Into the Wild

Into the Wild Information

Into the Wild is a 2007 American biographical survival film written, co-produced, and directed by Sean Penn. It is an adaptation of Jon Krakauer's 1996 nonfiction book of the same name, based on the travels of Christopher McCandless across North America and his experiences in the Alaskan wilderness in the early 1990s. The film stars Emile Hirsch as McCandless, and Marcia Gay Harden and William Hurt as his parents, and features Jena Malone, Catherine Keener, Vince Vaughn, Kristen Stewart, and Hal Holbrook.

The film premiered during the 2007 Rome Film Fest and later opened outside Fairbanks, Alaska on September 21, 2007. It was nominated for two Golden Globes and won the award for Best Original Song: "Guaranteed" by Eddie Vedder. It was also nominated for two Academy Awards: Best Editing and Best Supporting Actor for Holbrook.

Plot

In April 1992, Christopher McCandless arrives in a remote area just north of the Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska. Noting Chris' unpreparedness, the stranger who drops him off lends him a pair of boots. Chris travels into the wilderness and sets up a campsite in an abandoned city bus, which he calls "The Magic Bus". At first, McCandless is content with the isolation, the beauty of nature around him, and the thrill of living off the land. He hunts with a .22 caliber rifle, reads books, and keeps a diary of his thoughts as he prepares himself for a new life in the wild.

Two years earlier, in May 1990, McCandless graduates with high honors from Emory University. Shortly afterwards, McCandless rejects his conventional life by destroying all of his credit cards and identification documents. He donates nearly all of his savings to Oxfam and sets out on a cross-country drive in his Datsun 210 to experience life in the wilderness. McCandless does not tell his parents, Walt and Billie McCandless, or his sister Carine what he is doing or where he is going. He refuses to keep in touch with them after his departure, causing his parents to become increasingly anxious and eventually desperate.

At Lake Mead, McCandless' car is caught in a flash flood, causing him to abandon it and begin hitchhiking. He burns what remains of his cash and assumes a new name: "Alexander Supertramp." In Northern California, McCandless encounters a hippie couple named Jan Burres and Rainey. Rainey tells McCandless about his failing relationship with Jan, which McCandless helps rekindle. In September, McCandless arrives in Carthage, South Dakota and works for a contract harvesting company owned by Wayne Westerberg. He is forced to leave after Westerberg is arrested for satellite piracy.

McCandless then travels on the Colorado River and, though told by park rangers that he may not kayak down the river without a license, ignores their warnings and paddles downriver until he eventually arrives in Mexico. There, his kayak is lost in a dust storm, and he crosses back into the United States on foot. Unable to hitch a ride, he travels on freight trains to Los Angeles. Not long after arriving, however, he starts feeling "corrupted" by modern civilization and decides to leave. Later, he is forced to resume hitchhiking, after being beaten by railroad police.

In December 1991, McCandless arrives at Slab City, in the Imperial Valley, and encounters Jan and Rainey again. There, he also meets Tracy Tatro, a teenage girl who shows interest in McCandless, but he rejects her because she is underage. After the holidays, McCandless decides to continue heading for Alaska. One month later, camping near Salton City, McCandless encounters Ron Franz, a retired man who recounts the story of the loss of his family in a car accident while he was serving in the United States Army. He now occupies his time in a workshop as an amateur leather worker. Franz teaches McCandless the craft of leatherwork, resulting in the making of a belt that details McCandless' travels. After spending two months with Franz, McCandless decides to leave for Alaska, despite this upsetting Franz, who has become quite close to McCandless. On a parting note, Franz gives McCandless his old camping and travel gear, along with the offer to adopt him as his grandchild, but McCandless simply tells him that they should discuss this after he returns from Alaska.

