| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| randall |
Posted - 04/21/2008 : 13:19:10
I searched through the last year for another thread on this flick [I so hate it when a dupe thread gets started and the conversation thus diverges], so if I missed it somehow, please send me back.
I thought this was Sean Penn's finest hour as a director; this picture would look good on any director's resume. The evocation of nature, of the rarefied notion of nature existing inside the protagonist's mind, of the people who affect him, of the people who try to love him, and of his final wrenching epiphany, is first class all the way. When it first started rolling, I thought the 2:30 running time was an indulgence. Wrong: Penn doesn't ask you to cut him any slack in any area. You don't fully understand what motivates the main character -- nobody really did except the adventurer himself -- but you get plenty of clues.
What a superb job. And what are essentially cameos by Vince Vaughn, Catherine Keener, and especially Hal Holbrook, are the icing on the cake. See it. |
| 15 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Demisemicenturian |
Posted - 04/30/2008 : 02:45:39
quote:
Originally posted by GHcool
Whether he was suicidal or not is subject to debate, but he was clearly severely depressed and felt that he couldn't fit in with his family (who weren't the greatest, but certainly not the worst) or with society in general. That's mental illness.
I think it's a stretch to say he was even depressed, especially in the real mental illness sense, i.e. unaccountably depressed. It's not the same as being unhappy with specific things for logical reasons. One does not have to be mentally ill even to consciously commit suicide, let alone just risk death. |
| GHcool |
Posted - 04/30/2008 : 00:43:32
quote:
Originally posted by BaftaBabe
quote:
Originally posted by GHcool
Whether he was suicidal or not is subject to debate, but he was clearly severely depressed and felt that he couldn't fit in with his family (who weren't the greatest, but certainly not the worst) or with society in general. That's mental illness.
Hmm ... or the sign of an artist, sometimes a genius, a visionary ... or indeed, a loony, a fundamentalist or cultist blah-blah-blah
To that, I would say that artistry, genius, looniness, fundamentalism, cultism, and mental illness are not mutually exclusive and may not all apply in this specific case. |
| BaftaBaby |
Posted - 04/29/2008 : 22:18:06
quote:
Originally posted by GHcool
Whether he was suicidal or not is subject to debate, but he was clearly severely depressed and felt that he couldn't fit in with his family (who weren't the greatest, but certainly not the worst) or with society in general. That's mental illness.
Hmm ... or the sign of an artist, sometimes a genius, a visionary ... or indeed, a loony, a fundamentalist or cultist blah-blah-blah
These are really complex matters. Human behaviour cannot be reduced to generalities, however much we want to understand - whether in a Readers Digest type reducto ad absurdum or any lay-person's simplistic analysis. We can only get hints of the quintessence of others by what we know of what they did/achieved/wrote. Even then we may be totally off the mark. I think one of Penn's achievements with the film is that he exposes many of the ambiguities of this clearly troubled young person.
I remember when I was his age I was POSITIVE I had the insight to figure out what was wrong with the world and that it was not only possible for me to change it for the better, it was inevitable I would. Hah! I can remember the passion of my convictions. If I'm lucky these days, I can recapture some of it, filtered through the decades of experience, of success and failure.
The capacity to be child-like is a gift. Child-like is not childish.
Here endeth the lesson. 
|
| GHcool |
Posted - 04/29/2008 : 22:03:35
quote:
Originally posted by Salopian
quote:
Originally posted by GHcool
maybe he just didn't care if he lived or died.
I wouldn't quite put it like this, but I think the crux of it is probably right. I think he was prepared to die, and not prepared to compromise in order to survive. This doesn't make him mentally ill, though, just extreme and stubborn.
Whether he was suicidal or not is subject to debate, but he was clearly severely depressed and felt that he couldn't fit in with his family (who weren't the greatest, but certainly not the worst) or with society in general. That's mental illness. |
| MisterBadIdea |
Posted - 04/29/2008 : 14:26:42
I hold with the arrogant/stupid analysis, myself. |
| Demisemicenturian |
Posted - 04/29/2008 : 10:23:15
quote:
Originally posted by GHcool
maybe he just didn't care if he lived or died.
I wouldn't quite put it like this, but I think the crux of it is probably right. I think he was prepared to die, and not prepared to compromise in order to survive. This doesn't make him mentally ill, though, just extreme and stubborn. |
| GHcool |
Posted - 04/29/2008 : 06:24:26
quote:
Originally posted by Yukon
quote:
Originally posted by GHcool
SPOILER ALERT
As for the controversy surrounding what the meaning of the film and of McCandless's death was, I'm going to go with the Alaskan rangers on this one and say that McCandless was arrogant and suicidal.
I don't think it's suicide at all. Never ever considered that thought. I think Chris was a person who underestimated what it is like to live in Alaska.
