Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder is one of rock’s most distinctive voices. In the end, he tested himself by heading alone into the wilds of the great North, where everything he had seen and learned and felt came to a head in ways he never could have expected.
#Into the wild book movie series
Along the way, he encountered a series of colorful characters at the very edges of American society who shaped his understanding of life and whose lives he, in turn, changed. McCandless’ quest took him from the wheat fields of South Dakota to a renegade trip down the Colorado River to the non-conformists’ refuge of Slab City, California, and beyond. Was Christopher McCandless a heroic adventurer or a naïve idealist, a rebellious 1990s Thoreau or another lost American son, a fearless risk-taker or a tragic figure who wrestled with the precarious balance between man and nature?Įach strand of his journey is woven into Sean Penn’s screen adaptation of Jon Krakauer’s acclaimed bestseller, Into The Wild, which is as much about the insatiable yearning for family, home and connection as it is the search for truth and happiness. What happened to him on the way transformed this young wanderer into an enduring symbol for countless people. “ There is pleasure in the pathless woods, There is rapture on the lonely shore, There is society where none intrudes, By the deep sea and the music in its roar I love not man the less, but Nature more.” - Lord Byronįreshly graduated from college with a promising future, 22 year-old Christopher McCandless (EMILE HIRSCH) instead walked out of his privileged life and into the wild in search of adventure. The power and luminosity of Jon Krakauer’s storytelling blaze through every page. Mesmerizing, heartbreaking, Into the Wild is a tour de force. Krakauer brings McCandless’s uncompromising pilgrimage out of the shadows, and the peril, adversity, and renunciation sought by this enigmatic young man are illuminated with a rare understanding–and not an ounce of sentimentality.
He is said to have had a death wish but wanting to die is a very different thing from being compelled to look over the edge.
When McCandless’s innocent mistakes turn out to be irreversible and fatal, he becomes the stuff of tabloid headlines and is dismissed for his naiveté, pretensions, and hubris. Digging deeply, he takes an inherently compelling mystery and unravels the larger riddles it holds: the profound pull of the American wilderness on our imagination the allure of high-risk activities to young men of a certain cast of mind the complex, charged bond between fathers and sons. Admitting an interest that borders on obsession, he searches for the clues to the dries and desires that propelled McCandless. Jon Krakauer constructs a clarifying prism through which he reassembles the disquieting facts of McCandless’s short life. Leaving behind his desperate parents and sister, he vanished into the wild. Craving a blank spot on the map, McCandless simply threw the maps away.
#Into the wild book movie free
He would give himself a new name, Alexander Supertramp, and, unencumbered by money and belongings, he would be free to wallow in the raw, unfiltered experiences that nature presented.
#Into the wild book movie license
In the Mojave Desert he abandoned his car, stripped it of its license plates, and burned all of his cash.
Immediately after graduating from college in 1991, McCandless had roamed through the West and Southwest on a vision quest like those made by his heroes Jack London and John Muir. How McCandless came to die is the unforgettable story of Into the Wild. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt.