Compare And Contrast Into Thin Air

Into Thin Air is a nonfiction story by Jon Krakauer. This book is about an expedition to the summit of "Everest" that went wrong and resulted in multiple tragic deaths. This story is written in Jon Krakauer's perspective and views. The movie Everest is a take off the book Into Thin Air, Rob Hall, the leader of the expedition is who's life the movie is based off. Rob Hall is one of the many people who died on that mountain trying to save others.

There are many examples in both movie and book that compare and contrast to each other. I felt that the book and movie portrayed characters differently. The main character of the book was Jon Krakauer, the book told about the way he felt about people and his struggles and toils. In the movie I felt

that the main character was Rob Hall, the leader of the expedition. The movie started with his life in New Zealand, on his way to the airport with his pregnant wife. In "Everest" Jon Krakauer had a small part, he was the tag along journalist that got out of the mist of disaster. I felt that was a huge contrast in the movie, another character portrayed differently was a leader of a second expedition, Scott Fisher. He is a thrill seeker yet was a leader and helped all he could. I think in the movie he was portrayed as a wild man that did crazy things for attention, in the movie the first scene he is in, he is sunbathing at the bottom of everest at basecamp, getting heavily drunk. That is where the characters first start to clash from book to movie. An expert form Into Thin Air says, "Fisher smoked a lot of cannabis (although not while working) and drank more than was healthy". I felt him getting stoned and drunk on the mountain was a rude portrayal of the person he really was, from Jon Krakauer's view he was "Raw and emotional, disciplined toward introspection, he had the kind of gregarious, magnetic personality that instantly won him friends for life".

Another way the movie portrayed a character differently was Andy Harris. Harris was a guide for Rob Hall's expedition and became a close friend to Krakauer in the book. A large tragic part of the book was his death and how he could have been saved. I did not see that in the movie. Although Andy Harris was in the movie, the way he died was told and portrayed differently. In the movie he died with Rob Hall, on Krakauer's account he went missing and was never found.

Although there are many differences with the characters in both book and movie, the two are both seemingly close stories. I think the movie did well portrayed the struggles and dangers of everest. One of the most infamous dangers of everest is the Khumbu Icefall, Jon Krakauer as quoted from the book says "The Icefall was a little like playing a round of Russian Roulette: sooner or later any given serac was going to fall over without warning and you could hope you weren't beneath it when is toppled." I think the movie did a good job of portraying the dangers of the Icefall and the mountain, the movie Beck weather had to cross a bergschrund, a deep slit that delineates a glacier's upper terminus, during the crossing, the ladder shifted and Beck almost went down through the crack into the mountain, it was a thrilling part of the movie.

Another example that the book and movie had in common was Rob Hall's wife. In both book and movie, Jan was put on and radioed to Rob Hall when he was stranded and weak on the mountain, she tried to encourage him and make him get up and move back down the mountain and eventually got to say her last goodbyes. I think that was an important part of both the book and movie even though it was a bigger scene in the movie then it was in the book.