Setting
All fiction – and this film, although telling a true story, is drama and not documentary and so is classed as fiction – needs a setting in time, in place and in society. Setting may also include mood and atmosphere.
As you answer the following questions, consider not just what you are shown, but HOW it is shown. A signifier is a visual short cut – any item that signals time or place (or character), e.g. a decorated tree is a signifier of Christmas; a white cane is a signifier of a blind person.
The decision was made early on in pre-production to shoot Chris McCandless's story as far as possible in the actual locations that things originally happened. IMDb.com lists 51 locations, all but two in USA. [List appended as extra]
In trying to capture the serene character of McCandless’s wanderlust, Penn decided that he had to retrace as much of McCandless’s two-year sojourn as possible, rather than try to shoot the movie in and around Utah, as was first considered. Producer Art Linson says he kept saying they could shoot a lot of this movie in one place, but that Penn felt it had to be in the exact spots where Chris really was. "For Sean, it was like, Even if the audience doesn’t know, I’ll know." – from the Production Notes
1. Setting is always important in film, but it is even more important than usual in this one. Why?
The story of Christopher McCandless is the story of a young man's reaction – some might say over-reaction – to what he saw as the inadequacies of his environment. He reacts against his social 'setting' and heads into a geographical setting that is radically different from his background. More than half of the film shows him reacting and responding to the setting, rather than interacting with other people.
2. What qualities do most of the different settings share?
They are mostly outdoors; they tend to be far from urban areas, with few if any other people; they are often wild places – mountainous, deserts, rivers – rather than ones that show the impact of human residency.
3. Where is Chris shown at his happiest? Why do these places make him happy?
Apart from South Dakota, where he is shown enjoying company as well as the work, and playing in the sea with Jan, he is usually shown at his happiest on his own. There is an ecstatic moment when he runs with wild horses.
He writes to Wayne, "I've decided I'm going to live this life for some time to come. The freedom and simple beauty of it is (sic) just too good to pass up."
Individual moments: talking to his apple, on the roof of the bus, on the hill with Ron Franz, in the sea with Jan, showering.
How do the camera and editing emphasise these feelings?
Chris's response to the outdoors is one almost of worship and the camera shows this. He is often shown simply enjoying the exhilaration of the outdoors: POV shots as he looks at the animals he encounters, and the magnificent landscapes. The landscapes mirror his mental states – rapturous and Elysian, though filled with hazard. Many WIDE shots, including ravishingly photographed Western and Alaskan vistas. ELS to show him tiny in the vast expanses.
Shots of wild animals, especially birds, symbolising freedom. This could be a cliché but it is done with such casual naturalness that it manages to avoid looking too Disney.
4. Where is he shown to be the least happy? How do the camera and editing underline this?
with his parents: in the restaurant; in flashbacks to childhood, shown huddling with Carine, often H/A, emphasising vulnerability.
in the city: the use of different speeds – he is at normal speed and everything else speeded up, to create a sense of dislocation and of panic. L/A of high rises. City also shown as grimy, ugly, the homeless on the streets etc
in offices where rules are enforced: National Park offices, Immigration office; the pictures of President George Bush, the uniforms
5. Briefly note the most important features of the Magic Bus and its environs, and comment on the effect these have on the central character.
Isolated – cut off by a large river; no links to the civilised world; snow-clad ranges. Wild animals: moose, caribou, wolves, eagles as well as smaller animals he is able to kill and eat. Cold – snow and ice abound; he needs his fur, has to melt snow for water.
Plenty of firewood. Later, wildflowers and foliage. The bus provides shelter but is bare, minimal comfort, some windows, a mattress, fire for warmth.
Initially he is somewhat downcast – too little game; then as things come right, he is exhilarated, revels in the sense of freedom and isolation. Gradually, however, he finds he too needs people.
Ä Choose one other significant location and do the same for it.
Time refers to both the historical time in which the story is set, and the length of time covered by the story. In the case of this story, the time setting is governed by the facts, and is spelled out in screen text.
However, the film was made nearly 20 years after the event, a situation fraught with difficulty for a low budget film. The IMDb.com website has a list of anachronisms – things that are shown in the film that did not actually exist at the time – such as the Burger King logo (introduced in 1999) or makes of cars not available then. In practice, few viewers notice these things – or care about them – unless they study the DVD film closely, and small budget productions like this one usually cannot afford to be as careful as they might like.
6. What signifiers locate the film in the early 1990s rather than now?
In fact, there is little that does so. Chris drives an old Datsun – but so do students today. Trucks and trains haven't changed that much; nor have clothes. No mobile phones or computers – but then he is moving in social circles where these would not be used anyway. In fact, only the two pictures of President Bush.
Society refers to the sorts of people in the story, the social situation and the socio-economic class of the characters, as well as to general state of society, to the general attitudes, beliefs and feelings operating within society, and how they directly or indirectly affect the world of the novel.
7. Is this a significant aspect of this film? Why / why not?
Chris's problems are with modern society – the people and the way we live rather than the places. Not just his family but the business and materialism underpinning society generally. He is against rules and regulations, with no care as to whether there might be good reasons for them. His choice of college papers shows he is concerned about poverty and racial injustice. He attempts to find a solution by leaving people behind but finds – too late – that there is no solution is isolation.
8. Briefly outline the social situation of each of the three main groups of people Chris encounters. What do they all have in common? What is significant about the way Chris responds to them?
