Nature and Wilderness

 Into the Wild (2007)

The movie Into the Wild is the true story of Christopher McCandless and his journey to Alaska. He grew up with very wealthy parents and he went to Emory University where he was a top student and athlete. While his parents wanted him to go to law school, he had dreams of living off the land in the middle of Alaska. He took lots of classes focusing on global social consciousness so he had a different social construct of nature. He truly valued the wilderness and he wanted to "be free" from society. McCandless donated his money to charity, got rid of his belongings and set off on his adventure. It took him over 2 years to finally get to Alaska where he lived out of an abandoned van where he eventually died. He journaled during the whole process and that he how we know of his story.

All 3 movies show how different groups of people viewed nature and the wilderness very similarly but at different degrees. Never Cry Wolf shows how we can learn from our environment and animals. Tyler was sent out to the Arctic to study wolfs and how they are surviving without the caribou in the area. He was expecting to find some sort of mass murderer who has been killing the caribou population, but he did not find that at all. He sees how the wolves have adapted to their environment and now hunt mice for food. To really get immersed in his research, Tyler starts to eat mice for every meal to be like one of them. He soon realizes that humans have more of a negative impact on the land and the wolves who has a large role in the Arctic. 

Comparing this to Into the Wild, humans have an impact on our environment whether they are out friends and family or complete strangers. McCandless' family and friends did not want him to set out on his great adventure to Alaska, but he went anyway. In order to help him get to Alaska, he worked odd end jobs for strangers to get money and food. After 2 years of making his way up North, he finally reaches the Alaskan wilderness and coincidently finds an abandoned bus to live in. During these 2 years, he journals and really reflects on what life is really about. All of his writing related back to the wilderness and how humans need to connect with it. For example, he wrote "You are wrong if you think joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has places it all around us. It is everything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living." He wants people to realize that there is more to life than just have human connections. People need to get out and get lost in the wilderness in order to find true joy and to find out who they really are.

The movie Night Moves takes preserving the wilderness to an extreme. A group of 3 people set out to blow up a dam because they fill that technology has taken over agriculture and no one has been listening to their protests on protecting the land. The film does not focus on the actual event of bombing the dam, it really drags out the process of getting the supplies and planning the "attack" and then finally the backlash and result from the bombing. While the group thought that they were doing something good for the Earth, they ended up killing a person in the process. The guilt, sorrow, and fear the group had after the fact was overwhelming to the point where one of the characters had to run away and change his name and essentially start over. That is very similar to what McCandless did when he set out to Alaska. He did not want any of his family to find his, so he changed his name to Alexander Supertramp. On his adventure, he is so caught up in the wonderlust of the wilderness in Alaska which ultimately leads to his death. His desire to be free from society and to fulfill that freedom is what's driving him to the wilderness. While he has this goal, it leads him to a slow and painful death due to starvation. Both films show the build up of the goal than actually focusing on that goal the entire time.

Ovall, all of the films show how people value the wilderness and nature. We can learn a lot from our everyday surroundings, but actually getting out and experiencing the outdoors can be good for the soul. As McCandless wrote, "The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure" and I think that it's true. People get excited about experiencing new things and nature is full of unknowns. That is why people are so drawn to it.

Off the Road (Roget Ebert)

Following his Trail to Danger and Joy (New York Times)