-screening report-

The intro of Into the Wild from a road movie-perspective

Usually, road movies depict a journey of the main character (or a family/some friends) both inside and out by the means of actual physical travelling and psychological development. Into the Wild is a typical example of this genre. The plot is about Christopher McCandless, who, after graduating, donates his fortune to a charity organisation and hitchhikes to Alaska to live in the wilderness. During his journey, Christopher encounters several characters that all shape and add to his life. In this screening report I will examine the first two and a half minutes of the film.

The movie opens with a quotation by Lord Byron:

“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, 
         There is a rapture on the lonely shore, 
         There is society, where none intrudes, 
         By the deep sea, and music in its roar: 
                  I love not man the less, but Nature more…”

With the power of words, the future journey of the young Christopher is foretold. Byron himself is famous about his wanderings and this poem is particularly about the man leaving society to find peace in nature. That’s the path what Christopher also follows.

            
            After this, there is a short shot of his mother waking up from an intense dream about Chris returning home. This makes the narration metafictive as here we get a bit from the future, however after this shot comes another –longer– bit from the present: A famous song of Eddie Vedder’s is being played about journeys, of course. Meanwhile, we get a sequence of typical establishing shots about travelling with captions from a postcard, written by Chris to a friend. Behind these texts, firstly a hitchhiking man, then open roads, trucks, passing cars, landscapes can be seen.

            These two and a half minutes clearly establishes the road movie genre. Poetry, quotes from the postcard are for the mind, the traveller’s anthem is for the ears and the establishing shots are for the eye at the same time. The audience is perfectly prepared for “the journey”.