Jon krakauer's <In to the Wild> - Essay Example

The film is very cinematic, portraying the vast wilderness spaces that Chris inhabited along his way. While the film tries to give a sense of what Chris knew and experienced, it is sometimes difficult to separate how Chris might have felt about nature as compared to how the film-makers felt about their location shots. However, by examining the film very carefully, it is possible to discern that Chris's attitude toward nature was like nature itself - changing. At the beginning of the film, Chris seems very idealistic about nature, considering it to be benevolent and nurturing as compared to the soul-killing forces of the city.

At times, he seems to consider it more of a backdrop to feed his thirst for adventure and self-discovery, overcoming the challenges nature presents as the process through which that discovery is made. However, in the end, he seems to come back to his original impression that nature is good, but it is a much more mature understanding of it as simply truth. In the beginning of the film, Chris seems to view nature as a saving space, the only place he can go where he can escape the hypocrisy and disappointments of life.

The film tries to establish Chris's attitude toward nature with the beginning quote from Lord Byron in which he loves "not man the less, but Nature more." While Chris eagerly makes his way to the Alaskan wilderness, excited to come face to face with this benevolent nature he's idealized in his mind, the filmmakers show the audience a very harsh and unforgiving landscape covered in snow and sparse scrub grass. An empty wind sounds through the speakers as snow drifts over the mountains and white clouds drift through the empty sky.

Chris, however, is happy to be out there, hunting game on his first day and winning himself a small meal of squirrel or rabbit as he warms up from his wet river crossing. As difficult as it is for him to get through nature to a place of shelter, a manmade abandoned bus, Chris clearly sees nature as amazing and beautiful. He cries at the beautiful sight of a herd of elk, considers there to be an unspoken rule of nature when he refuses to kill the mother once he sees her calf. Throughout most of the film, Chris revels in the scenery that surrounds him in the various places he goes, further emphasizing that he sees nature as benevolent.

This is clear in many places in the film when he stands on top of mountains and opens himself up to the skies, but there is another place where his appreciation of nature's benevolence and nurturing qualities are highlighted. This is when he is staying in South Dakota, learning how to run the combine in the field. Wayne Westerberg (Vince Vaughn) keeps telling him to watch and keep the machine running straight, but Chris, calling himself Alex, keeps getting lost in the beauty of the day. In his conversations with Wayne, he very clearly reveals the degree to which he idolizes nature, romanticizing being out there in the wild, living in the moment and causing Wayne, and many other characters, to warn him to take caution.

At the same time that he sees nature as benevolent and nurturing, and perhaps because this is how he sees it, Chris often also tends to use nature as a backdrop to satisfy his own need for self-discovery. Taming nature or at least overcoming the challenges she places before him is the process through which this