Into The Wild

Sean Penn's movie-adaptation of Jon Krakauer's biography of Chris McCandless, follows his life after he graduates from college and decides to abandon his identity by traveling and wandering through western North America to find his true self.

The soundtrack is mainly composed of songs written and preformed by Eddie Vedder, front man to Pearl Jam, as well as a cover preformed by Vedder, and a collaboration with Jerry Hannan on the song "Society."

Vedder was approached by Penn to create the songs for the film, and Vedder's folky sound he created couldn't capture the journey that McCandless goes through in attempting to live a life of solitude more perfectly.



Because Vedder was asked to write the music after seeing a rough cut, all of the songs were created with Chris and the film in mind. However, "Long Nights," reinforces the haunting reality theme of abandoning your history to create a new being, which is portrayed throughout the entire film.

The movie opens to the empty void of the Alaskan wilderness, as Chris (Emilie Hirsch) is getting out of a car of a complete stranger. After their abrupt interaction, Chris beings to walk into the wild, and "Long Nights," beings to play. The first lyrics "have no fear/for when I'm alone/I'm better off than I was before," leaves the viewer feeling as if it is Chris telling them this.

What the viewer doesn't know is that previous to being in Alaska, Chris had grown up in an upper-middle class family and graduated from a prestigious university, only to disappear into the American West and travel for two years. As the viewer is brought into the film, Chris has created to the best of his ability who he wants to be in life, and he feels that his adventure in Alaska will finalize this process. "Who I was before/I can't recall," is echoing Chris' inner desires, and possibly the truth.

Throughout the entire song Vedder leads the viewer through Chris' entire self, by describing the new "soul that is inside me now," as a new friend that he "will forever know." The song continues to create the character of Chris by stating that "I will always be better than before," something that is constantly reinforced throughout the film as Chris sheds his old self and creates a new identity.

Throughout the film it is obvious that Chris resents the life that he had and more importantly hates how "every fucking person is so bad to each other so fucking often." Chris abandons all personal belongings and traces of his past in an attempt to live a simple life of solitude. Vedder's haunting voice, not only aides the haunting story of Chris, but acts as another character, almost an inner voice of Chris', and enhances the story telling process.