It’s true thatThe guy had it all, threw it away, wandered around like a bum, met some hippies, made a stupid mistake, and ended up dead, big deal.
I believe in his message to Hal Holbrook’s character, though. Being content with your material possessions and settling in for the duration is a kind of slow death. Some might see McCandless as another Timothy Treadwell, but I would say he was more like Everett Ruess.
I’ve read the book and enjoyed it as a piece of literature and developed a bit of respect for Chris as a smart person who did some impressive things. However, one of most poignant aspects of his story is the number of enormously stupid and futile things he did, largely because he didn’t think things through.
I haven’t seen the film, and based on the trailer clips I doubt I’ll go, mainly because it appears that Sean Penn has used artistic license to transform at least one (and probably more) of Chris’ enormously stupid and futile adventures (pre-bus). It’s not that I have any big beef with artistic license, but to me the incredibly bright vs. enormously stupid and futile content of McCandless’ character is what makes the story compelling and its conclusion so inevitable.
I haven’t seen the movie and I don’t plan to, but I did read the book, and I think the director taking great artistic license is the only way I could watch the movie without being reminded what a naive, arrogant idiot McCandless was. As it was, I found very little inspiring about his story.
I understand why someone would want to get away from the trappings of modern life, but the way he went about it was completely stupid. He was a smart guy, but he did not have any survival intelligence. He was a smart guy, and that probably made him arrogant enough to think he could survive alone in an extremely harsh and totally unfamiliar environment with only a gun, a bag of rice, and his wits. He could have lived his dream if he had put some thought and basic planning into his journey. He didn’t, so he’s dead. His was, at best, a cautionary tale, not an inspiring one.
Everything is a slow death. It doesn’t matter how you’re living if you’re unhappy with it. The most I can commend McCandless for is realizing his dissatisfaction with his life and doing something about it. But the life he was pursuing has no inherent superiority over any other.
Thing is, this kid wasn’t someone who was living his dream but made a bad decision and ended up dead. Rather he made lots of deliberate decisions that all add up to a case of slow motion suicide.
I agree-I read the story years ago. The kid was so stupid that he never bothered to ask anf experienced locals for advice. A bit of humility can save your life-had the kid heeded any sound advice, he would not have died in such a ghastly fashion.
Suicide indeed!
I think that was stupidity of commission rather than omission, which it’s debatable whether that makes it better or worse. His whole point was he wanted to see if he could survive without any help, tangible or intangible, from anyone else- something like either the alpha man or the omega man on the Earth.
He got his answer. (I do remember wondering, though, why he slept in an abandoned bus rather than a shelter he made himself, or a gun for that matter.) Of course he had such a flawed premise- primitive humans, which seems to be what he was going for, were NEVER loners because even Neanderthals knew they couldn’t survive alone.
I had a friend for a while who knew McCandless briefly at Emory and said he was what you’d expect: charismatic, funny, brilliant, and a total self-absorbed self-important git all rolled into one. I remember thinking while reading the book that Chris was somebody I’d really like to talk to over coffee for a couple of hours, but would disagree vehemently with half his comments and heard the song Easy to be Hard in my mind during his dronings. I put him in the same pile as Cobain and Kerouac and other gifted but self-destructive artists, though he never lived to produce the art.
I sort of want to see the movie, but I’ve been in fear it will romanticize him too much. Does it?
There was a segment on the [ABC, I think] evening news last night about the McCandless wannabees phenomenon. They’re tramping and hitchhiking their way towards that damn bus even now (with winter rapidly approaching) and the local rangers are dreading the inevitable.
A columnist in our paper, who grew up in Alaska, thinks the guy was an idiot. She told about people who who knew what they were doing and died from the harsh climate anyway. When I read the piece of the book that ran in the New Yorker, I thought he was an idiot also. What a waste.
There’s an article about McCandless’s boots being “stolen” from the bus (if you can call property abandoned for 15 years in a place you don’t own “stolen”). Sean Penn seems most pissed about it- "“I can’t help but think it was related to some of the imminent discussion about the movie coming, and somebody hungering to have an eBay item”, but then Penn seems most pissed about everything.
Personally I was surprised that they remained there for 15 years, especially since the book’s been popular for a decade. If the movie’s a hit then he can expect bits and pieces of the bus itself to pop up on ebay.
This may sound provincial (but I’ve never claimed not to be), but I find Roger Ebert’s glowing **** review of this film a bit irritating. From the first paragraph, where he says
to the end, when after a story about his friend Joe who left his middle class home and died fighting for the Sandinista, he finishes with
he buys into the romance of McCandless as idealist-hero-on-a-mission (and “believe in?”- dude, I believe in Osama bin Laden, doesn’t mean I admire him). This romanticism of nature and of a totally selfish young man whose hubris destroyed lives comes from a dude who lives in a house with a four story remote control skylight and private theater (see a private tour with former girlfriend Oprah) and pays for it by working in the most dependent upon the public and unnecessary field there is (if any movie critics were allowed into a bunker after an asteroid hit, it would only be because they were also an electrical engineer). I think Ebert seems to equate nature with that beautiful view from the balcony of a $500 per night room overlooking the Grand Canyon, or even fully provisioned camping, rather than from another movie he gave **** to in which the Marquis de Sade remarks
Every death, even the cruellest death
drowns in the total indifference of Nature.
