Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by free.ranger (A) on July 27, 2009 at 07:05:53

In Reply to: RE: Into the Wild posted by jamesgarvin on July 26, 2009 at 19:59:34

I liked the film, partly because it holds to the book fairly well. Krakauer researches his subjects better than most, so I wouldn't put the story or the movie into the fiction category. It is a documentary, but slanted by recreation of the subject and getting personal with it.

The story itself is wild, so IMO, too much drama in the dialogue or personalities would be overkill. Krakauer tried to get inside of the kid's head to find out why he did what he did, but the only way to do that was to recreate his wanderings and interview the people McCandless met along his way. He never did really figure him out, and that's the way the movie was scripted and acted. That's also a big part of the mystery and attraction of this character.

Without the mystery of the character, the story, book, and movie would not have become as popular as they are. It was preserved throughout all presentations.

I lived in Alaska when this story broke. It was before Krakauer showed up to get his story for Outside magazine, from which everything else followed. The majority opinion up there, judging from the editorial letters in the Anchorage Daily News, was that the kid was just another airhead drifter. Nobody deified him. He wasn't the first to go up there and do something like that, and doubtful he'll be the last. We called them "end-of-the-roaders." The state attracts people like that. Don't elect them as President.