How Krakauer Portrays The Story of Christopher McCandless - Our Sample Paper

How Krakauer Portrays The Story of Christopher McCandless - Our Sample Paper How Krakauer Portrays The Story of Christopher McCandless Our Sample Paper Biographies have never been fully impartial. Even if the author intends to bring out absolute objectivity, the diction or mode of presentation would inherently have an effect on how the reader perceives the subject. In “Into the wild” even the author Krakauer admits that there is a less but impartial side to the story he tells about McCandless. For instance, just because Krauker sees various similarities between him and McCandless, he makes several assumptions about the character of subject that might actually not be. Kraukauer brings the subject out as a very compassionate person, something that constitutes the enigmatic portion of the whole story. This is seen for instance where the author says that McCandless spent his high school weekend nights feeding the poor people with burger. However, when he eventually went into college, he is brought as a less compassionate person because he could not stand up for his parents. This is because he went ahead with his adventurous travels without regard to their concern for his safety. Knowing that their son was out there in the wild shattered their well being. However, because his compassion comes out me, this instance of ignoring his parents’ happiness could be understood to mean that his compassion had boundaries. Kraukauer brings out McCandless as a round character that despite having various positive traits equally has flaws. The roundness of his character is also brought out when his strength of character is seen to sometimes work against him. Conje cture has been used to bring out McCandless’ dynamic nature because the Alaska trip transformed him in a way that he would have rejoined the society and his family and fit within the ‘normal’ circumstances as they are. McCandless’ quest for the ultimate freedom can easily be seen as an act of selfishness because Krakauer brought this out in such a way that there are instances McCandless does not act for the community but to satisfy himself and his desires. However because the ultimate freedom is about personal decision for others, it is not proper to look at the acts of Krakauer through the eyes of the public yet the decision is supposed to be intrinsic. The author brings out McCandless and his father as very strong willed people. McCandless realized that the father was not worthy of exercising authority over him and he made a decision to make it an arbitrary power that he could challenge. Using the Datsun car that McCandless had, the author symbolically used it to bring out McCandless’ interpersonal relationship. The author appears to hold that McCandless was a friendly and jolly person with people he liked but could not hesitate to cut links with persons he deemed to run counter to his belief s. He refused to change his Datsun even when the parents to buy him a new car but did not hesitate to abandon the car when it developed mechanical problems. This is the same way he loved his parents but never hesitated to chart a different path when he thought they were out to stand on his way to achieving the desires of his heart. Finally, despite the story of McCandless ending up tragically, Krakauer makes the reader believe that the tragedy was actually a mistake and that McCandless died at a time when he needed to live more. He makes the death of McCandless a devastating event to an otherwise admirable and passionate person who lived according to his principles of life. The author presents Chris as a young man who loathed materialism and went against the grain to live a life he understood best in what appears to be a cautionary tale. The book and the film stay close to each other in terms of the theme but with similarities and slight differences. In the book, the movements of McCandless are traced from the memories of different individuals who interacted with him along the routes. In Penn’s film, these interactions are now brought out in typical performance where the interactions are ‘realized’. In the film, it is not description anymore as it is possible to view the fascinating and breathtaking scene s of Alaska and McCandless’ face is seen beaming up with joy and happiness. These are feelings that were not easy to bring out in the book.  In the book, it is easy to assume that McCandless was a hero of soughts who was welcome by everyone throughout his adventures. From the film, the viewer can see clearly there are those who equally despised McCandless and even thought he had a mental condition worth psychiatric interventions. Kraukauer’s book appears to detail and examine the life of McCandle while Penn’s film appears to celebrate that life. The book looks at McCandless through the lens of the various people he interacted with and the author himself but the movie simply concentrate on McCandless and no other perspective. This means the film only has one voice while the book has a multiplicity of voices and perspectives. The book also starts from the very beginning and details how McCandless was always against authority. The film on the other end is depicted from the perspe ctive of McCandless and therefore leaves these earlier details out. From the perspective of Kraukauer, he even went with McCandless’ parents to where he died in the bus. This is ostensibly omitted in the film. The film succinctly brings out how McCandless departed from his normalcy to seek a life of freedom. The viewer is able to appreciate the moments of happiness as well as the sad times he experiences as he sought to battle civilization and personal development. He is a hero but this trait is tainted when he ate a poisonous potato, something that undermines his tramping goal. The setting of the film, the cinematography and acting [performances does a lot of justice to the film and acts as the pulling magnet to the audience. The scenes in the film especially the wilderness in Alaska, changes the moods of the viewer and one is able to transit through the different scenes with McCandless because they represent themes on display. Wide and focused camera angles are utilized to help in bringing out how immense a place is without having to take the less dominant snapshots of the place as would be the case in most instances. The cinematography also helps to bring out a nature versus a civilized development at the payphone booth scene. The music, angling and the lighting in the film confirms that indeed the spirit of McCandless was free and very happy to be in the wild. This is because the lighting is very bright, the music is clear, upbeat and loud. The scenery therefore depicts a searing impression that also encompasses McCandless’ odyssey. The cinematography syncs well with the setting to bring out a perfect correlation between the pictures displayed and the storyline. Conclusion Through the film “Into the wild”, the producer uses the sceneries, cinematography techniques, performance and characters to expose how McCandless veered off the normal life into a life driven by his quest for freedom and to follow his own paradigms of life. His decisions and consequences of the same inform the content of both the book and the film. Both the book and the film portray him as a hero only that the movie twists this a bit to give us a different perspective of the character. He is not a conformer to societal norms rather he seeks his own happiness even if it is selfishly as the book and the film hold. Penn worked well with powerful techniques to bring out the adventures of McCandless.