They all live on the edge of or outside mainstream society. In one way the film is a celebration of fringe culture.
Rainey and Jan Burres – 'rubber tramps'. Like Chris, they have opted out and wander – but in a mobile home. They finance themselves via selling second-hand books, etc. Jan expresses concern at Chris's lack of 'caution'. They have found a way to compromise with the system and are able to survive on its fringe. They are part of a whole social stratum, as shown by the scenes set in Slab City. Chris enjoys their company, sees in Jan a mother-substitute for the one he has abandoned, and leaves them without a backward glance.
Ron Franz – a man who has suffered grievous loss in his personal life and never found an adequate substitute. His response has been to live alone and work. He is kind to Chris, and becomes very fond of him; he offers to adopt him. Chris has the temerity to lecture this decent old man – whom he also leaves without a backward glance.
Wayne Westerberg lives on the edge of society in another way, in his case on the edge of the law. Chris loves this casual and cheerful environment – though his innate Puritanism means he remains an observer rather than a participant. It is Wayne's arrest that is the impetus for his leaving here. [In fact, McCandless worked for Westerberg for two seasons; the film shows only one.]
Mood and Atmosphere
9. Does the setting contribute to mood and atmosphere? Give details.
The city scenes are filmed in such a way as to emphasise the sense of panic, of dislocation, of claustrophobia that Chris feels. Use of varying speeds shows Chris out of synch with the mood of the city. Contrast between wardrobes and cleanliness of the various city dwellers show Chris more at home among those who live on the streets than among the café crowd. But here he is one of many; dirty and scruffy in the wild, he is unique.
In contrast, the wide open expanses give a sense of freedom; Chris's running with the horses and his shooting the rapids create a mood of exhilaration.
The overwhelming mood of the natural setting, however, is one of indifference. The wild natural world is neither hostile nor benign – it simply is.
Nature in the raw is rarely shown in the movies to exist on its own account without an overt dramatic function. It exists in horror films and thrillers as the amoral or deceptively sweet-looking habitat of supernatural beasts or malevolent hillbillies. Solitude, likewise, is loaded with assumptions: the solitary character is a loser, a loner, a creep or a serial killer. But this picture lets nature simply be; it lets nothing happen, and does not insist on a dramatic storyline of depression or anger leading to McCandless's death. Peter Bradshaw, The Observer
10. One writer describes the setting of the film as taking Chris 'away from the conventions of his birthright and into a deep, deep wilderness that is both literal and ontological'. Explain what this means.
'the conventions of his birthright' refers to the usual way of life of his upbringing: family, money, education, career etc. Chris gives away and even burns his money; he tells people he has no family; he rejects the need for career and further education, and chooses to work as a labourer or not to work at all.
'both literal and ontological' – literal refers to the settings that really are wilderness: Alaska, but also parts of the desert and forested regions of USA. Ontology is a branch of metaphysics concerned with the nature and relations of being, the theory of objects and their ties. Chris is searching for his place in the world, for how and where he fits.
He goes into the literal wilderness in search of a spiritual and emotional truth for himself; he thinks he will find it by pitting himself, by testing himself, against the untamed natural world. The tragedy is that he finds his truth, he finds where he fits, when it is too late to get back. On another level, the wilderness can be seen as a metaphor for his state of mind, for his emotional confusion.
Discuss
Ä The popularity of the original book and now the film has caused some concern among tourism officials in Fairbanks, according to the local newspaper, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. Why might they be concerned?
Tourism officials worry that they may not be able to ensure the safety of tourists who come on their own looking for the abandoned bus where McCandless died. The remote site is 22 miles from the nearest road, out of cell phone range, reachable only by hiking the Stampede Trail and fording the Teklanika River.
Since the book was published in 1996, quite a few 'pilgrims' have visited the bus and made it an informal shrine, keeping everything there much as McCandless left it and adding their own written tributes.
The newspaper reports that Fairbanks tourism officials plan to include an article about the book, movie and trail in the 2008 visitors' guide, but that the article will include a cautionary note about potential dangers.
To make the movie, Sean Penn installed a replica of the bus in the Alaskan town of Cantwell, about 50 miles from where Chris McCandless died, and took some other liberties with the book. But not many. The movie is in most ways painstakingly faithful to McCandless’s story, and to how he must have seen Alaska. The film marshals an immense cast of wildlife, some trained, some not: eagles, moose, bears, reindeer, wolves, bugs and even maggots.
From the beginning Penn was determined that the movie needed to be shot entirely on location. With breaks because of weather and for Emile Hirsch to diet, filming took eight months. The crew in effect retraced McCandless’s journey, travelling to the Gulf of California; to Carthage, N.D., where McCandless worked for a while harvesting grain; to the Grand Canyon; the Arizona desert; the Salton Sea in the California desert; and a weird place known as the Slabs, near Niland, Calif., where drifters and wanderers live on the concrete foundations of an abandoned airbase.
There are documentary-like scenes of threshers harvesting wheat, of cars barrelling past on the highway, of trains clanking through rail yards. More even than the book, the movie takes on the quality of the epic American road trip – of Steinbeck and Kerouac discovering the heartland – and Penn and his crew appear to have caught the bug themselves.
Penn also did a lot of his own camera work, standing waist deep in water sometimes, and the look of Into the Wild, whose cinematographer was Eric Gautier, owes something to two Penn mentors, Terrence Malick (who directed him in The Thin Red Line) and Clint Eastwood ( who directed him in Mystic River).