Into The Wild

[mogwai]

Rustic, intimate and compact, the "Into the Wild" soundtrack is a marked departure from Pearl Jam's stadium-size rock, embellished with banjo, mandolin and pump organ, a sound inspired by the movie's outdoor settings.

eddie vedder, our generation's neil young. thanks for the article, mac.

[MacGuffin]

Interview: Sean Penn and Eddie Vedder
Penn and Vedder discuss their collaboration on the new film, Into the Wild.

On Tuesday, September 18, 2007, Sean Penn appeared before a crowd of film and entertainment reporters to discuss the making of his latest directorial effort, an adaptation of Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild. For the interview, Penn paired up with musician and fellow rabblerouser Eddie Vedder, who performed a number of songs in the film and contributed to the score.

IGN published Part One of Penn's interview on Wednesday, focusing exclusively on the filmmaker and his motivations for tackling the film, not to mention his feelings about folks who might object to his depiction of Krakauer's book. In Part Two, Penn exchanges comments with Vedder, and the two discuss their unique collaboration both on film and in real life.

IGN: Can you guys talk about the dynamics of your friendship and creative partnership?

Sean Penn: We go back quite a ways, back to Dead Man Walking, and maybe before in a hello-backstage kind of way. I'm 47 so there's not too much music that comes after '68 that doesn't feel like it's been done before. And then comes [Vedder's] voice that so many times before we met, the voice sat me down. I mean as a songwriter as well as a singer. So there was that, [and] I was predisposed to want him to like me when we met (laughs). It didn't work out too well the first time. But as it went along, I just felt a kind of creative connection, or at least aspired to it. Then it started with other things we talked about in the past. I asked him to play the lead in a movie that I'd written at one point, and there's a tale that maybe he'll tell you about that. So then on this thing, I'd written a script to be in part told by song, so I'd left out narrative in those transitional sequences knowing just the seed of what I needed from the songs to close those gaps. It was about halfway through shooting really through Emile's performance that I started feeling, this is it. This is Eddie's voice. This was the musical soul, the voice of what Emile was bringing. I asked, and then I'll let him take it from here.

Eddie Vedder: First of all, don't feel like you need to ask me questions. I'm just happy to be sitting this close to who I consider not just a great human being but a master of what he does, in all the things he does. These [front row] seats are pretty good but this one's even better. I couldn't turn down that opportunity. [But] I think if you go back to the poet, Sean had some resources. People call him back immediately because of the amount of respect he's gained and earned over the years. I was just another one of those calls and immediately I responded, and said goodbye to what I thought was going to be a vacation after doing a long stretch with the band. Our friendship is incredibly important to me. We've had some really memorable times, whether it's running rapids or having coffee. It's amazing how those things with Sean can be really similar. To work with him is to work with somebody. With Sean, that's where you get into the good stuff beyond hey, how are you doing, how's the family? That's all great but to work with somebody and really get into it, I really enjoy that. That's great, and that seems to further the friendship. It just gets deeper. The work is really where it gets exciting. And as this has formed and it now seems to be done, it was a real gift. I'm really glad that he heard my voice in all that because it's been a real gift.

IGN: What was your songwriting process on this film?

Vedder: It was kind of all different ways, and one nice thing it just kind of, I don't know how, but it just kind of grew organically and it wasn't I think - I may have been intimidated if Sean were to have said, 'We need this, and we need a theme, and it would be nice if it were structured this way or that way, and then it revisits this at the end.' None of that happened, or not consciously, and he started finding places to put the songs. I've been learning from listening to the actors and Sean talk, Sean gave the actors - gave Emile, as closely as Sean was paying attention to detail to tell an exacting story being so responsible to Chris, he also gave Emile the freedom to be that person and how would that person be? What I'm saying is, with the music basically he allowed me to write my own lines. [I also performed] a couple of cover songs, so that was nice to - he gave me a few lines that I could interpret. He gave me a lot of freedom, and I think the biggest thing was trust, which was just kind of unspoken. The story is so inspiring, just so inspiring, and the images were inspiring, and it was so easy to focus that it really became kind of an out of body experience. It went real quick and instruments were being handed to me and we were just doing all the takes real quick, and then we'd send it to Sean and he'd find places for it, and ask for a couple of more, and it just kind of grew that way. I don't know if I'd want to do this again, because I know it wouldn't be as good as this experience was, so I could just leave it at this. This was great.

