Into The Wild Editing Analysis

In the film Into the Wild (2007), director Sean Penn demonstrated how Christopher McCandless, the main character refused to live the American Dream and cope with modern society, by literally hunting a more emotionally and fulfilling solitary existence on a journey to his final destination; the wilds of Alaska. He also creates a new name for himself as a form of starting a new life; Alexander Supertramp. One of the first shots we see is him writing in his daily journal, the words “Happiness is only real when shared.” What is Christopher implying by writing this? By creating a meaningful sequence of editing in the final scene, Penn was able to show the viewers Christopher’s epiphany of not only wanting to be happy but wanting to be capable of

I say the director chose a unique way of overlapping because these overlaps were continuously rapid from one to the other on a loop. This could be seen as an emphasis on weighing the balance of nature and God. He uses this overlapping technique throughout until the end of the scene. At one point it intercuts between him letting out a yell and then his blissful past where he pictures him running back to his family and into their arms. Again, Penn inserted Christopher’s voice over in which he says “What if I were smiling; and running into your arms, would you see then what I see now?” As that was being said, he had a smile on his face while staring up into the shining lit-up sky with clouds gracefully moving across. As he pictured hugging his parents, he looks up at the sky the same way he is currently looking up at the sky while on his death bed. This could also be a parallel technique. These shots correlate between the happiness that he wishes he had given his parents by going back to them and the happiness he has acquired by these being his final moments. Being able to escape the life he was trying to get away from in the first place; modern

As the scene starts out, we can hear the non-diegetic instrumental sound track playing as the background music meanwhile there is also diegetic sound as we hear Christopher shivering and heavy breathing while he lies still on his bed. From there, the volume tends to get louder as it gets closer to Christopher’s moment of revelation. After a while, it goes from silence when he reaches out to the sky then Penn includes a high pitch sound as we hear Chris yelling. When Chris yells and then cuts to him hugging his family, there is a muffled-like effect as if he’s trapped and then it goes back to complete silence. It is clear that this was intended to make the audience feel as if they can relate to the character’s experience through these sounds. The last sound that we hear in this sequence is the sound of his last muffled-like gasp again before his death. It was the moment we knew that all of his pain inside of him would suddenly be gone. We were able to sympathize with his character just by the sounds that were deliberately