into the wild is an American biographical adventure film written by Sean Penn. The film tells the story of Alexander Supertramp, a man who hitchhiked in the Alaskan wilderness in the early 1990s. Hunters later found his body rotting in a sleeping bag inside an abandoned bus.
The film premiered in 2007 at the Rome Film Fest and then in Fairbanks, Alaska to critical and commercial acclaim. It earned two Golden Globe nominations and two Academy Award nominations for Best Editing and Best Supporting Actor.
Into the Wild is based on the true story of American hitchhiker Christopher McCandless.
Sean Penn was inspired to into the wild from Jon Krakauer’s nonfiction book of the same name. The book tells the story of Christopher McCandless (Alexander Supertramp), a hitchhiker who left civilization to live off the land in Alaska.
Christopher McCandless had a promising legal career ahead of him when he learned that he and his sister were born out of wedlock. He decided to leave his family for a self-sufficient life in the desert. The film rarely deviates from the book, which traces Chris’ journey from the memories of the people he met along the way.
McCandless left home in his Datsun 210, but was forced to hitchhike after a flood swept away his car. His journey took him to South Dakota, Mexico and California, before deciding to move to Alaska.
In Alaska, Christopher hitchhiked with local electrician Jim Gallien. Learning of Christopher’s plans, Jim advised him to get more equipment and even offered to drive him to Anchorage, Alaska to buy equipment. Aware of the harsh conditions in Alaska, Jim questioned McCandless’s prospects in the wild.
Christopher had a light backpack, a ten-pound bag of rice, and a rifle. Jim handed him a pair of Wellington boots and dropped him off at the Stampede Trail on April 28, 1992. McCandless had planned to hike to the Bering Sea, but stopped 20 miles to camp in an abandoned bus. He was happy to find shelter, and on the side of the bus, he wrote a summary of his trip:
“Two years walk the earth. No phone, no pool, no pets, no cigarettes. supreme freedom. an extremist. An aesthetic traveler whose home is the road. He escaped from Atlanta. You will not return, because ‘The West is the best’. And now, after two years of wandering, comes the latest and greatest adventure.
Christopher’s prophecy came true; the trip to Alaska would be the last. He was found dead by elk hunters on September 6, 1992. He had made the last journal entry for him 19 days earlier. Next to him was a note, begging anyone passing by to help him:
“Attention possible visitors. SOS I need your help. I am wounded, near death, and too weak to get out of here. I’m alone, this is not a joke. In the name of God, stay to save me.”
In the movie, Christopher died due to poisoning, but that theory is disputed.
Christopher’s cause of death remains a controversial issue. In the movie, Christopher mistakes an edible plant for a poisonous plant which kills him. Jon Krakauer, the author of Into the Wild, was a proponent of this theory, but later changed course.
According to a piece in the new yorker, Christopher was highly educated in the field of botany and it was unlikely that he would have mistaken a poisonous plant for an edible one. Jon found out that Christopher ate Hedysarum alpinum seeds which, while harmless to a healthy human, can be toxic to a malnourished person like Christopher. He concluded:
“Had McCandless’s guide to edible plants warned that Hedysarum alpinum seeds contain a neurotoxin that can cause paralysis, it probably would have emerged from the wild in late August with no more difficulty than when it entered the wild in April.”
Others claim that Christopher simply starved to death. In any case, no one disputes that he was severely malnourished. He survived on meat and wild plants, but none was enough to sustain him. McCandless was smiling in selfies of him, but the images showed a disheveled and withered man.
Through his diary, we know that he had decided to return to civilization. He packed his bags and started walking back, only to discover that the Teklanika River, which was a stream when he passed, was now a raging river 75 feet wide.
If Christopher had bought a map, as Jim Gallien advised, he would have known that a mile down the river was a manual tram that he could have used to get to the other side. Better yet, six miles south of the bus was a booth full of food and supplies. Dejected, Christopher returned to the bus, where his health deteriorated rapidly and led to his death.
Categories: Biography
Source: vcmp.edu.vn