Iconoclasts Takes Sean Penn into the Wild

Apparently, I’m not the only one who isn’t impressed with McCandless. Krakauer reveals later on, that many Alaskans despise Chris. “You glorified him and he was an idiot!” Krakauer is often told.

But I enjoyed Into the Wild anyway, in part because I’m a sucker for movies shot in spectacular remote locations that look breathtaking on big theater screens (and somehow never look as awe-inspiring on plasma TVs), but also because McCandless’ story had me thinking about life in the early nineties. (How often does a trip to the multi-plex inspire you to think about anything?) As I watched the movie I realized that McCandless’ generation, known at the time as Generation X, was the last wave of young people who did not grow up in the wired and wireless world we now inhabit. If he had lived another year or two, he might have found some of the answers he was seeking through online interaction. At the very least he might have been armed during his wanderlust with more useful information taken from any number of Web sites. We learn in Iconoclasts that in the weeks immediately preceding McCandless’ death, (when he was slowly dying of starvation and unable to leave his immediate environs because mid-summer glacial melting had turned the nearby Teklanika River into a raging deathtrap) he could have simply trekked a few miles upstream to milder waters and possibly gotten help.

In 1992, however, ours was still a world without a cell phone in every pocket and a computer in every home. Life would begin to change spectacularly within two years of his passing.

During the hour, Penn and Krakauer also reveal why it took so long for Penn to turn Krakauer’s book into a movie (it has something to do with McCandless appearing to his mother), they drink a toast to McCandless with his favorite cocktail (a White Russian), and pour some into the ground (“a little for him,” Penn says wistfully), and return to the now-famous bus, which is still full of McCandless’ stuff from fifteen years ago, even though it has been a tourist destination for many years. There is also much recapping of highlights from both men’s careers.