Compare And Contrast Into The Wild

Did you know that over 1,450 books have been made into movies since 1980? Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer being one of those novels. In 2007 Sean Penn turned the book into a film. As can be expected when one artist interprets the works of another artist, there will be similarities and differences. Some of the major contrasts shown between the book and movie are; their perspectives, emotions they make the readers or viewers feel and parts of the story being left out or changed. One of the main differences between the book and movies are how Penn and Krakauer interpret Chris McCandless and his story. In the book the story seems to focus more around examining and understanding Chris and his life, whereas the movie shows his life as more of an

In books the author relies on words, experiences of the character and others accounts to show emotion. In movies there are more ways to inflict emotion; through images, facial expression, dialogue, and music. Not only did these different works of art show emotion in different ways but they also made audiences feel different things. The tone of the book was a much darker one than that of the movie. Jon Krakauer included stories of McCandless childhood, struggles, and last days alive to show the darker parts of his journey. Some examples of this are; telling readers right away that McCandless is dead, his father's secret family, months that his family and friends spent worrying about him, ways he could have easily avoided his death and so on. None of these experiences described in the book make readers feel an overwhelming sense of happiness of joy. Krakauer focused more on telling the exact facts of Chris McCandless’ life no matter if it made people feel sad. Sean Penn on the other hand, painted a much happier and romantic telling of Chris’s story. Showing him and Tracey bonding, illegally paddling down the Colorado River looking free and happy, or creating amazing bonds with the people he meets along the way. The few sad parts in the movie that are shown are his parents and Carine worrying about him and his death, which is countered with the

There are obvious reasons as to why sean Penn had to cut out or change parts of the book; time importance, etc. Some changes were minor and didn’t affect the overall story. Such as changing Bob’s name to Rainy, not having him meet Wayne’s mother or merging his trips to see Wayne into one. Some parts that were left out or changed, however, show much more significance. Sean Penn opted to not show McCandless’s parents visit the bus where he died, making is seem the his cause of death was mistaking the potato plants for different poisonous plants and leaving out parts of Chris McCandless’ childhood. No one except for Penn can say for certain why he did this, but it can be speculated that it helped to show the Chris McCandless that he saw. The fun-loving, adventurer wandering around the US. If Sean Penn had decided to show the parts he left out it would cast a much darker story on the movie. Chris McCandless would have no longer been seen as a fun, adventurous kid who made one wrong calculation that inevitably helped him come to peace with his life but a troubled young man with a troubled family that was trying to escape his problems and who could have easily avoided death. The story shown in Krakauer's novel. In all Sean Penn decided to leave out or change parts of the story to show the story and image he wanted to just as Jon Krakauer decided to leave parts in to