The wild is generally regarded as vast, and oftentimes, scary because of unknown features, inhabitants and the lack of comforts that humans today are used to. This connotation for the wild deters many from venturing out without many supplies, and tracking devices. Practically speaking, it would make sense to bring as much technology along when venturing into the wild. The opposite was true for Chris McCandless, or as some knew him, Alexander Supertramp. McCandless was a young adventurous twenty two year old who set out on his own after graduating college. McCandless had an idea in his head that he was going to go to Alaska and fend for himself in the wild. He had no help, no contact with the outside world, the only record of his time in the Alaskan bush were diary entries he wrote to chronicle his time there. McCandless's time on earth was tragically cut short in the wild, and he was found in an abandoned bus that had been converted into a shelter by moose hunters weeks after he had passed. The events leading up to the discovery of McCandless body fascinated author Jon Krakauer and inspired him to write a book compiled with interviews and letters with people that McCandless crossed paths with along his journey. A movie was created shortly after by Sean Penn that depicted the events that unfolded in Krakaur's book. Both the book and the movie portray the same facts of McCandless's story, but each do so in a unique and powerful way. Sean Penn uses the juxtaposition of wide sweeping shots of a landscape featuring a small McCandless by comparison and close up shots of only a person's face to describe feelings and emotions in the characters. Krakauer uses flashbacks and personal stories to try and connect with the audience as Penn does so seamlessly in the film.

Into the Wild is a film that starts off much like the book, in the middle of the action. The first shot that the viewer sees of McCandless is a bird's eye view of him getting out of a truck and walking into the woods and snow where there is nothing else. This shot does three things: It makes McCandless appear incredibly small and vulnerable; it sets up the wild that he is heading into as a giant, vast space, too large and cumbersome to be concurred and it shows that McCandless is not afraid, he bravely walks into this unknown place, surefooted and without hesitation. The viewer is unable to see his face, or any defining features, only his coat and giant backpack that help to dwarf him can be distinguished. McCandless appears as just a little speck, beginning a trek into the wild by himself and ill-equipped. Showing McCandless so small right off the bat causes the viewer to automatically think of him as a victim; too small to do anything about his fate that they knew was coming. It almost seems as though he walks into the wild with his head held high and without hesitation because he knows what he wants to do with this next part of his life: be at peace in a place that he has dreamed about for years.

Another instance of this wide angle shot of landscapes is when McCandless is training and exploring along the Grand Canyon and also while he is exploring in the forest. McCandless stands still in these shots as the camera zooms farther and farther out, until McCandless is just a stagnant dot among the beautiful, vast landscapes surrounding him. These scenes perpetuate the image of McCandless that is tiny and weak but the fact that he is training in the moments before show him attempting to survive and lead a life that will not only be healthy, but also active and long. This contradicts the first scene where McCandless seems to accept his fate. In the forest and the canyon shots, McCandless remains heavily lit with almost a godlike aura of light around him, this contributes to the idea that he wanted to survive anything and that he could. 

An additional tool that Penn uses in his movie is the extremely close up shots on the faces of the characters who talk to McCandless and McCandless himself when they are feeling emotionally vulnerable and bring the viewer into their eyes. The camera is almost always shaky in these Shots and the shakiness is representative of all the emotions that are bubbling to the surface as they interact with the fascinating person that is McCandless, or alexander Supertramp as most of the people on his journey knew him. When McCandless leaves the slabs, the camera zooms in on the girl that he has befriended and the audience sees her struggling with this pain of losing someone that she could have loved and knowing that she may never see him again. Additionally a close shot of the face is used when Jan is telling McCandless about her son, Reno, and how he ran away from her and she had not heard from him in almost two years. The viewer is able to watch Jan's face and see through her eyes that her heart is breaking for her son. When the close shot switches over to McCandless, the viewer sees him deep in thought. He looks at Jan it seems to search her, almost trying to detect any lies in her story. When Jan asks McCandless if his family knows where he is, McCandless's head drops and his face comes back into focus in a little bit of a smirk. McCandless was smart, he knew exactly how he had duped his parents, and in this shot it seems as though he is pleased knowing that they will be worried about him being gone. McCandless home life was not perfect and often unhappy, so McCandless was happy to make his parents experience a similar pain he felt when he found out about his true family history. The close up shots in this movie were a deliberate choice to portray the characters' emotions clearly and overwhelmingly in the frame and to draw the viewer into these emotions as well. 

In John Krakauer's book, Into the Wild, he uses interviews, letters and personal experiences in order to bring out emotional responses from readers. At the time of the book being written, McCandless, of course, had passed and all he left behind were diaries, books and some wood carvings. Because of this, Krakauer did not have the luxury of a personal interview with McCandles. This would have made the story easier to tell, more accurate and could have made a stronger emotional appeal to the audience. Without this personal interview from McCandless, Krakauer resorted to using secondhand accounts of his life and who he was as a person. Krakauer's portrayal of McCandless is much different than the movie. Never in his book does he portray McCandless as a weak or sensitive person. Consistently Krakauer uses descriptive words that all have a positive connotation that go along with them. Krakauer admits in the author's note that he has a clear opinion on McCandless, that he is fascinating, but the majority of the positive dialogue and stories of McCandless's life come from the interviews conducted in order to write the book. People who knew McCandless were just as fascinated and intrigued by him as Krakauer was, this became glaringly evident in the book.  

Throughout the book, Krakauer is explaining the roughness of McCandless's journey and how difficult it really is to survive in the wild. One thing that he does to qualify his knowledge is to bring in a personal story to the book. This may seem like it doesn't fit into McCandles' story, but in fact, it gives the reader something to connect and compare the great expanse of Alaska to. Up until that point, it almost seems like nothing could go wrong for McCandless, but with the inclusion of the personal anecdote, Krakauer puts the dangers of the bush into perspective. This shows how the wild had a hold on McCandless that he could not break out of. He was just a small part of a grandiose landscape.

The book and the movie adaption of Into the Wild both tell the story of Chris McCandles, turned Alexzander Supertramp as he embarks on a journey across the United States and Mexico, all the way up to Alaska. The movie version of this story is told with many high powered emotions that can be seen with the close up shots of characters' faces as they are faced with losing a friend and a confidant when McCandless leaves, and in McCandless when he is having an emotionally charged conversation with Jan. The book tells the same story, but in a different way. Words on a page do not appear the same as emotions on a screen, but the moments that counted for McCandles were documented well by those who were close to him and loved him. These emotions were portrayed with positive descriptions and endearing words used to try and capture all that McCandles was. In addition to the close up emotional moments in the film, there were a number of shots that portrayed McCandless as a small thing trying to conquer the great expanse of the wild. These shots made McCandless seem like just a little weak person who would be overcome by his surroundings as he eventually was. Krakauer uses personal experience to put across just how dangerous the adventure in Alaska was for McCandles. Krakauer puts being alone in Alaska in a new perspective for the reader so they can have a real reference as to what McCandless is going through. This creates the same illusion of McCandless being powerless to the natural things around him. Both the film and the book version of this story tell the facts of the life of Chris McCandles. Both versions make the claims that McCandless was loved, and well respected by everyone he met and got to know along his journey. And that he was alone and powerless no matter how much he trained for his time in Alaska. Chris McCandles will always be remembered as these books portray him: As a good person who made the wrong choice of going into the Alaskan bush alone.

