The life of Christopher Johnson McCandless has been a source of both inspiration and controversy throughout North America. His trek into the Alaskan wilderness, which led to his eventual demise, left him remembered as heroic and reckless, a brilliant artist and an irresponsible egotist; but regardless of what one’s opinion is on Chris McCandless, there is no denying that he is interesting and has inspired a variety of works in the media, including author Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, which was adapted into a film in 2007. Though both the novel and film follow the same storyline, the two have their inevitable differences.
The first noticeable major difference is how the story is told. In the novel, Jon Krakauer writes from his own point of view, providing his own input and opinions on McCandless, while the film is told in his sister’s point of view; she is scarcely mentioned in the novel, aside from the fact that Chris was very fond of her. The shift in narrators in a way limits the amount of information that can be delivered to the audience. Though the narration by Chris’s sister adds a more emotionally touching aspect to his home life, Krakauer’s narration in the novel provided more depth into Chris’s life and the stories he told of Reuss’s and Waterman’s journeys gave readers a better idea of how Chris’s brain worked.Sean Penn, in the direction of the film, neglected to include many important details from the novel and, in turn, romanticized and exaggerated others. One example of this is beginning Chris’s journey at his college graduation.
The film did not go into depth about Chris’s childhood or life outside his journey for whatever reason; perhaps the direcntor foud these details unimportant, cut information for the sake of easing the process of making the film, or making the film more appealing to audiences. Penn also in his direction over-romanticized the relationship between Tracy Tatro and Chris McCandless. In the novel, Tracy was mentioned only once, and had very little proper interaction with Chris. Though in reality she had a crush on him at very most, she was depicted in the film as being in love with Chris to make the movie more interesting, relatable and appealing.
The difference between the novel and the film that I personally find the most interesting is how Christopher McCandless is depicted. In the novel, readers are introduced to a young man who was defiant from the start. Chris is described as a loner who drifted from place to place with little regard for the feelings of the people he encountered. He willingly walked out to meet his own death and isolated himself from all of his friends and family. Chris is much darker, edgy, and emotionally isolated.
In Sean Penn’s film, however, his story and personality are romanticized and he is depicted as a fairly kind, though maybe a bit aloof, individual who simply didn’t want to conform to social convention and wanted an escape from the underexamined life he was raised in. In both the film and novel adaptations, however, his death is a result of poor luck and poor judgement.However viewers and readers choose to see the enigmatic Christopher McCandless based on the novel or the film adaptation of his story, he is undeniably one of the most interesting adventurers in modern North American history; and regardless of whether one sees him as a reckless egotist or a hopeless romantic shrouded in mystery, Chris will remain an influential and fascinating enigma in the media for some time to come.
