Into The Wild, The Call of the Wild, Christopher McCandless and Why I Don't Blog Much Anymore

Into The Call Of The Wild - Warning - Some Movie Spoilers Are Contained

Ok.  I feel a rant coming on.  Let me just start out by saying the last time I posted a book review, and later found out there were some, um... "inconsistencies" with what the author had written as part of a "memoir" and what his subjects felt about what he had written about them, I went back and reposted a short paragraph on my thoughts about truth in non-fiction.  I got a very long email (lightning-fast - we're talking less than 18 hours after my little paragraph was posted here on Blogsboro) from the author himself defending his work vigorously and expressing his disappointment in what I had written (which was, after all, opinion).  Curiously, received no email from the author when I initially wrote a favorable review of his book, only when I posted a small negative paragraph.  Then, one of my favorite restaurants that I blogged about, Panizzo, closed down.  Since then, I've been a little burned out on blogging in general, especially reviews about media, i.e., film and books, and restaurants.  Plus I have a new job, that, like Billy's, takes a lot of my time and energy.  Anyway...

Here's one I just can't help.  Into The Wild.  Heard  what a great film it was. Wanted to see it on the big screen.  Saw that it won scads of awards.  So, when it came out on Netflix, we rented it.  The cinematography is beautiful, it is well-acted, and captivating.  Makes you want to learn more about this Christopher McCandless person who walked into the wild in Alaska after graduating from college, burned his money, gave over $24,000 of his college fund to OxFam America, and decided to live off the land and eat nuts and berries, so to speak.

So, God bless Wikipedia, there's the entry.  And in comes the controversy.  And another documentary, The Call of the Wild , not available on Netflix, so I shelled out the $30 to buy it from the documentary filmmaker, Ron Lamothe.  A $30 well-spent.

Into The Wild is a beautiful movie, but after watching The Call of the Wild, I would have to say that there's a lot of fictional license used by Mr. Penn, the director, and Mr. Krakauer, the writer, who originally wrote the book, Into the Wild.  In the movie, McCandless is romanticized and nearly glorified for his bravery, his wanting to live on the fringes of life, and lose himself.  But the sticking point for me is the cause of his death.  Krakauer wrote in his book that McCandless starved to death due to eating poisonous seeds which cause starvation.  Penn plays this up in the movie.  People (smart people who work in labs) at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks who did research on the very seeds found at McCandless' site of death concluded this could not be possible.

An excerpt, ladies and gentlemen, from the section of Ron Lamothe's website page entitled Into The Wild Debunked (a good read, highly recommended):

"Chris McCandless did not die as the result of eating a poisonous plant or 'moldy seeds.'

H. alpinum seeds provided to Dr. Clausen
by Jon Krakauer

As far back as 1997, Dr. Thomas Clausen—the biochemist at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, who examined the wild potato plant (Hedysarum alpinum) for Jon Krakauer—concluded after exhaustive testing that no part of H. alpinum is toxic. Neither the roots nor the seeds. Accordingly, McCandless could not have poisoned himself in the way suggested by Krakauer in his 1996 book Into the Wild, and in every subsequent reprinting of the book over the next decade. Likewise, Dr. Clausen’s analysis of the wild sweet pea (Hedysarum mackenzii)—given as the cause of Chris’s death in the current Sean Penn film—has also turned up no toxic compounds, and there is not a single account in modern medical literature of anyone ever being poisoned by this species of plant. Moreover, Penn’s on-screen excerpt from the ethno-botany guide Chris was using, indicating otherwise, is a complete fiction, for all that this plant lore text actually states is that the wild sweet pea “is reported to be poisonous” (Tanaina Plantlore, Priscilla Russell Kari, p. 128). The rest of it is simply made up. And so, even if McCandless made a mistake of botany, something that even Krakauer claims is unlikely, he would not have been poisoned as it is portrayed in the Penn film. Indeed, the author of Into the Wild is right on the mark when he states: “For three weeks beginning on June 24, McCandless had dug and safely eaten dozens of wild potato roots without mistaking H. mackenzii for H. alpinum; why on July 14, when he started gathering seeds instead of roots, would he suddenly have confused the two species?” A good question for Sean Penn."  End quote.

Since Budd and I are avid documentary film watchers (and, hopefully before our lives are over, documentary filmmakers), we really loved  The Call of the Wild.  It presents McCandless in a more accurate way, neither demonizing him, as many Alaskans do (and understandably so) for his ill-preparedness to survive in such harsh conditions, nor lionizing him, as Penn's film does, for being a Gen X hero.  Don't misunderstand me - the Penn film is beautifully shot, interesting to watch, but what kills it for me (no pun intended) is at the end SPOILER ALERT DO NOT READ FURTHER IF YOU WANT TO SEE THE FILM FOR YOURSELF....it perpetuates the untruth that McCandless perished due to eating poisonous seeds, something that Jon Krakauer, the author of the book upon which Penn's film is based, now claims is unlikely (although his book has not been updated to reflect as such).  So, I have to vote for what appears to be the truth over a "docudrama".  Plus, the fact that Penn and crew apparently tried to block Ron Lamothe's documentary because, coincidentally, they were filming at the same time and in some of the same locations, was a bit disconcerting to me.  But, hasn't Sean Penn always been disconcerting to me?  Hmmm.

Filmmaker Ron Lamothe at the bus where McCandless lived and diedThanks, Ron Lamothe.  We enjoyed your film quite a lot, and are happy we purchased it.  We encourage others to do likewise if you are interested in this fascinating story of Christopher McCandless, aka Alex Supertramp, and truth versus fiction.

As Thoreau said (which was a favorite author of McCandless himself), "Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth."  Wonder if Penn missed that quote along the way.