Into The Wild Movie Analysis

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Into the Wild captures a young man's idealism to escape from society and live freely off of the land, particularly in Alaska. Sean Penn and Jon Krakauer use various techniques in the creation of the film and the novel. The different characterization of the protagonist, Chris McCandless, paints two contrasting pictures. The tone in which the story is told differs, but the facts are generally the same. In the novel, Into the Wild, Krakauer investigates Chris's life and comments on the aspects that intrigue him, while through the film adaptation, Penn celebrates Chris's life and portrays him as a hero. To begin, Krakauer and Penn show Chris as a character that embodies distinctive personality traits that are altered from the book to the movie. Krakauer's novel starts with Chris as a child, showing all of the rough patches that he endured in his family life, and highlighting the events that caused Chris to feel the way he does about society. Penn begins the film with Chris graduating college and only briefly shows his family life. The …show more content…
Krakauer tells the story through several different means, including excerpts from McCandless's journal, interviews, and some of his own stories. However, Penn creates a completely new viewpoint as the narrator of the movie is Chris's sister, so it is all from Chris's perspective. Krakauer compares the journey of Chris to other explorers who did similar explorations, including himself. The author includes details that would have been unbeknownst to Chris due to his death. Although Krakauer reveals to the reader the reason why there was a bus in the middle of the wilderness, Chris would have had no way of knowing the reason for the bus being there. Also, Krakauer explains the use for Chris's car after he abandoned it, but Chris had no contact with anyone regarding his car after he left