IGN: Do you have any plans to perform this music live, and/or are you planning a solo tour?

Vedder: I'd like to play I think - there might be a few requests for these songs that might come in. No plans, like I said making are with Sean was I feel like a gift, but I might just take some time off; it's like if you afford yourself to buy a nice chair, what's the point if you never get to sit in it? So I might just take some time with my kid.

IGN: Eddie, what do you think about iTunes being a way for music being distributed today, and Ticketmaster's continued hold over live performances?

Vedder: As of two weeks ago, Ticketmaster is now gone. So there's something about longevity. It's nice to outlast something that's as big and giant and powerful as that. The answer to this is a three or four hour discussion at the end of which there are as many questions as there are answers. It's a bit strange for me that people are weighing in on this record and they've heard it and yet it's not for sale. They got it from being downloaded and that whole deal. As an artist, the problem with not selling records, if that's what we're talking about, and considering that people aren't buying your records because they don't like 'em. I agree with that too, if that would be the case. But I think there are a lot of people getting their music without having to pay you. And it's only $12. I ordered eggs at a little Seattle restaurant and it was $9.50. I'm thinking you can't spend two extra bucks for a record that you put your heart and soul into. I think the problem is that you're going to have to charge more for tickets, which is something we've always been abhorrent to do. Either that, or you're going to have to start accepting sponsorships. That's going to be the normal thing or start selling your music to Viagra commercials, supporting, supporting (laughs), artificial erections. As an artist, that puts you in an interesting position and I'm not sure what or how we'll do it. I'm glad we gave money away when we did when it came from making records. We kind of spread it around and helped people in our community and abroad in different ways. I'm glad we did it when we could. It's different now.

IGN: Have either of you felt a call to take off into the wild like Christopher did in the film?

Penn: I can say yes, and I think he'd tell you the same to varying degrees, in different ways. But I also feel that one of the things that made me so interested in this story - and I've been wrong about these perceptions before - but I feel the way I made this movie is that it's true of everybody in this room and everybody outside this room, that this is a very universal thing, this wanderlust.

Vedder: And for me, if I'm not on tour or in the studio, I'm in nature somewhere, usually some kind of ocean. Playing music has afforded me that. It's not lost on me that it's a tremendous opportunity to be able to spend your life being surrounded by nature. I have a three-year-old daughter now. I'm glad I did things in my 20s that were more reckless because at some point you realize you have a responsibility behind yourself and your need for adrenaline. I'm still looking for bigger waves and I could jump up a few more feet before I go back to the longboard, but I'm glad I did that stuff at the time. For people who see this movie, if they haven't done that in their life, I think it's going to hit them pretty hard.

IGN: Eddie, how has fatherhood changed you?

Vedder: I'm still thinking about the other question about what would I do if she wanted to go on our own. I don't know what I'm going to be able to say when she's going to see pictures of me hanging 30 feet off a raft or over a crowd. There's nothing I'm going to be able to say, and I think she'll survive all that just like I did. I think when I had a child everyone was going tell me I was going see the world through her eyes and everything was going to get this nice gloss to it, hazy images and butterflies were going to look more Technicolor and I kept waiting for that to happen and then thought there was a real problem with me that it wasn't. Then I realized that I was getting more angry, that it was the exact opposite, and maybe it's because of the times and what was happening three years ago and what's still happening. As a band we've maintained a level of activism as citizens of our country and tried to point out things that we thought were - point out injustice and see if we could get other people to act, but it was based on how we felt as band members and what we thought was wrong. All of a sudden I saw the world as it was her world that they were f*cking with, it was her world and that really pissed me off. So it was a different reaction, it wasn't the glowy, lovey-dovey, it fueled my anger. Strange.

Penn: Meanwhile I'm sitting here thinking of what that Viagra commercial could be and I come up with, 'What do you call it Johnny?' 'I call it Jeremy.' (sings) 'Jeremy's spoken.'

