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What can I say about this movie? It's simply a classic and a must see movie.
Chris McCandless, in front of the bus in which he died
Here's a little story how they found his body.
Death of an Innocent
More than four months passed before Gallien heard anything more of the hitchhiker. His real name turned out to be Christopher J.McCandless. He was the product of a happy family from an affluent suburb of Washington, D.C. And although he wasn't burdened with a surfeit of common senseand possessed a streak of stubborn idealism that did not readily mesh with the realities of modern life, he was no psychopath. McCandless was in fact an honorsgraduate of Emory University, an accomplished athlete, and a veteran of several solo excursions into wild, inhospitable terrain.
An extremely intense young man, McCandless had been captivated by the writing of Leo Tolstoy. He particularly admired the fact that the great novelist hadforsaken a life of wealth and privilege to wander among the destitute. For several years he had been emulating the count's asceticism and moral rigor to adegree that astonished and occasionally alarmed those who knew him well. When he took leave of James Gallien, McCandless entertained no illusions that he wastrekking into Club Med; peril, adversity, and Tolstoyan renunciation were what he was seeking. And that is precisely what he found on the Stampede Trail, inspades.
For most of 16 weeks McCandless more than held his own. Indeed, were it not for one or two innocent and seemingly insignificant blunders he would have walkedout of the Alaskan woods in July or August as anonymously as he walked into them in April. Instead, the name of Chris McCandless has become the stuff oftabloid headlines, and his bewildered family is left clutching the shards of a fierce and painful love.
On the northern margin of the Alaska Range, just before the hulking escarpments of Denali and its satellites surrender to the low Kantishna plain, a series oflesser ridges known as the Outer Ranges sprawls across the flats like a rumpled blanket on an unmade bed. Between the flinty crests of the two outermost OuterRanges runs an east-west trough, maybe five miles across, carpeted in a boggy amalgam of muskeg, alder thickets, and scrawny spruce. Meandering through thistangled, rolling bottomland is the Stampede Trail, the route Chris McCandless followed into the wilderness.
Twenty or so miles due west of Healy, not far from the boundary of Denali National Park, a derelict bus-a blue and white, 1940s-vintage International from theFairbanks City Transit System-rusts incongruously in the fireweed beside the Stampede Trail. Many winters ago the bus was fitted with bedding and a crudebarrel stove, then skidded into the bush by enterprising hunters to serve as a backcountry shelter. These days it isn't unusual for nine or ten months topass without the bus seeing a human visitor, but on September 6, 1992, six people in three separate parties happened to visit it on the same afternoon,including Ken Thompson, Gordon Samel, and Ferdie Swanson, moose hunters who drove in on all-terrain vehicles.
When they arrived at the bus, says Thompson, they found "a guy and a girl from Anchorage standing 50 feet away, looking kinda spooked. A real bad smellwas coming from inside the bus, and there was this weird note tacked by the door." The note, written in neat block letters on a page torn from a novel byGogol, read: "S.O.S. I need your help. I am injured, near death, and too weak to hike out of here. I am all alone, this is no joke. In the name of God,please remain to save me. I am out collecting berries close by and shall return this evening. Thank you, Chris McCandless. August?"
The Anchorage couple had been too upset by the implications of the note to examine the bus's interior, so Thompson and Samel steeled themselves to take alook. A peek through a window revealed a .22-caliber rifle, a box of shells, some books and clothing, a backpack, and, on a makeshift bunk in the rear of thevehicle, a blue sleeping bag that appeared to have something or someone inside it.
"It was hard to be absolutely sure," says Samel. "I stood on a stump, reached through a back window, and gave the bag a shake. There wasdefinitely something in it, but whatever it was didn't weigh much. It wasn't until I walked around to the other side and saw a head sticking out that Iknew for certain what it was." Chris McCandless had been dead for some two and a half weeks.
http://outside.away.com/outside/features/1993/1993_into_the_wild_2.htmlto read some more.
