Into the Mind of Chris McCandless?

   Last night, I watched Into the Wild: the Sean Penn version. Before we began to watch, Sarah "QT" E told Jackie and me that she had discussed the movie with her dad after he watched it on his own. He commented that in the book it was uncertain as to what caused Chris to die, except for a few speculations. In Penn's adaptation, the poisionous potato seeds were 100% at fault in his death. The movie started in images of Chris McCandless, (played by Emile Hirsch), exploring "unknown" territory, clearly loving it. Not too long after the movie had begun, we made a realization. Mr. Bolos and Mr. O'Connor had chosen not to show the film in our class because they didn't like it, especially Mr. O'Connor, (as Mr. Bolos stated). They didn't go into a lengthy explanation of why they didn't like it but mostly blamed it on the fact that Krakauer, the narrator and a potent voice in the book, was absent in the entirety of the movie. But the three of us, watching the movie, also realized that the portrayel of Chris, though very realistic and believable, may not have been the real Chris at all. Since McCandless's tragic life wasn't well-known until after he died, Krakauer had to base his portrayel of Chris solely off of what people told him in interviews or what he had determined from artifacts of Chris's life. In the book, it is clear to the reader that we will never really know who Chris was or how he acted during that time of his life where he was alone in the wild. But in the movie, choices must obviously be made about the character, and these choices may be completely off-base. I did like the movie in terms of plot, character development, ups and downs, and all of the typical factors of a good movie, but I now see what Bolos and O'Connor were talking about. It would be nearly impossible to make a movie out of a book in which the main character, (other than Krakauer), is an ambiguous figure.
   In class this past week, we have been discussing the specific words selected in textbooks, and what is the meaning behind them. We studied an article in a certain textbook in which the Native Americans were clearly portrayed as the vitcims and the "white settlers" as vicious, violent, beings. No matter how unbiased texbook editors and authors want to be, ultimately, their opinion will always show through.
   It is apparent in the matter of Sean Penn's Into the Wild, that even he could not help himself in his bias. He made Chris's parents look like they were entirely to blame for Chris rebelling against them by showing a scene in the movie in which they fought violently. Penn obviously had his own strong opinions about things when writing the screenplay. Not only did he have to deal with his own views, but he also had to worry about the views of the audience who would watch this movie. I believe that the movie only highlighted the beautiful and heroic parts of Chris's journey, in order to appease the typical American audience. We can never assume that a piece of literature or art is unbiased, or true.