Vedder: There's another one too - "oh I'm still alive!" (laughs)

IGN: What would you say if in 20 years your daughter wanted to go on a trip like this?

Vedder: Well, the initial reaction is to send a security guard along, keeping him 50 yards away keeping an eye on her all the time. I can only encourage that at this point. I know that no matter what I do, and already she's been provided a life of travel, I didn't get to New York until I was 25 or to Europe until I was 26, she's been to all these places six, seven times, and she's already beyond me as far as her comfortability around other people to this day for me. So with all that, even though I think she's going to have a really great upbringing and I'm trying to break any kind of chain of negative parenting that I might have survived, I know that she's going to go through a time when she's going to have to assert her independence and I'm going to have to encourage that.

IGN: If Alaska hadn't been the climax of Chris' life, what do you think he would be doing now?

Penn: But for what it's worth what I think, my romantic vision of it is he's doing what Jon Krakauer is doing, he'd be writing, he'd be adventuring more and writing about it more, but your guess is as good as mine beyond that.

Vedder: One of the directions that Sean gave me on - he's leaving the bus before he gets to the river and the river is overflowing, [was] just a short little note he sent up, and he said, 'On this scene, don't be afraid to be too literal with the lyrics. He knows he's leaving, he knows he's leaving the bus, and he's not going back to his parents, and he's not going back to f*ck the 16 year old girl - and then in parentheses, "I don't know why)."

IGN: What do you have coming up?

Penn: Well, I'm going to go sit in that chair he bought (laughs).

[bigperm]

As well, I saw this over the weekend, and I really liked it, a lot more than I anticipated that I would. Not sure what the overall view will be, but for me the, it worked, a good cast, solid performances, and I was taken with the way it was shot, I felt it ranged from simple set ups, to imagery and coverage that kept the story/experience fresh. I enjoyed the Hal Holbrook character a lot, and he was solid in his performance. Seeing both this and JJ in the same weekend made for quite a "wondering/lying around thinking" about movies and life type of weekend, so on and so forth, whatever. Completely worthy of a theater experience, but something tells me not everyone will dig it.

[elpablo]

This was beautiful and sad, and by the end, very good. The adaptation was a little shoddy. The beginning was like watching Bambi learn to walk, but when it finally got going, it was going. I think Sean Penn did the titles himself. They were bad. And there were a lot of awkward zooms. But it was wonderful to watch a such mediocre filmmaker struggle so hard to tell a story that he loves and desperately wants to share with the world. The performances were wonderful. I wish they had had enough money to shoot in 70mm. As beautiful as the landscapes were in 35mm, they still deserved better. The one thing missing from Jon Krakauer's novel is that the reader can only imagine so much of what he's describing, so getting to see that aspect of the story and see why McCandless loved it so much was a good thing. I'm very jealous of Emile Hirsch right now. And the whole crew for that matter. All they did was fly around to all of these amazing locations and film amazing actors give amazing performances. I'm probably hyping this up way more than it really deserves to be because I got home 15 minutes ago. But you should go see it anyways. It's a good movie.

[w/o horse]

The reason I blew off the Oscar contenders to see this one is the same reason that I liked this movie.  Everything that I thought was going to be there was there, but it was also more than I was hoping for because amid the central story of the boy-following-heart there were some real fragile souls that connected together and strengthened the emotion of the film.  All the secondary characters were really vibrant, and the glimpses into these auxiliary stories were just enough to move and entice without straying.  Cinematically the nature photography and easy material is probably what's keeping everyone away from this one but I'll agree that if you're in the mood to escape, this is the kind of film that you can get lost in (like the wild).

[mogwai]

i can't believe this movie will be released in sweden in fucking march next year.

[Pubrick]

wasn't there a review here which mentioned that the movie avoids the fact "mccandless was kind of an idiot"? cos that's why i couldn't finish reading the book and why i wont' be watching the movie.

what the fuck is so appealing about a dude who goes out to the wild and dies?  unless i stopped reading before the point was made that it's a good thing ppl like this are removing themselves from the gene pool, i don't get it. what a stupid fucking thing to do.

Into the Idiocy.

