The Distancer: Friday, January 1, 2021
DAY 295: Into the Wild
We did it — we survived 2020! Happy New Year to you all.
A new year means new streaming contracts, so it’s worth checking all your favorite services to see what’s newly available. One thing I will spotlight: The Immigrant is now available on Amazon Prime. I think this was the best movie of the 2010s, and something tells me few of you were rushing to discover what Tubi TV was when it was the only site streaming it back in May when I recommended it.
An oldie but timely goodie from The New Yorker: “Why We Make Resolutions (and Why They Fail).”
It is always worth reading the thoughts of A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis when they do conversational pieces in The New York Times, and their most recent about 2020 in moviegoing is no different: “This Year Was a Disaster. We Hope the Sequel Is Better.”
One more shoutout for the “zine” I put together to showcase my top 10 movies of 2020 because, well, it took time and I’m proud of how it turned out!
Now, what you came for…
DAY 295: Into the Wild (available on Netflix)
“Happiness only real when shared.” That’s the simple but beautiful wisdom scrawled between lines of a book by Christopher McCandless, the real vagabond who serves as the protagonist of Into the Wild. The quote has since become the provenance of Instagram self-help accounts, but it’s more powerful when understood in context.
McCandless, played in the film by Emile Hirsch, wrote this mantra as something akin to his final words before perishing in the Alaskan wilderness. His aim was originally a noble, albeit naive, dream to live like the Transcendentalists and become one with nature. McCandless takes it to an extreme, though, giving away all his possessions and hitchhiking his way to the far north with the intent to subsist alone. He forswears society, forsakes his family and sets off on a mission to live what he believes as his authentic truth.
The tragic irony pervading the film is that McCandless fixates so clearly on his endgame that he misses the proverbial forest for the trees. Writer/director Sean Penn cleverly intercuts his foolhardy survival escapades with the people he meets along the way to the wilderness destination. At each step of the journey, he comes into an eclectic group of authentic individuals who provide all those things he was lacking in life: friendship, mentorship, romance.
Most poignant of all is the final stop with the sweet elderly Ron Franz (Hal Holbrook), who sees the opportunity to provide guidance of both a spiritual and paternal variety. After losing his own wife and son in an auto accident years prior, he sees an opportunity for a second chance in the wayward boy that wanders into his life. But McCandless is once again incapable of accepting any helping hand that he views as veering him off the path forged by his rugged individualism. What he seeks in the wilderness is right there in front of his eyes embodied by Ron and the other makeshift communities he joins along his quest for enlightenment. By showing us how painfully and destructively one man fails to appreciate the abundant blessings given to us in other people, Into the Wild inspires us to take heed and avoid the same mistake.
“Happiness only real when shared.” Don’t let it be something you discover the true meaning of on your deathbed. Let it be a light guiding you throughout your life.
Be good to yourselves and to each other,
Marshall