missing the point by a mile?

Rating: 9/10 (13 January 2008)

I saw "Into the Wild" last night and have to regard it as one of the best American films I have seen, part of a tradition that reaches all the way back through American cinema with its early use of the Western landscape, but even further back into American literature, not only Thoreau but also Hawthorne and Emerson and Twain. Some viewers seemed to focus primarily on what they take to be the "stupid idealism" of the main character, who would have survived if he had only had a map or should have written to his parents. This is fiction, people, though based on a real story. Such comments remind me of readers of Huckleberry Finn who note that if Huck and Jim had navigated the raft reasonably, Jim would have been home free by page 76. Penn makes rather a large point of the pain inflicted by McCandless' actions, by the way. He also makes a point of showing how McCandless is young and at times, clueless. The film does not make a god of the protagonist. It does point up rather vividly how our culture, in its breathless and mindless pursuit of more building, more possessions, more detritus, and less confrontation with the real (the wild, both within and without) drove one young man (well, several, if you count Thoreau and Huck and countless literary others) out of society and into the open.
Let me sing the praises, as many others have, of the cinematographer who captured such awe-inspiring images of the wild and the savagery of our cities, of the young man whose body and mind and heart drove the action of the film (Emile Hirsch), of the supporting actors who offered such believable and moving performances (Hal Holbrook is unforgettable), and of the director who provided such a creative and powerful vision for his story. The film is long, but I would have gladly kept on watching.