Into the Wild - Heads Up
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Some intersting reading here... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_McCandless
A moving story though, whatever the facts or failures.
The link below is another 'must see'
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0302674/
A moving story though, whatever the facts or failures.
The link below is another 'must see'
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0302674/
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Thanks Lebowski (great film as well btw 
)
I haven't seen Gerry, might see if I can get hold of it
)I haven't seen Gerry, might see if I can get hold of it
Easy to be hard on him now he's died. Easy to say it was his foolishness and lack of knowledge that killed him. Even how he died isn't clear from previous posts. Poisoned or just ran out of food through being trapped? Is that a mistaken identification of a funghi through hunger, tiredness or whatever OR an unfortunate accident? If you like to slag off the foolish dead take a look at that film on the bear guy he's a real good one for that!!
I'm sure the film is well made but personally I have no interest in this sort of film as its probably a vanity project by the director who was somehow interested in the story and was kinda desparate to make it. It is probably a falsification of the true facts of his life, hell its Hollywood they don't know their truth from lies anyway (I'm sure you can work out the number of fact based films where facts are flipped 180 to meet the target audience). Also who wants to watch what a dead guy did in the wilderness? Nowt to learn there better watch RM again on Dave!!
I'm sure the film is well made but personally I have no interest in this sort of film as its probably a vanity project by the director who was somehow interested in the story and was kinda desparate to make it. It is probably a falsification of the true facts of his life, hell its Hollywood they don't know their truth from lies anyway (I'm sure you can work out the number of fact based films where facts are flipped 180 to meet the target audience). Also who wants to watch what a dead guy did in the wilderness? Nowt to learn there better watch RM again on Dave!!
http://www.adn.com/2007/10/08/219344/theories-differ-on-the-cause-of.html
Did 24-year-old Christopher McCandless inadvertently poison himself when he died in an abandoned bus in the Denali wilderness 15 years ago?
In his best-selling book "Into the Wild," author Jon Krakauer argues that McCandless did -- upon eating the seeds of Hedysarum alpinum, a historically edible plant commonly known as wild potato (also "Eskimo potato").
Collecting some near the area where he died, Krakauer sent the seeds to the University of Alaska Fairbanks chemistry department for testing.
At first, lab testing appeared positive for poison. But a more extensive analysis the next year -- examining additional seeds that UAF graduate student Ed Treadwell harvested near Fairbanks -- prompted department of chemistry chairman Tom Clausen to conclude that the seeds weren't poisonous after all.
"There were no toxins," Clausen said in a recent telephone interview. "And we looked at everything -- roots, seeds, stems and leaves."
End of theory, right? Not yet. When movie director Sean Penn's film version of "Into the Wild" reaches Alaska this month, viewers will see a variation of Krakauer's theory. In it, McCandless confuses wild sweet pea -- which local guidebooks have long listed as poisonous -- with wild potato.
(Krakauer was aware of that possibility, but he dismissed it in his book after concluding that McCandless probably knew the difference between the two plants -- since he'd been eating wild potato roots for weeks.)
As Alaska wildflower expert Verna Pratt points out, however, the wild potato and the wild sweet pea are much harder to tell apart once they lose their blooms in midsummer.
The leaves look almost identical unless you examine them from below, Pratt says. The underside of the wild potato leaf has small veins on it; the underside of the sweet pea leaf doesn't.
"It's not difficult to confuse them if you're not familiar," says Pratt, the author of "Field Guide to Alaskan Wildflowers." "He could have made a mistake."
So is the poisoning theory in the movie a better bet than the poisoning theory in the book?
Not necessarily, says Clausen, the UAF chemistry professor. Because when he and Treadwell tested the wild potato seeds, they also tested wild sweet pea seeds harvested near Fairbanks -- and determined that they didn't contain any alkaloids either. Neither did their roots, nor their leaves.
Then why do guidebooks, like "Wild, Edible and Poisonous Plants of Alaska," published by the University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service, call wild sweet pea poisonous?
The sole evidence the book cites is the anecdotal experience of a 19th century party of Arctic explorers led by Sir John Richardson who reported getting sick when they ate wild sweet pea that they thought was wild potato.
Clausen questions why no one else has gotten sick from wild sweet pea since then, and he thinks Richardson's men may have been poisoned by something else.
So is the poisoning theory in the movie as unlikely as the poisoning theory in the book?
Not necessarily, says Pratt, who notes that plants in the pea family do have a demonstrated tendency to absorb selenium from the soil. (Selenium is a trace element that's essential to livestock and humans in small amounts, but can be highly toxic in large amounts, resulting in a condition veterinarians call "blind staggers.") The Western states are notorious for selenium-saturated soils. How much occurs in Alaska, however, isn't readily known.
Still, location matters when you test the toxicity of flora, Pratt says. A plant that isn't poisonous in one spot can easily be poisonous in another -- if the soil it's growing in is saturated with something toxic.
Maybe so, Clausen said. But he hasn't seen any evidence yet that the plants McCandless ate are poisonous -- either from the book or the movie.
"And at some point," he said, "you have to let your hypothesis go."
Did 24-year-old Christopher McCandless inadvertently poison himself when he died in an abandoned bus in the Denali wilderness 15 years ago?
