Monday, November 14, 2011

Journal 4: Entering Manhood of the Wild


A quiet constant strum on the guitar— Chris McCandeless is now at the border control station at the Sea of Cortez, December 2nd, 1990. After kayaking down a river to Mexico and passing back through the United States, he is questioned by the border patrol of his identification and before they come back he tramps to a nearby train and rides back to the cities. The time for the scene is now 1 hour and 12 minutes. The city lights are highlighted against the black night sky and loud automobile sounds are echoing throughout the scene. Chris ends up looking from the outside on the inside of a party and sees himself in a business suit and hair slicked back; as soon as he realizes that he is in the heart of the city he rushes out of it. His blank face is highlighted against the black highway with a constant motion of cars, and his eyes slowly, after being so indiscreet, falls into a confused and irritated look. He walks away with the silhouette of his body against red and green lights reentering with a new chapter titled “Manhood”.

INTO THE WILD
http://moviepictureweekly.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/large-into-the-wild-blu-ray2.jpg

This scene is about half way into the whole movie and really is the most significant scene for the whole movie; after all of Chris’s adventures so far he is still irritated by the fact of going back into a civilization where he is in a business suit and socially drinking. Chris is probably afraid of himself becoming that man he doesn’t want to be and so strives even more to get to his great Alaskan adventure. The structure of this scene not only is dreary and echoing of industrial machines, but is condensed in a way that provides both effective emotion appeal for the viewer of the film and the character within the film. This scene alone depicts the moral values of Chris and his motivation for wanting to get away from the materialistic things in life and become Alexander Supertramp.

-April Opatik

1 comment:

  1. I really liked how you described this important scene from the film. It really depicted why Chris decided to return to Alaska. I remember somewhat this film. It was very interesting. I think that he also reasons to live in Alaska based upon example of what his father showed growing up. He did not want to become like his father. It's been awhile since I've seen this movie.

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