Four months later, at the abandoned bus, life for McCandless becomes harder, and he begins to make poor decisions. As his supplies begin to run out, he realizes that nature is also harsh and uncaring. McCandless concludes that true happiness can only be found when shared with others, and he seeks to return from the wild to his friends and family. However, he finds that the stream he had crossed during the winter has become wide, deep, and violent due to the snow thaw, and he is unable to cross. Saddened, he returns to the bus. In a desperate act, McCandless is forced to gather and eat roots and plants. He confuses similar plants and eats a poisonous one, falling sick as a result. Slowly dying, he continues to document his process of self-realization and imagines his family for one last time. He writes a farewell to the world and crawls into his sleeping bag to die. Two weeks later, his body is found by moose hunters. Shortly afterwards, Carine returns to Virginia with her brother's ashes in her backpack.

Cast

Production

Filming

The scenes of graduation from Emory University in the film were shot in the fall of 2006 on the front lawn of Reed College. Some of the graduation scenes were also filmed during the actual Emory University graduation on May 15, 2006. The Alaska scenes depicting the area around the abandoned bus on the Stampede Trail were filmed south of where McCandless actually died, in the tiny town of Cantwell. Filming at the actual bus would have been too remote for the technical demands of a movie shoot. A replica bus used in the movie is now a tourist attraction at a restaurant in Healy, Alaska.

Release

Critical reception

The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 82% of 194 reviews of the film were positive, resulting in a "Certified Fresh" rating. Its consensus read: "With his sturdy cast and confident direction, Sean Penn has turned a complex work of nonfiction like Into the Wild into an accessible and poignant character study." Metacritic assigned the film an average score of 73 out of 100 based on 38 reviews from mainstream critics.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film four stars out of four and described it as "spellbinding." Ebert wrote that Emile Hirsch gives a "hypnotic performance," commenting: "It is great acting, and more than acting." Ebert added, "The movie is so good partly because it means so much, I think, to its writer-director, Sean Penn."

The American Film Institute listed the film as one of ten AFI Movies of the Year for 2007.

National Board of Review named it one of the Top Ten Films of the Year.

Into the Wild also ranks 473rd in Empire magazine's 2008 list of the 500 greatest movies of all time.

Top ten lists

The film appeared on many critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2007.

1st: Ben Lyons, The Daily 10
2nd: Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post
2nd: Tasha Robinson, The A.V. Club
3rd: James Berardinelli, ReelViews
3rd: Kevin Crust, Los Angeles Times
3rd: Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
4th: Kyle Smith, New York Post
5th: Claudia Puig, USA Today

5th: David Germain, Associated Press
5th: Joe Morgenstern, The Wall Street Journal
6th: Carrie Rickey, The Philadelphia Inquirer
6th: Steven Rea, The Philadelphia Inquirer
7th: A.O. Scott, The New York Times (tied with The Diving Bell and the Butterfly)
7th: Noel Murray, The A.V. Club
9th: Christy Lemire, Associated Press
10th: Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Awards

Winnings

65th Golden Globe Awards
- Best Original Song - Motion Picture ("Guaranteed")
Gotham Awards
- Best Feature Film
Mill Valley Film Festival
- Best Actor (Emile Hirsch)
Palm Springs International Film Festival
- Director of the Year Award (Sean Penn)
- Rising Star Award Actor (Emile Hirsch)

National Board of Review
- Breakthrough Performance - Male (Emile Hirsch)
Rome Film Festival
- Jury Award (William Pohlad), (Art Linson), (Sean Penn)
So Paulo International Film Festival
- Best Foreign Language Film (Sean Penn)
Italian Online Movie Awards
- Best Motion Picture Of The Year
- Best Motion Picture soundtrack

