Movies |
Into the Wild
Eddie Vedder
By
Published: Jan 01, 2007
Category:
Drama
My wife and I stumbled out of a Manhattan theater in stunned silence. So did my stepson. So did everyone I urged to see “Into the Wild.”
The film is the story of Christopher McCandless, who graduated from college (Emory, ’92), then left civilization behind to experience life without constraints. His death in Alaska few months later made him a worthy subject for Jon Krakauer. But the story he tells in his book, Into the Wild, is even better inspiration for a film, especially when the writer-director is Sean Penn.
Think what you will about Penn — the guy has guts to spare. He stands up for what he believes and he doesn’t mumble when he offers unpopular ideas. And he’s loyal to his ideas; it took him a decade to romance McCandless’s parents and get their blessing. The result is a film that’s never less than compelling.
Penn’s movie didn’t knock us out because we love raw Nature in Alaska — this really isn’t a movie about a kid who stepped out of civilization with just a bag of rice and a book about edible plants to get him through. Penn’s after bigger game. He’s asking questions about our own lives: freedom, identity, community. That is, the questions obsessing us just below the surface of our most ordinary days. [To rent the video stream from Amazon, click here.]
We watch this long movie that has an ending we already know with something like obsession because Chris McCandless carries our proxy. At one time or other, we all want to walk out of the familiar. And, far more often, we think of “freedom” nostalgically — as something we once had. But Chris McCandless….he’s going for it. And the film goes it for it with him — it’s about stepping through doors, moving through landscape, seeking an ever-widening sky. And then there’s the music, which is even more expansive and exuberant.
This is not “soundtrack” music, a grab bag of songs cobbled together to provide a revenue stream. This is Eddie Vedder, usually the leader of Pearl Jam, here solo, with stripped-down instrumentation and blunt lyrics:
I knew all the rules
But the rules did not know me
Guaranteed
Imagine that in Vedder’s baritone — singing so truthful it merges with the quest of the movie. The words progress from leaving the known world (“Society/ You’re a crazy breed/ I hope you’re not lonely/ Without me”) to motion (“Gonna rise up/ Turning mistakes into gold”) to a message so primal it’s really chanting (“I am…I AM”).
Years later, I can’t get over this movie.
