The Christopher McCandless's (Alexander Supertramp) bus

one thing that people aren't bringing into consideration is his family's past. they were messed up..and it messed him up. i for one do understand how it makes a person feel in this position, and if you pay any attention you'll get the gist of how much it affected him. he was lost in a world of people that only cared about money and power, there was no actual appreciation for life and love, and he saw things totally differently than they did. i think he knew there was more to life and wanted to prove that to himself. he was enlightened by his journey, i'm sure, and i admire his sense of reality.

I agree. Yes he should have prepared and yes had he done so he may have survived. But in a way his story wouldnt be as inspirational had he walked away from the situation. Anyone who has come from a difficult backround, has a keen appreciation of the outdoors and is a deep thinker can identify with Chris. Part of not preparing is part of the adventure.

Rather than focusing on what McCandless did not do to survive, one should focus on how he had taken this journey with minimal planning and yet learned a long the way traveling 3 states with less than basic supplies to survive. He donated all his money in this materialistic world. I am not making a god out of this man but call out to all critics to take a step out of their skin and empathize him as someone with a dysfunctional family that was able to mark his presence on this planet and chose to live life to the fullest as he wanted to. Many die not realizing their dreams....many.
It clearly shows from his journal that his broken family affected him a lot and needed to reach out....reach out not to people. He could have given up on building relationships with mankind through his journey but merely touch people with his presence in the moment. He could have been reaching out to nature to make a connection with himself on his self realization journey. Even in his dying moments was a self realization experience as he quoted, 'Happiness is only real when shared'.
To sum it all up, I thank Christopher McCandless for opening up peoples mind to living life to the fullest. His experience is shared to the world of followers to stop what their doing and think that life is too short to waste it. Make it meaning full to yourself.

Essentially he committed suicide. Had he really wanted to get out of there he could have just followed the river....everyone knows that a river will always lead somewhere. Maybe to a civilization or a camp of some kind. There was actually a bridge only a 1/4 of a mile down the river. There were also cabins stocked with survival gear within miles of the bus. Now the author and the director both claim that he accidentally poisoned himself. Why was nothing found in his tox report...the official cause of death was starvation. Many experts believe he was most likely in the beginning stages of bipolar syndrome or a skitzo.
Don't get me wrong I like the idea of romanticizing but we must be realisitic about this.

Wikipedia, among other sources, says that it was a hunting shelter. Another source says it was originally an Anchorage Public Transit bus, and that it was driven along the trail until it wiped out, and that became its' location. I remember seeing a TV show years and years ago which said that McCandless' family made an annual pilgrimage to stock the bus with emergency supplies for anyone else who found themselves in the same situation there. I have no idea if they still do so.

And while there are lots of romantics out there, the *reality* of so-called primitive camping is this: Plan, plan, PLAN! Lack of planning isn't part of an adventure in survival. It is inviting Death to take you. Death should never be teased, as it is all too easy even for the most prepared and bush smart.

Finally, keep this in mind: Anything you ever read about "Alexander Supertramp" will be someone's interpretation. Doubly so anything written by the talented Krakauer, and infinitely so by anything that has come from Hollywood. And even so from those who are against what he did and how he did it, let alone those supportive of it.

Correction: Fairbanks, not Anchorage. Sorry! *embarrassed*

THE CALL OF THE WILD [9 out of 10]

The short, controversial life of ‘spiritual voyager’ Christopher McCandless (1968-92) - focus of Jon Krakauer's 1996 book Into the Wild, recently filmed by Sean Penn's as a $15m narrative feature - is the subject of this top-notch documentary. Even audiences totally unfamiliar with McCandless's tragic, much-chronicled story will likely find themselves utterly absorbed by director/narrator/editor/cinematographer Lamothe's journey into his subject: a journey which is simultaneously geographical (he retraces McCandless's hobo-ish wanderings around the USA), philosophical (topically examining the nature of freedom in today's America) and bravely self-analytical - at several stages he measures himself against the ideals, achievements and inadequacies of his near-contemporary.

DV-camera-toting one-man-band Lamothe's proudly wayward path even crosses that of Penn and his elaborate production on several occasions - inadvertent intersections which amusingly cast Hollywood's notions of creative ‘independence’ in a savagely unflattering light. Frequently hilarious, consistently intelligent and, in the end, deeply moving, The Call of the Wild heralds the exciting arrival of a fresh and bold new voice in American non-fiction film.

--Neil Young
http://www.tifilms.com/index.htm

keep on rocking into the wild