127 HOURS AND INTO THE WILD

127 Hours - Danny Boyle, 2010
Into The Wild - Sean Penn, 2007

It's not easy for a director to make a film where the ending doubles as the selling-point, where there's no real potential to surprise your audience with the outcome. Sure, maybe there were a few people who innocently went to see the movie about "the guy who gets trapped beneath a rock," wondering what would happen to the poor fellow. I'm extremely curious how such a person's reaction to 127 Hours might differ from someone who went to see the movie about [SPOILER?] "the guy who has to cut his own arm off to escape from under a rock." The focus of the movie would seem to change completely — likewise with Into The Wild, a story about [again, SPOILERS, I guess, but you might as well stop reading and just go see the movies] Chris McCandless, a young kid with a bad case of Kerouvac Syndrome, who hiked into the Alaskan wilderness, lived in an abandoned bus for four months, and never made it back out. Most people know how these stories end, but that's not the point. They're still remarkable stories, made much more remarkable because they actually happened. The danger for those translating them to film is how easily they demonstrate a few really obvious lessons. The same holds true for almost any non-fiction account of tragedy, but the important difference here is the tragedy is self-perpetuated. It's an unwritten law of cinema that any movie about a hiker / adventurous type (see also: people who have survived the apocalypse) must scream in 72 point font, Comic Sans: HEY SO OTHER PEOPLE ARE REALLY IMPORTANT YOU SHOULD TOTALLY VALUE THEM IN YOUR LIFE. Of course, no one realizes this until they're hallucinating and on the verge of death. Because, let's face it, if the value of other people has never impressed itself upon you before, you're not going to have this epiphany waiting on the platform for the G train at 9 in the morning. Or in your cubicle, listening to your coworker's stupid story about spooning his girlfriend and throwing his back out. This lesson is so broad that it will mean a lot more when we, as viewers, understand why it has to be learned in the first place.

Hikers and outdoorsy types come in any number of varieties, like any demographic big enough to have entire department stores catered to them, but there are a few broad archetypes. Aron Ralston, as depicted by James Franco in 127 Hours, seems to be a classic adrenaline junky. Into The Wild's Chris McCandless, played by Emile Hirsch, is what I'd describe as the "misguided hippie" archetype. The obvious link between these two men is their love of the outdoors. An adrenaline junky could get their fix in any number of ways, but a climbing nerd is a special sort, in it for both the nature, the spectacle and the rush. McCandless undoubtedly felt the need for adrenaline as well, but his appreciation of the outdoors is a more thoughtful, patient sort, influenced as much by literature and some deep-seated family issues than the pure embrace of adventure. These two archetypal mindsets strongly influence the direction and pacing of their respective films, which makes sense. Unfortunately, like the men they're based on, both take it just a bit too far, and neither quite nails the landing.

Comparing any two films is an arbitrary exercise, of course. They're not competing against each other and they were not intended to compliment each other, but these are similar films with similar messages. James Franco does a terrific job capturing what Ralston went through in 127 Hours, the nuances of a man who can barely move but watches his life flash before him over the days he's trapped. Yet it's Boyle's direction that truly drives the emotion — even when Franco doesn't have much to do but shout and scream in pain. Boyle proves that it required a full movie to show us Aron Ralston's plight — and maybe in some unintended ways, as I would argue that the movie doesn't show enough. Eventually the screaming / shouting / pain comes to an end, and the movie finishes on the most obvious of lessons: people are important. Totally don't ignore your mom's phone calls. Is it effective? Yes. I was very moved, even inspired. The movie leaves you feeling good, but when I thought about it later, I wanted more. 127 Hours is a bit of an adrenaline junky itself, rushing toward that quick fix, the broad, bold conclusion. It's a technical accomplishment to film an action movie where the main character can barely move, but technical accomplishments often aren't as interesting as their context. The nuances Franco manages to convey by reacting to his limited environment are impressive, but we're never given a hint of why he is this way — the psychological background that would make his eventual triumph feel like catharsis, rather than just relief. What makes an adrenaline junky the way he is? And how much of a loner was he, anyway? Boyle offers hints of explanation, indications that he could have been closer with his parents, that he misses an ex-girlfriend, but these background issues could apply to nearly any character ever. Telling us that Ralston is pining over some failed, undefined relationship leaves vague loose-ends tangling in the past of the character.

It's interesting that Franco's character only begins to appreciate the sexual interest of his three female co-stars when he's on the verge of death. In Into The Wild, Chris McCandless is even more asexual, never once pursuing a romantic relationship, even when he's offered one flat-out. But it's not just romantic relationships that he walks away from, it's all relationships. Hirsch's character seems incapable of forming any permanent bonds, yet he's happy with his lifestyle. He knows what he wants in his life, and creates a charismatic specter of wish-fulfillment that sucks in those around him and leaves them heartbroken when he so casually moves on. It's not that he doesn't get along well with people. He's great with people, excels in their company in fact, but he views these interactions as experiences building up to something greater, something more personal, more about Chris McCandless. Ralston and McCandless are men who are in love with nature, and probably, in love with themselves. Neither film addresses this head-on, but it's obvious, and Into The Wild does a far better job of character development simply due to the structure of the film. We understand the relationship McCandless had with his parents. We figure out how he could leave behind his old friends so easily. And while he's never shown with any sort of romantic past, it's easy to see why. Though 127 Hours is a marvel of direction, and the superior movie on a technical level, Into The Wild nonetheless manages to tell a more developed story.

There's really no reason Into The Wild couldn't have been told the same way as 127 Hours. Chris McCandless only spent about three or four months in the Alaskan wilderness, and in the last week or two of his life, he was also trapped. Not by a rock, but trapped by a river and his own recklessness. Both films could have unraveled their stories with a similarly narrow focus. Yet Into The Wild wisely chose to spend much of its running time showing the past of the character, cutting to his time in Alaska only for brief scenes. Penn is far from the director that Boyle is, and in a sense, he had to take this direction — Boyle's character lived, giving him a lot of artistic freedom in building up to that moment, whereas Penn's tale would have been much more of a downer without that broad context and character development. I don't blame Boyle for taking the material he was given and trying to make his movie as unique as possible; he pulled it off. But Into The Wild manages to explain a great deal of what 127 Hours leaves dangling. To be fair, Into The Wild is far from perfect itself.  Apart from some odd directorial choices, there's simply too much material crammed into its running time, making the same point so often that the ending seems almost insincere. We understand everything McCandless abandoned to reach his final destination, even if we never do see him really cherish anything. Only on his deathbed does he seem to miss the company of other people, and even then, his drive is still sort-of selfish: "happiness only real if shared." Aron Ralston only learned to update his Facebook status so people know where he's hiking. (Too bad we'll never get the sequel, "127 Days Later.") 127 Hours isn't a failed movie due to its lack of context. Into The Wild demonstrates how too much context can drag a film down, but I still believe a lot of the most interesting material in Aron Ralston's story was dropped because it didn't fit into Boyle's dramatic vision. And anyway, that's okay. Sometimes drama is self-fulfilling. I'm not sure whether I'd call 127 Hours a great movie, but it is a great experience. No matter what you believe about the importance of people, you have to admit — great experiences are pretty sweet too.