Book and Movie Reviews II

The holidays are good times to see a movie with friends and family or get cozy with a good book. Sometimes good books are made into movies, and most of the time the movie is inferior to the book. This reviews two books that were made into movies recently. The first one bucks the trend in my opinion and the movie is actually better than the book. The second one is the standard "letdown movie" from a great book.

"Into the Wild"
This book written by John Krakauer in 1996 retraces the story of Chris McCandless who after graduating college took off on a meandering solo trek across the country. Highly influenced by eccentric, idealistic authors such as London, Thoreau, and Tolstoy, McCandless turns his back on society and the high expectations of his overbearing, wealthy father to live a simple, vagabond lifestlyle. Krakauer tries to fit the bits and pieces of information he gleans from letters and journal entries from McCandless and also from interviews of McCandless' acquaintences, friends, employers, and family together to paint a picture as to where McCandless went, what he did, and even tries to answer the big question of why. Krakauer is an excellent journalist and does a good job of speculating based on facts without over-speculating. He paints a picture of McCandless as neither a hero or a fool. The most riveting parts of the book are the two chapters where Krakauer retells his own journey as a young man to Alaska to find purpose. His descriptions of climbing the "Devil's Thumb" with no rope protection are thrilling to say the least. McCandless' goal was also Alaska, and he did accomplish it by walking off into the Alaskan wild to get away from the materialistic society he grew up in. Ironically he ends up making an abandoned bus his home in the wild, and in the end a simple material thing like a map of the wilderness probably would have saved him. Since this is a nonfiction work and McCandless kept his journal entries very brief and to the point, the book cannot fully allow the reader into the heart and mind of the main character---unlike the movie.

The movie, which is out in theaters now, sticks to the book very closely with the dates, places, and people. What the movie does that the book can't is it tries to paint a full picture of who McCandless was while still staying true to the evidence from the book. The character comes fully alive in the movie and the viewer finds himself feeling more fully alive from watching it. The movie is directed by Sean Penn, and he does a wonderful job of fusing beautiful cinematography from the traveling McCandless (especially Alaska) with heart stirring acoustic songs by Pearl Jam lead singer Eddie Vedder. Penn also takes the liberty to create dialogue between McCandless and his acquaintances on the road, which proves humorous and heart-wrenching. Everyone from hippies to farmers to old war veterans were touched by knowing this young wanderer. The movie can be seen as a sort of spiritual quest with scenes of McCandless being overcome by nature's beauty, or connecting with people on a deep level, or choosing to reject casual sex, or in the end when it is too late reading Tolstoy's words about the importance of relationships.
I've never felt more personally connected to a movie character. This is an instant top five movie in my opinion. Go see it.
Tracy has yet to see the movie, but she read the book, and every 10 minutes or so would shout out, "Oh my gosh, this is you! This guy is so you! If you never married, you would be this guy wandering around and dying out in the wilderness."
Uummm, thanks, Trace.

"Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee"
This book was written in 1970 by historian Dee Brown. It is subtitled "An Indian History of the American West", and that is exactly what it is. While most of us had high school history classes where next to nothing was said about the consequences of "Manifest Destiny" and American expansion in respect to Native Americans, this book tackles it head on. It basically concentrates on the last half of the 19th century and covers a broad range of tribes from the Lakota to the Nez Perce to the Navajo and many more. This book will not make you feel good about American History. Brown sifts through different records, journals, and treaties to show just how dastardly the American settlers and government treated the tribes who had been living on this land for hundreds if not thousands of years. Talk about an immigration problem. That was a true immigration problem. The book describes battles, massacres, and broken treaty after broken treaty. The Lakota signed a treaty saying that the Black Hills would be theirs "for as long as the grass grows...." A couple years later gold was discovered in them hills, so in a sense the grass stopped growing. One of the few treaties that wasn't completely broken was the Navajo Treaty of 1868, but this was signed after the forced removal of thousands of Navajo to the Bosque Redondo almost 400 miles to the east. The living conditions were so bad that they had to eat leather. Once they returned with a newly signed treaty they had to look forward to having much less land than they had before, a growing tuberculosis epidemic, and their children being shipped off to schools in Pennsylvania. Those are just two examples of many with the book culminating by describing the Wounded Knee Massacre where over 200 women and children were shot down. It is crazy to think that our government still calls it "The Battle of Wounded Knee" and there were 23 Medal of Honors bestowed after "the battle".
If you plan on living west of the Mississippi or just traveling west, or your Native American history is based on "Dances with Wolves" then this is a must read.

The movie is only a must see if it will get you to read the book. The movie focuses solely on the Lakota and the band led by Sitting Bull, which is just a small piece of the book. It does a fairly good job of showing the tension Dr. Charles Eastman feels as an assimilated Lakota dating a white teacher and being manipulated by a US senator. The movie was made by HBO this year, but once again we are forced to watch the lead Native role played by Adam Beach. Could Hollywood please enable some other native actors to get lead roles besides Beach? The movie does end like the book with Wounded Knee Massacre, but it barely shows events leading up to it or the massacre itself. Overall there are some bright spots of keen dialogue, but this movie does a disservice to a wonderful book.