Into The Wild Editing Analysis

In the film Into the Wild (2007), director Sean Penn demonstrated how Christopher McCandless, the main character refused to live the American Dream and cope with modern society, by literally hunting a more emotionally and fulfilling solitary existence on a journey to his final destination; the wilds of Alaska. He also creates a new name for himself as a form of starting a new life; Alexander Supertramp. One of the first shots we see is him writing in his daily journal, the words “Happiness is only real when shared.” What is Christopher implying by writing this? By creating a meaningful sequence of editing in the final scene, Penn was able to show the viewers Christopher’s epiphany of not only wanting to be happy but wanting to be capable of

sharing this happiness with his family despite their differences seconds before his death.
In the beginning of this scene, the first cut we see is a shot of nothing but Christopher’s hand gradually reaching out the window into the open air out of an abandoned “Magic Bus” he has been living in for four months. He struggles as he grabs on to the ledge. This automatically gives us the sense that he is not only struggling from the severe condition that he is currently in due to the poisonous plant he had mistakenly ingested. It is as well a sign of reaching out for his loved ones, reaching out for internal and external help to surrender. When he suddenly latches onto the ledge, it is a way of telling us that he has finally grasped the idea of what it all means to him, the natural meaning of happiness.
Penn cuts to the next shot with a 180 degree reverse shot of Christopher’s body laying on the mattress with reoccurring zoom ins and zoom outs of different angles of his body. The room’s lighting is quite dark but slightly lit, giving that ominous feel. It is then brought to our attention that Penn is emphasizing that Christopher remains an opaque presence even throughout the dark times of his life journey. As the camera cuts to a shot of the sky and then quickly to a sign he has written that reads “I have had a happy life and thank the lord. Goodbye and may God bless all”, it is stating the relationship between God and himself. The next shot shows his pseudonym carved into the wood while his voice over says “To call each thing by name” cutting again into the shot of his written sign but this time Penn used a dissolve technique to transition this shot into the other. In his voice over we then hear him repeat “By its right name” zooming on his signature of his real name.
The shot relationship between these is that in that very second, Christopher came into realization with his true self. Despite the unknown reasons why he felt the need to drop society and his whole life, there was a light that came to him. From him looking up at the sky and then to his carved pseudonym then back and fourth to his sign that mentioned God, and back to the sky shot. It was ultimately a moment of revelation that only God could have granted him in that desperate moment of need.
In the next few shots, Penn used an interesting way of overlapping editing of a close up of his face looking up into a shot of the sky but this time, trees were added to the view.

I say the director chose a unique way of overlapping because these overlaps were continuously rapid from one to the other on a loop. This could be seen as an emphasis on weighing the balance of nature and God. He uses this overlapping technique throughout until the end of the scene. At one point it intercuts between him letting out a yell and then his blissful past where he pictures him running back to his family and into their arms. Again, Penn inserted Christopher’s voice over in which he says “What if I were smiling; and running into your arms, would you see then what I see now?” As that was being said, he had a smile on his face while staring up into the shining lit-up sky with clouds gracefully moving across. As he pictured hugging his parents, he looks up at the sky the same way he is currently looking up at the sky while on his death bed. This could also be a parallel technique. These shots correlate between the happiness that he wishes he had given his parents by going back to them and the happiness he has acquired by these being his final moments. Being able to escape the life he was trying to get away from in the first place; modern

society.
In this final scene of the film, director Sean Penn utilizes sound in many different ways.

As the scene starts out, we can hear the non-diegetic instrumental sound track playing as the background music meanwhile there is also diegetic sound as we hear Christopher shivering and heavy breathing while he lies still on his bed. From there, the volume tends to get louder as it gets closer to Christopher’s moment of revelation. After a while, it goes from silence when he reaches out to the sky then Penn includes a high pitch sound as we hear Chris yelling. When Chris yells and then cuts to him hugging his family, there is a muffled-like effect as if he’s trapped and then it goes back to complete silence. It is clear that this was intended to make the audience feel as if they can relate to the character’s experience through these sounds. The last sound that we hear in this sequence is the sound of his last muffled-like gasp again before his death. It was the moment we knew that all of his pain inside of him would suddenly be gone. We were able to sympathize with his character just by the sounds that were deliberately

added.
Although Christopher was unable to come into realization with his self and long term happiness sooner, he still got to fulfill his wishes amongst his own choice. Meaning, the choice he made of leaving behind the trauma him and his sister have experienced throughout their childhood was made in his own will; no choice was made on accident. Going on this journey, he was looking for something. Something that he wanted to see on his own without society getting in the way of it, something that money couldn’t buy. I would say that by the end of his self discovery and the way that this editing sequence was done in the final scene, it made it obvious to the viewers that what he has been searching for all along was nature and within nature itself, is God and death.