[mogwai]

i can agree with various points on pubrick's post. even though i haven't read the book or have seen the movie i think i know how this guy thinked. judging by the trailer he seems like a isolated person and wants to cut loose all connections around. family, girlfriend and friends that are worth a lot. anyway, he wanted to see wild life with his own eyes and definitely did so. but i suppose he suffered a backlash when he noticed that the wild life wasn't what he thought it was. he became depressed by it and probably realized that he made some mistakes. like he made his own grave and couldn't do anything about it. so some kind of lunacy evolved out that, i guess. pardon my ramblings, this is not how i perceive how the movie will be.

[Redlum]

I felt the same way as you, Pubrick. That's why I was surprised to see Penn's take on it was so much more upbeat than the vibe I got from the book. Krakauer interviews some sort of Alaskan woodsman who was aware of McCandless and saw his quest into the wild as idiotic. However, if I remember correctly, by the end of the book (based upon his writings found at the bus) even McCandless starts to see some flaws in his ideas. Albeit, after he got sick but I'm pretty sure that prior to the tragic turn of events, he mentions to one of the last people he meets that after his trip to Alaska, he was to go home.

Now the book isn't really a definitive interpretation of Chris's character. At the same time as seeing him as completely foolish you can also see him as unlucky; his fate being the result of eating some poisonous berries or something. Either way I think he paid for his journey of self-discovery, or what he hoped it would be. That's why I don't think that Penn's celebratory interpretation should be ruled out. And would expect that he would leave room for you to cast your own judgment.

[w/o horse]

I don't see how he's an idiot.  Or even how he's more extreme or more irrational than the randomly selected literary character.  But that's a point I heard someone else say about something else, how if literary characters were real we'd think they were way too one thing or another.  The movie is strong in the opinion that he didn't know what to make of his life and that he was wreckless, but it also frames the movie in this damned-either-way perspective that I can sometimes agree with.

And there's no way that it's an optimistic movie.

[Pubrick]

but it also frames the movie in this damned-either-way perspective that I can sometimes agree with.

that's the stupid part. surely living is better than not. and he would have been STUPID to think he could go "into the wild" without any survival skills and survive for long. and he's not a "randomly selected literary character", he's a real life idiot, nor am i commenting on the irrational behaviour of Mr Darcy or Heathcliff or whatever the hell you're talking about.

it's just a stupid white male fantasy that to find yourself you have to make yourself poor, homeless, and a wild animal like the "tribal" ppl who are so in touch with nature. come off it, it's better to be part of civlization, there's real useful knowledge out there that you will never find in fucking trees. dude sounds like the kind of "deep thinker" who would go to the woods to take pictures and think they are inherently meaningful.

[bonanzataz]

mccandless was kind of an idiot

i know how this guy thinked.

clearly... 


and, yeah, for the people that say this movie is showing this guy as the smartest, coolest, most down to earth guy in the world; sean penn's been trying to make this movie for years, but mccandless's parents own the rights to the story and wouldn't let him make the film unless they had script approval. so, of course it's gonna be a little one sided.

[Sal]

I don't see anything celebratory about this movie. It's fairly objective. It celebrates the youthfulness of McCandless, and his passion, but not necessarily his point of view. I thought this was genius

[w/o horse]

I guess you'll have to see the movie P.  Because I don't see the point in this otherwise.  You're talking abstractly, about someone going into the woods and dying, and how that's stupid.  Because I'm not going into the woods and dying you should assume I agree with you.  But you're dismissing the validity of this story based on this single point, which is the hubris of the lead character, and ignoring all other aspects brought into the narrative, including the elements of desperation and despair and anguish of modern living, the broken family thing, the incompatablity between most people, fractured lives, meaningless labor. . .you know all of that stuff that does happen that is sort of incredibly uninteresting but does affect a great majority.

The majority it affects, by the way, is not white.  Don't say "stupid white male fantasy."  That's just not accurate.  It's definitely a money thing.  You hear rich people (which he was) say "I want to give up everything and live the simple life" you never hear people already living those lives say that, like you never hear the bus driver go "Take my retirement money I want to live free and easy."

[72teeth]

this was great... although, too many time did he look like jabels...