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Into the Wild (2007)
In director/writer Sean Penn's documentary-styled,
ill-fated odyssey and biopic drama, based upon Jon Krakauer's 1996
non-fiction book - about a quest for self-discovery:
- the concluding sequence - titled 'Final Chapter:
Getting of Wisdom' - of free-spirited, idealistic, arrogant college-grad
adventurer Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch) (renaming himself
"Alexander Supertramp") on his way to a remote portion
of Alaska in 1992 after forsaking his estranged family and many friends
along his wanderlust journey
- his brief encounter at an RV park with young Tracy
(Kristen Stewart), a guitar player introduced to him as "little
Joni Mitchell" - and he spent an enjoyable but brief time with
her
- his meeting up, at the Salton Sea (California) with
kindly, elderly widower and leather worker Ron Franz (Oscar-nominated
Hal Holbrook), and their discussion on a rocky hilltop - where they
both climbed up - to talk about where to find human happiness: ("From
the bits and pieces I've put together, you know, from what you told
me about your family, your mother and your dad, and I know you've
got your problems with the church too, but there's some kind of bigger
thing we can all appreciate, and it sounds like you don't mind calling
it God. But when you forgive, you love, and when you love, God's
light shines on you")
- during their tearful and heartfelt parting scene just
before Ron dropped off hitchhiking 'Alex' at the start of his Alaskan
adventure, he proposed paternalistically to adopt 'Alex': ("You
know, my, uh, my mother was an only child and so was my father, and,
uh, I was their only child, so, uh, when I'm gone, I'm the end of
the line. My family will be finished. What do you say you let me
adopt you? I can be, say, your grandfather"); unfortunately,
'Alex' demurred:
"Ron, could we talk about this when I get back from Alaska? Would
that be okay?" - they would never have another opportunity to
speak
- the final scene of Chris' prolonged, lonely, and
painful death due to starvation and poisoning after eating inedible
Wild Sweet Peas (mistaken for Wild Potato Alaska Carrot) - and his
final words scrawled in block letters into his journal: "HAPPINESS
ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED"
- the incredible pull-back shot from his face (as
a single tear dropped from the corner of his right eye and then
his left eye) as he gazed up at the light in the back of his abandoned
'magic bus' home (an IH 1946 abandoned bus) as he expired - followed
by an actual self-portrait photograph of Chris sitting next to
his bus
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Tracy (Kristen Stewart) with Christopher
Christopher's (or Alex's) Encounter with Ron Franz
Self-Portrait
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