Chris McCandless, in front of the bus in which he died
Here's a little story how they found his body.
Death of an Innocent
More than four months passed before Gallien heard anything more of the hitchhiker. His real name turned out to be Christopher J.McCandless. He was the product of a happy family from an affluent suburb of Washington, D.C. And although he wasn't burdened with a surfeit of common senseand possessed a streak of stubborn idealism that did not readily mesh with the realities of modern life, he was no psychopath. McCandless was in fact an honorsgraduate of Emory University, an accomplished athlete, and a veteran of several solo excursions into wild, inhospitable terrain.
An extremely intense young man, McCandless had been captivated by the writing of Leo Tolstoy. He particularly admired the fact that the great novelist hadforsaken a life of wealth and privilege to wander among the destitute. For several years he had been emulating the count's asceticism and moral rigor to adegree that astonished and occasionally alarmed those who knew him well. When he took leave of James Gallien, McCandless entertained no illusions that he wastrekking into Club Med; peril, adversity, and Tolstoyan renunciation were what he was seeking. And that is precisely what he found on the Stampede Trail, inspades.
For most of 16 weeks McCandless more than held his own. Indeed, were it not for one or two innocent and seemingly insignificant blunders he would have walkedout of the Alaskan woods in July or August as anonymously as he walked into them in April. Instead, the name of Chris McCandless has become the stuff oftabloid headlines, and his bewildered family is left clutching the shards of a fierce and painful love.
On the northern margin of the Alaska Range, just before the hulking escarpments of Denali and its satellites surrender to the low Kantishna plain, a series oflesser ridges known as the Outer Ranges sprawls across the flats like a rumpled blanket on an unmade bed. Between the flinty crests of the two outermost OuterRanges runs an east-west trough, maybe five miles across, carpeted in a boggy amalgam of muskeg, alder thickets, and scrawny spruce. Meandering through thistangled, rolling bottomland is the Stampede Trail, the route Chris McCandless followed into the wilderness.
Twenty or so miles due west of Healy, not far from the boundary of Denali National Park, a derelict bus-a blue and white, 1940s-vintage International from theFairbanks City Transit System-rusts incongruously in the fireweed beside the Stampede Trail. Many winters ago the bus was fitted with bedding and a crudebarrel stove, then skidded into the bush by enterprising hunters to serve as a backcountry shelter. These days it isn't unusual for nine or ten months topass without the bus seeing a human visitor, but on September 6, 1992, six people in three separate parties happened to visit it on the same afternoon,including Ken Thompson, Gordon Samel, and Ferdie Swanson, moose hunters who drove in on all-terrain vehicles.
When they arrived at the bus, says Thompson, they found "a guy and a girl from Anchorage standing 50 feet away, looking kinda spooked. A real bad smellwas coming from inside the bus, and there was this weird note tacked by the door." The note, written in neat block letters on a page torn from a novel byGogol, read: "S.O.S. I need your help. I am injured, near death, and too weak to hike out of here. I am all alone, this is no joke. In the name of God,please remain to save me. I am out collecting berries close by and shall return this evening. Thank you, Chris McCandless. August?"
The Anchorage couple had been too upset by the implications of the note to examine the bus's interior, so Thompson and Samel steeled themselves to take alook. A peek through a window revealed a .22-caliber rifle, a box of shells, some books and clothing, a backpack, and, on a makeshift bunk in the rear of thevehicle, a blue sleeping bag that appeared to have something or someone inside it.
"It was hard to be absolutely sure," says Samel. "I stood on a stump, reached through a back window, and gave the bag a shake. There wasdefinitely something in it, but whatever it was didn't weigh much. It wasn't until I walked around to the other side and saw a head sticking out that Iknew for certain what it was." Chris McCandless had been dead for some two and a half weeks.
http://outside.away.com/outside/features/1993/1993_into_the_wild_2.htmlto read some more.