Most mentally healthy people who go camping in Alaska take basic safety precautions and follow the relevant state laws. Either McCandless was too stupid or too arrogant to do that, or maybe he just didn't care if he lived or died. Saying that he underestimated how dangerous life in the wild would be is like saying that Richard Pryor underestimated how dangerous freebasing cocaine would be. |
| thefoxboy |
Posted - 04/27/2008 : 23:48:50
quote:
Originally posted by Yukon
I think Chris was one of those people who didn't realize how tough it is to live off the land and how isolated the north is. If you get into trouble, you are on your own. I think he felt safe with a fishing rod, hunting rifle and a bag of rice.
He really was one of these then. |
| Yukon |
Posted - 04/27/2008 : 19:42:22
quote:
Originally posted by GHcool
SPOILER ALERT
As for the controversy surrounding what the meaning of the film and of McCandless's death was, I'm going to go with the Alaskan rangers on this one and say that McCandless was arrogant and suicidal.
I don't think it's suicide at all. Never ever considered that thought. I think Chris was a person who underestimated what it is like to live in Alaska.
I speak from experience as a person who is from the big city (Toronto) and has lived in the North (Yukon). Life in the north is much different.
If you slip and break a leg while on a hike just outside of Toronto, wait a few minutes for someone to come around the corner or whip out your cell phone. Do it in the Yukon and you might be waiting for days for somebody to come around. (So make sure you tell a friend that if I'm not home by a certain time, please call the police and let them know where I was hiking).
You can get attacked by a bear -- so always carry bear spray when in the bush. (My friend was camping at an isolated campsite along the Yukon River. The next day, he continued on his canoe trip and later that night another camper was mauled to death by a bear at that exact spot. Easily could have been my friend if he said "I like it here, I'll stay one more day.")
Don't take an unrealible pickup truck deep into the bush. If it doesn't start or breaks down. You're screwed.
Always pack a sleeping bag and candles (for heat) in you trunk in winter time. If you slide off the road and get stuck and its -40 out, you need to stay warm.
And unfortunately for Chris, not all plants are edible.
I think Chris was one of those people who didn't realize how tough it is to live off the land and how isolated the north is. If you get into trouble, you are on your own. I think he felt safe with a fishing rod, hunting rifle and a bag of rice.
At one point when he couldn't cross the river to escape, I thought "just jump in and cross the river 500 yards downstream." Then I remembered virtually all lakes and rivers up North are glacier feed. The water is so cold, even in July, that hypothermia is always a risk. I lived in the Yukon for three years and I swam in a lake only once. I used to paddle on the Yukon River in May and I knew if my canoe tipped, I had about one minute to get to shore before my arms went numb.
|
| randall |
Posted - 04/24/2008 : 23:12:18
quote:
Originally posted by GHcool
quote:
Originally posted by MisterBadIdea
If McCandless comes off a great deal more likable, it's because he's portrayed by Emile Hirsch whereas Treadwell is portrayed by a gibbering jackass (seriously, where'd they find that guy?).
Grizzly Man was a documentary. The Treadwell shown in that film was the real man. Into the Wild was the dramatization of a similar true story, but with actors playing the real people involved. I admit that McCandless is a much more intelligent, much more appealing personality than Treadwell was, but that doesn't mean they both weren't jackasses.
BTW, a producer on GRIZZLY MAN was also realizing a docu on author Harlan Ellison, which is well worth seeing. |
| GHcool |
Posted - 04/22/2008 : 19:06:03
quote:
Originally posted by MisterBadIdea
quote:
Originally posted by GHcool
Grizzly Man was a documentary. The Treadwell shown in that film was the real man.
That's the joke.
Oh, sorry. I guess the humor didn't translate well in written form.  |
| MisterBadIdea |
Posted - 04/22/2008 : 04:51:14
quote:
Originally posted by GHcool
Grizzly Man was a documentary. The Treadwell shown in that film was the real man.
That's the joke. |
| GHcool |
Posted - 04/22/2008 : 04:25:30
quote:
Originally posted by MisterBadIdea
If McCandless comes off a great deal more likable, it's because he's portrayed by Emile Hirsch whereas Treadwell is portrayed by a gibbering jackass (seriously, where'd they find that guy?).
Grizzly Man was a documentary. The Treadwell shown in that film was the real man. Into the Wild was the dramatization of a similar true story, but with actors playing the real people involved. I admit that McCandless is a much more intelligent, much more appealing personality than Treadwell was, but that doesn't mean they both weren't jackasses. |
| MisterBadIdea |
Posted - 04/22/2008 : 00:26:20
I actually don't think Herzog treats Timothy Treadwell any less sympathetically than Penn treats McCandless. Herzog considers Treadwell's philosophies and respectfully disagrees. If McCandless comes off a great deal more likable, it's because he's portrayed by Emile Hirsch whereas Treadwell is portrayed by a gibbering jackass (seriously, where'd they find that guy?). |
| damalc |
Posted - 04/21/2008 : 20:05:00
one of the things i really liked about this film was how my attitude of the character changed as the film progressed.
for about 2/3 of the movie, i thought, "how cool. this dude just takes of on an adventure and does it his way."
later i thought, "how selfish to take his adventure without regard for his family, or any of the people he met along the way who cared about him."
on comparisons to "Grizzly Man," one of the interviewees' quotes about Treadwell applies to Supertramp too: "he got what he was asking for." |
|
|
