Thursday, Sean Penn appeared on Oprah to talk about his upcoming film Into the Wild , based on the true life story of Chris McCandless, a reckless idealist who rids himself of all material things and tramps abroad for two years, till he eventually is found dead in a bus in Alaska at the age of 24.
Jon Krakauer wrote the best selling book with the same title, after McCandless’ story first appeared in Outside Magazine in the early 1990s. (The article was also written by Krakauer).
The film seems to glorify the notion of dropping everything in pursuit of ‘finding one’s self’ and in the interview, no one bothered to mention that this sort of thing only occurs in rich kids. Poor people don’t have the luxury of dropping everything and becoming a hippy since they’ve never had anything to drop.
McCandless, a graduate of Emory University and the son of wealth and privilege, shreds all materialism and lives on the woods—as well as from people he meets, and eating various berries he can find off trees and shrubs which eventually make him sick and unable to digest anything. He died by starvation.
I do plan on seeing the film, and I recommend the book—but I ask readers and viewers to be wary of labeling this guy a ‘hero’. While it’s great to pursue ‘dreams’ one would hope he would go about it safely and with a little more sensitivity (McCandless doesn’t bother even sending so much as a postcard to his parents and sister to inform them of his whereabouts).
The film is being released in select theatres Sept 21 and all over the U.S. on October 5th.
More opinions on this film can be read here .
The film’s site can be found here .
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