In his best-selling book "Into the Wild," author Jon Krakauer argues that McCandless did -- upon eating the seeds of Hedysarum alpinum, a historically edible plant commonly known as wild potato (also "Eskimo potato").
Collecting some near the area where he died, Krakauer sent the seeds to the University of Alaska Fairbanks chemistry department for testing.
At first, lab testing appeared positive for poison. But a more extensive analysis the next year -- examining additional seeds that UAF graduate student Ed Treadwell harvested near Fairbanks -- prompted department of chemistry chairman Tom Clausen to conclude that the seeds weren't poisonous after all.
"There were no toxins," Clausen said in a recent telephone interview. "And we looked at everything -- roots, seeds, stems and leaves."
End of theory, right? Not yet. When movie director Sean Penn's film version of "Into the Wild" reaches Alaska this month, viewers will see a variation of Krakauer's theory. In it, McCandless confuses wild sweet pea -- which local guidebooks have long listed as poisonous -- with wild potato.
(Krakauer was aware of that possibility, but he dismissed it in his book after concluding that McCandless probably knew the difference between the two plants -- since he'd been eating wild potato roots for weeks.)
As Alaska wildflower expert Verna Pratt points out, however, the wild potato and the wild sweet pea are much harder to tell apart once they lose their blooms in midsummer.
The leaves look almost identical unless you examine them from below, Pratt says. The underside of the wild potato leaf has small veins on it; the underside of the sweet pea leaf doesn't.
"It's not difficult to confuse them if you're not familiar," says Pratt, the author of "Field Guide to Alaskan Wildflowers." "He could have made a mistake."
So is the poisoning theory in the movie a better bet than the poisoning theory in the book?
Not necessarily, says Clausen, the UAF chemistry professor. Because when he and Treadwell tested the wild potato seeds, they also tested wild sweet pea seeds harvested near Fairbanks -- and determined that they didn't contain any alkaloids either. Neither did their roots, nor their leaves.
Then why do guidebooks, like "Wild, Edible and Poisonous Plants of Alaska," published by the University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service, call wild sweet pea poisonous?
The sole evidence the book cites is the anecdotal experience of a 19th century party of Arctic explorers led by Sir John Richardson who reported getting sick when they ate wild sweet pea that they thought was wild potato.
Clausen questions why no one else has gotten sick from wild sweet pea since then, and he thinks Richardson's men may have been poisoned by something else.
So is the poisoning theory in the movie as unlikely as the poisoning theory in the book?
Not necessarily, says Pratt, who notes that plants in the pea family do have a demonstrated tendency to absorb selenium from the soil. (Selenium is a trace element that's essential to livestock and humans in small amounts, but can be highly toxic in large amounts, resulting in a condition veterinarians call "blind staggers.") The Western states are notorious for selenium-saturated soils. How much occurs in Alaska, however, isn't readily known.
Still, location matters when you test the toxicity of flora, Pratt says. A plant that isn't poisonous in one spot can easily be poisonous in another -- if the soil it's growing in is saturated with something toxic.
Maybe so, Clausen said. But he hasn't seen any evidence yet that the plants McCandless ate are poisonous -- either from the book or the movie.
"And at some point," he said, "you have to let your hypothesis go."
Whatever critics of him might say, as RM stated in one of his books he lasted a lot longer out there than many would have done.
Unprepared and a dreamer he may have been, but he lived with a degree of freedom many of us will never experience and most will only dream of, and even if it ultimately lead to his untimely death he can at least say that, according to Thoreau - "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.."
well when you put it like that,,... no-one i dont suppose,...lol,....
but we must remember its not a documentary and wasnt directed for us to learn from,...but simply to entertain.
So thats why your following is true,...
Cheers,...
Stu.
It is a good film - the book is good too. McCandless had an interesting life, and for me the most interesting part of the whole story is the way he challenged convention (giving his money away is a good example of that). It's a fair point that he was ill prepared, but then we learn from the mistakes of others, or at least should do.
robin wood
Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Interesting update on the cause of death here http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/09/how-chris-mccandless-died.html
Turns out that wild potato seeds contain a toxin that causes paralysis. There is no effect on most people as part of a balanced diet but it particularly affects men aged 15-25 doing physical activity on low calorie intake. The condition is called lathyrism.
"To establish once and for all whether Hedysarum alpinum is toxic, last month I sent a hundred and fifty grams of freshly collected wild-potato seeds to Avomeen Analytical Services, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, for H.P.L.C. analysis. Dr. Craig Larner, the chemist who conducted the test, determined that the seeds contained .394 per cent beta-ODAP by weight, a concentration well within the levels known to cause lathyrism in humans."
Turns out that wild potato seeds contain a toxin that causes paralysis. There is no effect on most people as part of a balanced diet but it particularly affects men aged 15-25 doing physical activity on low calorie intake. The condition is called lathyrism.
"To establish once and for all whether Hedysarum alpinum is toxic, last month I sent a hundred and fifty grams of freshly collected wild-potato seeds to Avomeen Analytical Services, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, for H.P.L.C. analysis. Dr. Craig Larner, the chemist who conducted the test, determined that the seeds contained .394 per cent beta-ODAP by weight, a concentration well within the levels known to cause lathyrism in humans."
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