Nominations

80th Academy Awards
- Best Supporting Actor (Hal Holbrook)
- Best Film Editing (Jay Cassidy)
65th Golden Globe Awards
- Best Original Score - Motion Picture (Michael Brook, Kaki King, Eddie Vedder)
American Cinema Editors
- Best Edited Feature Film - Dramatic (Jay Cassidy)
Broadcast Film Critics Association
- Best Film
- Best Actor (Emile Hirsch)
- Best Supporting Actor (Hal Holbrook)
- Best Supporting Actress (Catherine Keener)
- Best Director (Sean Penn)
- Best Writer (Sean Penn)
- Best Song ("Guaranteed")
34th Csar Awards
- Best Foreign Film
Chicago Film Critics Association Awards
- Best Picture
- Best Screenplay - Adapted (Sean Penn)
- Best Supporting Actor (Hal Holbrook)
Directors Guild of America Awards
- Best Director - Film (Sean Penn)
Cinema Audio Society
- Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for Motion Pictures

Costume Designers Guild Awards
- Excellence in Costume Design for Film - Contemporary
Film Critics Circle of Australia Awards
- Best Foreign Film - English Language (Sean Penn)
Grammy Awards
- Best Song Written for Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media ("Guaranteed")
Gotham Awards
- Breakthrough Award (Emile Hirsch)
Satellite Awards
- Best Original Song ("Rise")
Screen Actors Guild Awards
- Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
- Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role (Emile Hirsch)
- Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role (Hal Holbrook)
- Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role (Catherine Keener)
USC Scripter Award
- USC Scripter Award (Sean Penn) (screenwriter), (Jon Krakauer) (author)
Writers Guild of America Awards
- Best Adapted Screenplay (Sean Penn)

Box office

In North America, Into the Wild initially opened in limited release, in four theaters and grossed $212,440, posting a per-theater average of $53,110. For the next several weeks, the film remained in limited release until it expanded to over 600 theaters on October 19, 2007; in its first weekend of wide release, the film grossed just $2.1 million for a per-theater average of $3,249. As of December 25, 2008, the film grossed $18,354,356 domestically and $37,281,398 internationally. In total, the film has grossed $55,635,754 worldwide.

Home media

Into the Wild was released on March 4, 2008 on standard DVD, Two-Disc Special Collector's Edition DVD, and standard HD DVD. The special edition DVD and HD DVD contain two special features entitled The Story, The Characters and The Experience. The Blu-ray Disc edition was released in France on July 16, 2008. The Blu-ray edition for the US was released on December 16, 2008.

Soundtrack

See Into the Wild (soundtrack) for more information The songs on the soundtrack were performed by Eddie Vedder, lead singer of Pearl Jam, and Jerry Hannan. Vedder won a Golden Globe for Best Original Song for the song "Guaranteed". The score was written and performed by Michael Brook and Kaki King. The music at the end of the theatrical trailer is "Acts of Courage" by X-Ray Dog, a company that supplies music for many movie trailers. Eddie Vedder said whilst writing the songs on the album "I spent three days giving him (Sean Penn) colors that I could paint with. Different sounds. It would be pump organ and vocal, or it would be an uptempo song. I just gave him 25 minutes of music, stuff I felt that were colors on the palette. And I really didn't think anything was gonna come out of it. Maybe a little piece or something".

"Hard Sun" (Eddie Vedder and Corin Tucker)
"Society" (Eddie Vedder and Jerry Hannan)
"No Ceiling" (Eddie Vedder)
"Rise" (Eddie Vedder)
"Long Nights" (Eddie Vedder)
"The Wolf" (Eddie Vedder)
"Guaranteed" (Eddie Vedder)

"Going Up the Country" (Canned Heat)
"King of the Road" (Roger Miller)
"Emory and Old St. Andrews March" (The Atlanta Pipe Band)
"U Can't Touch This" (M.C. Hammer)
"The Water Ran This Way Back and Forth" (Pedro)
"I Thought I Was You" (Kelly Peterson)
"Kaa" (Claude Chaloub)

"Fork And File" (The Crooked Jades)
"Dakota Themes" (Peter Ostroushko)
Slab Song (Everett 'Insane Wayne' Smith)
"Tracy's Song" (Kristen Stewart)
"Angel from Montgomery" (Kristen Stewart and Emile Hirsch)
"Picking Berries" (Gustavo Santaolalla)
"Porterville" (Creedence Clearwater Revival)