In Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild, Christopher McCandless is not drawn into the materialistic aspect of life but rather intrigued by the course of nature and exploring it alone. McCandless is brought up in a wealthy family, but he does not entirely depend on his parents financially. When he graduates from college, his parents offer to get him a better car for example, but he insists on keeping his old one. He leaves his home and donates all the money he had to charity. His plan was to make his way to Alaska, living off the bare minimum. In the film Into the Wild directed by Sean Penn, distributed by Paramount Vantage in 2007 and starring Emile Hirsch, Christopher McCandless is portrayed as a young adult except the fact that he is not materialistic by which of means of having unnecessary accessories. The movie attempts to follow the similar path that McCandless took to get to Alaska. His parents try desperately to locate McCandless, but he throws away all his identification cards and only holds onto a little cash. While the protagonists in each have similar faith in the end, ultimately the book holds truth that discovering oneself in the wild is necessary and the movie is foreseen as a man who is crazy enough to go to Alaska. 

In the book each paragraph opens with an epigraph that contains the theme for that on chapter and sometimes it is letters that McCandless sent to his friends. The epigraphs sometimes contain excerpts from several people McCandless looks up to. Chapter one opens with McCandless sending Wayne a letter. McCandless told him to return all mail to the sender and said "I now walk into the wild. Alex (Krakauer 3). Krakauer made each chapter have a theme and it allows the reader to transition easily to where McCandless is at and who he met.  

In the film everything that helped create McCandless's story is excluded. Specifically regarding the interviews with the people who found McCandless's body and Krakauer's experience helped the audience view the progression of McCandless's character. In the movie, the viewpoint comes from either Chris or Carine McCandless, which takes away from the original story. The book allowed for the people to develop a sense of McCandless's character and adventure to Alaska. The use of information from the people he had met on the way adds detail to how McCandless's character grew from the beginning until the end. The film ends with McCandless dying but does not show the people coming to the magic bus and discovering the decomposing body of his. Krakauer's addition of information provides significant detail of McCandless's death which defies the meaning of McCandless's adventure to find himself. 

Throughout the book McCandless's journal entries and quotes that he admires, transitions the chapter into the next. Each epigraph provides a preview of what is going to happen and explains McCandless's beliefs. McCandless agrees with Roderick Nash that, "wilderness appealed to those bored or disgusted with man and his works" (Krakauer 157).  The reason McCandless wanted to go to Alaska was to escape society's materialistic view. He did not want to fall in the pretence that having more means being better off in life. 

In the film, McCandless's sister, Carine, narrates the transition from scene to scene.  Carine McCandless's hatred for her parents was not as significantly clear in the book as it is in the movie. Her voice adds to the movie by providing her input of how much she cares for her brother. Particularly her concern is noted in the scene when she hopes that her brother is in somebody's kitchen cabinet getting into a cookie jar. Carine said that her parents were concerned where he had been but she hoped he was on another cookie jar adventure. 

The use of a split screen in the film clarifies what McCandless's parents emotional stability is when they find out that their son no longer lives at his apartment and begin to realize that he is gone. It shows his parents being upset meanwhile he is having an adventure getting to Alaska. The use of the split screen helps to see how long he has been missing. Throughout the film there are flashbacks to when he was younger but they are grainy. The grainy look to the memories helps to understand that McCandless is moving forward in life and wants to find himself. 

In the scene where Ron Franz says he wanted to adopt McCandless, the camera zooms into both of their faces. The camera zooms into Ron's tear as it rolls down his cheek. The use of the camera angles help to stimulate emotion and sympathy for Ron because he truly cares for McCandless. In the same way the camera angle zooms into Tracy face as she has the connection with McCandless. The camera angle shows her viewpoint and that she is intrigued by who he is. In the book, McCandless ignores Tracy and seems indifferent about her, but in the film there seems to be a love connection. The camera tends to alternate from his viewpoint to hers as they have a silent connection. 

The film contains a lot of music that contributes to set the mood to each scene. The soundtrack is upbeat to match McCandless successfulness as he surpasses an obstacle to get to Alaska. The music is acoustic and has a guitar base which pairs off well because it associates McCandless's independence from his parents, and the freedom of acoustic music if free of a band.  The movie eliminated music to resemble the simplicity of nature and the fact that McCandless is isolated from communication. When he first discovers the bus, there is no music to resemble the isolation that McCandless is in. The only time he communicates is on his way to Alaska, but when he gets there he is abandoned in silence. In the book the struggle for survival is vivid in detail likewise in the film the moose scene was critical to understand that he was racing against time to preserve the meat. 

In the book Krakauer explained that the backpack McCandless was carrying appeared, "to weigh only twenty  -- five or thirty pounds, which struck Gallien as an improbably light load (Krakauer 4).  Gallien knew that McCandless could not possibly make it out alive from the wild with so little essentials. The description that Krakauer uses when Gallien first meets McCandless, provides the reader the intention that McCandless was careless and unprepared to step into the wild. He did not have a lot of stuff but that was what McCandless intended to do. He wanted to let go the materialist view that society had implemented on him. 

The use of natural lighting in the scenes allows the audience to get a sense of the weather in Alaska. McCandless appears to not struggle much when he first steps into the wild, but soon he finds himself with less than half a bag of rice. He attempts to cross the river again but could not because during that the time of year the river was at its greatest strength and was forced to return to shelter at the bus. After he fails to cross the weather that seemed to have treated him fairly soon turns into gloomy and rainy weather. It foreshadows the end coming to McCandless if he cannot find food in time. He spent his time researching edible plants in case he had no other source of food but results in eating the wrong plant. In the book Krakauer explains how the effects of poisoning by mold had led to McCandless's death because no matter how much food he consumed, McCandless was bound to starve (192). 

In the book McCandless has grown weak and cannot find any source of food. He writes in his journal, "BUT IN WEAKEST CONDITION OF LIFE; DEATH LOOMS AS SERIOUS THREAT (Krakauer 195)." The temperature is dropping and so is his body temperature because he has no source of heat. He would soon die from starvation and hypothermia. He noted that he had "beautiful blueberries" and that was his last entry before leaving a note on the back of  "Wise Men in Their Bad Hours", that read "I HAVE HAD A HAPPY LIFE AND THANK THE LORD; GOODBYE AND MY GOD BLESS ALL (Krakauer 199)." McCandless had the best life when he escaped from society and arrived in Alaska. 

At the end of the movie when McCandless is struggling to survive the camera movement begins to shift slowly to resemble his state of being. He is desperate for food so he begins to pick berries but he struggles to carry the bucket because he is weak. As he looks up to the sky he starts to have quick breaths and then lets out his last. At that moment the sky opens up and light shines on his face.  The notion of bright light is God. This scene has a lot of theatric to it that really get a reaction from the audience. The breaths grow louder and the view is on McCandless. The scene is peaceful in the sense that McCandless got what he desired and that was to be in Alaska. 

In all the film and book captured McCandless journey to Alaska. The people he met along the way really added the idea that McCandless was a good person and he could make friends easily. In the film he was portrayed as a boy and not his age. Many of the people he met thought he was crazy for desiring to live in the wild. There were scenes where McCandless was talking to himself and it made him appear insane. In the book the intent of his journey to Alaska was to be accepted into society but he had to find himself and not be materialistic like everyone else. The natural lighting helped established the weather McCandless encountered and the crane shots helped set the setting of where in Alaska he would step into the wild. 