Nature herself would watch unmoved
If we destroyed the entire human race
which I think sums up the situation much more accurately.
Of course I’ll admit I’m still irked he gave only *½ to Infamous when Toby Jones’s Capote sank P.S. Hoffman’s **** performance (according to Ebert) to the bottom of the Colorado and dropped scrap iron on it from above.
When people like Chris, or Everett Ruess, or even Alex Lowe die, someone will always remark about wasted lives. I can understand that point of view, of course.
But I look at it a little differently. People who challenge themselves in the natural world, at the risk of death, do it because* it’s the only time they feel truly alive.* That’s the impression I got after talking to Ed Viesturs and David Breashears, anyway. Being out in the wilderness, where a simple mistake or a turn of weather can be fatal, is what makes their lives worthwhile. A good job, a happy marriage and young kids aren’t enough to keep them in the “real” world.
Some survive and become legends like Hillary or Messner*. If Edmund or Reinhold had died when they were 22, would their lives have been wasted?
*no, I’m not elevating Chris to their stature…just using them as examples
When people like Chris, or Everett Ruess, or even Alex Lowe die, someone will always remark about wasted lives. I can understand that point of view, of course.
But I look at it a little differently. People who challenge themselves in the natural world, at the risk of death, do it because* it’s the only time they feel truly alive.* That’s the impression I got after talking to Ed Viesturs and David Breashears, anyway. Being out in the wilderness, where a simple mistake or a turn of weather can be fatal, is what makes their lives worth living. A good job, a happy marriage and young kids aren’t enough to keep them in the “real” world.
Some survive and become legends like Hillary or Messner*. If Edmund or Reinhold had died when they were 22, would their lives have been wasted?
*no, I’m not elevating Chris to their stature…just using them as examples
I’m reading *Into The Wild * now. I’m intrigued by the polarization of people into two camps: those who think McCandless was a thoughtless, egomaniacal fool bent on suicide, and those who view him as a sort of hero or martyr…
I think it’s easy to forget that he never intended (or at least couldn’t count on) his life and actions ever receiving the widespread attention it has. It wasn’t important to him how others might have regarded his lifestyle; indeed he tried his best to keep it secret. He was simply a man living the way he chose to live - purposefully and cognizantly eschewing any advice or common sense that didn’t suit him. This conviction, this choice to live free of constraint - is the characteristic to be admired.
In this sense he accomplished what very, very few have ever had the courage to attempt.
In varying degrees, it’s like climbing Everest, volunteering to go fight in a war, becoming an Alaskan king crab fisherman or circling the globe by yourself in a small boat. There is a romantic notion of these things being “exciting”, “adventurous” or that they will somehow bring you more in touch with nature or God or the human condition or some shit. In reality, much of the time, they involve long stretches of tedium and isolation punctuated by intense moments of sheer terror. In many cases, these adventures end in death, dismemberment, disfigurement, or psychological trauma that never goes away. People who have no choice in being in a war zone or living hand to mouth in a daily fight for survival must think people like that are out of their fucking mind.
Ever watch Survivorman? Les actually knows what he’s doing, is only there for a week and has a crew ready to look for him in a week and he still sometimes runs into trouble where he can’t find food. You would have to be insane or hopelessly naive to hike up into the wilderness with no supplies and minimal supplies.
What “courage” did McCandles show? A willingness to run away from the world and die alone in the woods? Hows that different from those homeless bums in the Port Authority?
Saw the movie over the weekend. (Read the book too long ago to retain anything other than the most slight impression.) Sad to see a bright young person throw away opportunities in pursuit of a delusion. I can’t help but think that if he had survived, he could have come back, apologized to his parents, and say “Damn, that was a stupid thing to do.”
On the plus side, more boobies that I’ve seen in a general released film in years…
I think there’s a considerable number of people in the middle, too, they’re just not as vocal. I think he was foolish, in the way that young men sometimes are; he was neither bent on suicide nor a hero, just a guy who overestimated his own abilities and because of that underestimated the hazards of his environment and failed to prepare adequately. He had roughed it and survived during earlier parts of the trip, so he’d gotten a bit overconfident.
That is to say, no training and minimal supplies.
Anyway, if he really needed to “find himself”, why didn’t just backpack around Europe like a normal spoiled 22 year old who doesn’t feel ready for law school?
We were given this book during registration at Eastern Oregon University, for free, and I think that the overall idea was something along the lines of “Welcome new students who might not be from around here. Please do not go wandering off into the wilderness (which was all around us out there) with some silly Thoreau like notions in your head. You will either die or we will have to send competent men with weathered faces and little patience out to try and find you and they will beat you into kindling if they find you, Thanks, EOU Staff”.
Amongst all the goof ball hippie types I was around at those times the overall consensus was that this guy was a tool.