“The lyrics are killer”: The song Sean Penn anchored himself to for ‘Into The Wild’
The majority of famous actors who turn their hand to directing regularly place themselves in a key role on-screen, but despite his reputation as being a serious man who takes his acting very seriously, Sean Penn has never been too interested in actively pulling double duty.
The two-time Academy Award winner has six narrative features under his belt dating from 1991’s The Indian Runner to Flag Day 30 years later, but the latter is the only one in which he’s played a character in the film, and even then, it was down to the project being a family affair.
Penn’s real-life children Dylan and Hopper played his fictional children Jennifer and Nick in the underwhelming drama, but that’s been the exception to his directorial rule. Ignoring the excruciatingly cack-handed The Last Face, his side-line wielding the megaphone has yielded largely solid results, even if Into the Wild is the only one to receive Academy Awards recognition.
The biographical survival drama stars Emile Hirsch as Christopher McCandless, the son of wealthy parents who decides to abandon the notion of pursuing a career path stemming from his academic success in favour of ridding himself of his earthly belongings, donating his personal savings to good causes, and embarking on a journey of self-discovery in the wilds of Alaska.
As well as a ‘Best Supporting Actor’ nomination for Hal Holbrook and a nod for ‘Best Film Editing’, Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder won a Golden Globe in the ‘Best Original Song’ category for ‘Guaranteed’, while he also played a huge hand in composing the score for Into the Wild alongside Michael Brook and Kaki King.
That wasn’t always destined to be the case, though, with Penn admitting to Rolling Stone that another track almost made it into the movie before he settled upon original pieces instead. “For Into the Wild, my anchor piece was ‘Miles From Nowhere’, the Cat Stevens song,” he explained. “The lyrics of that song are killer; it’s exactly the story. I was going to use that originally in the film, and then Eddie started writing this great music.”
Penn is right to say the lyrics are “exactly the story,” and that covers both the positives and ultimate negatives of McCandless’ adventures in the wilderness. After all, the nomad’s body was found two weeks after he died, with starvation being pinpointed as the cause, making Stevens’ words, “Lord, my body has been a good friend, but I won’t need it when I reach the end”, ominously prophetic.
“I have my freedom, I can make my own rules, Oh yes, the ones that I choose” neatly sums up McCandless’ approach to existence, too, but somewhere along the line Penn decided that Vedder’s compositions made a better fit for his vision than a pre-existing track.