Into The Wild
By Oggy Bleacher
Director Sean Penn must’ve had a hard decision to make: Purchase a helicopter for all the planned aerial shots, or just rent one. Since he would’ve rented one approximately 14,000 times, I suspect he went ahead and purchased one. The rule Penn was operating under was simple: A shot of a car driving down the road is a hundred times better when taken from a helicopter. And if you can’t fit a helicopter inside a bus then use a long lens and take the shot from above the bus through the window...with a helicopter. From the opening helicopter shot to the closing helicopter shot this has “Best Director” written all over it. Which means it can’t win best director. But, mark my words, it will get nominated.
The story? Oh, yeah. I think there was a story in there somewhere about a kid who talks about going to Alaska and then…yup, goes to Alaska. Pretty gripping stuff, huh? He says he’s going to go to Alaska and then he says he’s going to Alaska some more, and then he goes. Every person he runs into must learn about his plan to go to Alaska and offer their opinion. And then he goes to Alaska.
Back to the helicopter shots, thousands of helicopter shots. Expensive helicopter shots of a kid talking about going to Alaska, a kid thinking about going to Alaska, a kid on his way to Alaska and a kid in Alaska. There was one shot that wasn’t taken from a helicopter, a shot of William Hurt sitting on the ground. That was a crane shot. “We paid too much god-damn money for these helicopter shots,” I can hear Penn tell editor Jay Cassidy, “If you cut one more helicopter shot I’m going to cut your ear off!” One slow motion shot of Chris taking a shower was stolen directly from 1997 Sport Illustrated Swim Suit Video. There was no excuse for that shot since it wasn’t taken from a helicopter. Did I mention the kid went to Alaska?
I know this is based on a true story as described in a popular book. I know that the book by Jon Krakauer had the good fortune to be categorized as non-fiction and written to suit that category. It was not written as a “dramatized, speculative, based-on-a-true-story, possibly true, reenactment of one likely scenario” So the book, Into the Wild, was perfect. It took an odd story of a kid going to Alaska (see above) and accumulated the facts. No one can fault Krakauer for objectively reporting, with the cooperation of the family, the story of one Alaska-bound Christopher McCandless. This blamelessness is not a luxury Sean Penn can enjoy. Because Penn has decided to speculate on a great portion of McCandless’s motives and experiences (singing to himself, fixating on his father) he sets himself up to be questioned. Krakauer did not make such speculation. In effect, Penn is trying to become the biographer to a 23 year old kid who chose to live a reflective and low-resource life for about two years. And Penn decided to make this biography from the seat of a helicopter. Really, that’s more unusual than what McCandless actually accomplished and failed to accomplish. Why would the brief adventures of McCandless warrant a multi-million dollar feature film? Wouldn’t it be better if Penn just donated the production budget to Oxfam, as McCandless did with his life savings? Wouldn’t that be a better tribute? It was certainly a missed opportunity to downplay McCandless’s overly sensitive nature and fixate on his unresolved emotional issues. Was his adventure to Alaska a test or was it a symptom of his inability to save the world, to feed the hungry, to house the poor, to end all wars? Was he so afraid of making a difference in one person’s life that he avoided everyone? These are the important questions that Penn, hovering above a beautiful landscape, leaves conspicuously unanswered, as does the speculative voice-over of his sister. Example: Skid row in Los Angeles is one of the most blighted areas on the continent. It’s probably beyond hope, but a motivated, smart individual might be able to make a difference, even a small difference. How Chris reacts to his visit there should tell you everything you need to know about his priorities.
Philosophy aside, lets treat this film AS THOUGH IT WASN”T BASED ON A TRUE STORY. A kid renounces civilization for three months by living in an old bus and shooting small game with a rifle. In Tennessee they call that “Junior High School” Before that, he meets a bunch of “real” people with opinions and troubles of their own. Have I grabbed you yet? Probably not. That’s because this isn’t a particularly interesting story on its own. Hell, your average oil field worker lives in the wild for longer than Chris did, basically because they bring more bags of rice with them. And I’ll bet they’ve got some pretty bizarre tales to tell that don’t involve heady quotes by Tolstoy. Yes, Penn draws heavily from the “bad parents” well to motivate Chris, but I’m not sure offering to buy a new car for their son will strike people as so awful. I’d trade parents with him in an instant. “But it really happened.” I can hear Penn argue. And that’s the problem with speculative dramatic biographies like Into the Wild. That’s why most people’s life stories do not make good movies and usually make pretty bad books. It takes a master like Krakauer to structure the story with perfect intention and payoff. Just because it happened doesn’t mean it will make good cinema. Indeed, most people go to the movies for the exact opposite kind of content. Thus Penn was stuck between what really happened and what he could speculate happened. When the two seemed too difficult to link up Penn hopped in his helicopter and took the shot from above. This tells me more about Penn’s interpretation of McCandless than it tells me about McCandless’s interpretation of his world. I give Penn credit for aiming high. He just aimed at the wrong target...and he missed.
Grade C
Into The Wild
Cast: Emile Hirsch
Director: Sean Penn
MPAA Rating: R
Runtime: 140 minutes
Release Company: Paramount Vantage
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