Unlike River, the two-legged Alaskans who worked on the film won't appear on screen. Most aren't even named in the credits.
Yet more than 40 Alaskans lent the film authenticity through tasks such as growing fireweed to just the right height for a late summer scene or teaching the film's star, Emile Hirsch, how to skin a moose.
"If it wasn't for the local people knowing how to deal with the environment and equipment and wildlife, we'd have been lost in many ways," said executive producer John Kelly from his home in Valencia, Calif.
ALASKANS MAKE IT 'REAL'
Paramount Vantage's "Into the Wild," which opens in Anchorage on Oct. 19, centers on the controversial figure Chris McCandless, a young man from a wealthy East Coast family who embarked on a cross-country quest to find himself. He died near Denali National Park in 1992, probably due to starvation. Some revere McCandless as a modern day Thoreau. Others dismiss him as a foolish dreamer, ill-prepared for the backcountry.
The film follows the McCandless character as he travels, lingering in California and South Dakota before he reaches his final stop, Alaska. In an unusual move, Hollywood chose to shoot in Alaska instead of substituting a Canadian location. Most of the film's Alaska scenes were shot near Cantwell, about 40 miles southeast of the abandoned bus where McCandless actually died.
In addition to its Hollywood roster, the film's cast includes a moose, an eagle, a porcupine and caribou from Portage's Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center. (The film's grizzly was imported from Salt Lake City.)
Mike Miller, the center's executive director, said the crew scheduled six hours for a scene where River snacks on a bush, then walks into a meadow where Hirsch pretends to shoot him. A consummate professional, River delivered his performance in an hour.
"We got it on the first take thanks to bananas," Miller said. "We always film with bananas: Moose love 'em. Of course, I get all this credit from the crew as if I could speak English to this moose."
For some Alaskans, working on a movie set wasn't radically different from their day-to-day jobs. Patrick Donnelly of Eagle River was hired as a set electrician to perform such mundane tasks as schlepping gear and adjusting cables and light stands. "I was pretty much the last link in the chain. As usual," he said, laughing.
Other Alaskans had to tackle projects outside the usual realm. An exact replica of the bus was required for the set, so Anchorage artist Duke Russell created one. Russell and his California business partner, Jose Sandaval, took detailed photos of the real bus, then spent a week in a Wasilla garage painting the bus's twin, down to the rust spots.
As set artist, Russell spent shoots touching up the bus and creating props, like hand carving a sign with McCandless' paragraph-long manifesto. Outdoors in 20-degree temperatures. With a pen knife.
"It took me 12 hours," Russell said. "I think Chris actually wrote it with a pen, but Sean wanted it all carved. I got blisters. ... Sean was very exacting about writing in Chris' penmanship, and would point out 'there's a comma here' or 'there's an underline there' just from memory."
Russell and other Alaska employees were hired by Meg Halsey of Anchorage, the film's assistant production supervisor. She dug up all sorts of folks with special skills not usually required on movie shoots. That included an "animal safety" team: Hunters carrying guns who patrolled the set to make sure no cast or crew members were hurt by the neighborhood bears.
One day, Halsey's catchall job meant tromping out to the real bus, taking pictures of the height of the fireweed, and e-mailing images to Hollywood. Another day, her big task was wrangling with roadkill. Yes, the animal Hirsch skins in the movie is a real, live, dead moose. Halsey said the film team worked with government agencies to acquire a roadkill moose, then froze it for two months until it was needed for the hunting scene.
Bruce Gore of Cantwell, a member of the animal safety team, taught Hirsch about skinning and butchering. Gore was unavailable for an interview. His wife, Marie, said he was out hunting.
$2 MILLION SPENT IN ALASKA
It's rare that Alaskans with film skills get to play a part in anything besides commercials and TV shows. Nearly all Alaska-set films are shot in Canada or Utah.
"We were budgeting for those areas because they're far less expensive and logistically much easier," said Kelly, the executive producer. "Then Sean and I went to see the bus in Denali. ... We were in waist-high snow and a moose walked out from behind a tree. Sean looked at me and said, 'We're shooting the movie here.' And he led the fight to do the film as authentically as possible."
The studio dropped about $2 million in Alaska on necessities such as food, lodging, local labor and equipment rentals, according to Carol McConkie, the state's tourism staff supervisor. McConkie does double duty as the department's film development manager since the Alaska Film Program ceased to be a fully funded program in the late 1990s.
The lack of a film industry infrastructure, compounded by the backcountry location, made "Into the Wild" a tough shoot. The crew filmed in Alaska four different times during 2006. When they first started, everything and everyone were hauled to the site by snowmobile. When the ice began melting, they switched to ATVs. Swelling rivers caused all sorts of transportation obstacles. "It never got completely unmanageable, but it got very muddy," said John Jabaley, a location manager from Los Angeles.
On set, Penn made an impression on his Alaska employees. He was characterized as a meticulous, but down-to-earth guy. Animal wrangler Miller said the director included the crew in casual parties for his birthday and wedding anniversary, and invited several "underlings" on a pilgrimage to the bus site.
"He knows how to recognize and motivate people," Miller said. "If it's pouring rain, he's out there wet all day, too, not some prima donna or anything."
Some of the Alaskans who were part of the film attended screenings earlier this month in Fairbanks or Los Angeles. Halsey admits she's biased, but said she loves it and thinks the cinematography is beautiful.
Russell said when his plywood sign filled the big screen, it made his blisters worth it. "It's one of those really exciting moments in your life where you realize you've been given an amazing opportunity."
Find Sarah Henning online at adn.com/contact/shenning or call 257-4323.
THEATERS: "Into the Wild" opens today in New York and Los Angeles. The Anchorage opening is scheduled Oct. 19, according to Paramount Vantage.
Excerpts from movie reviews
Penn's portrait is completely congratulatory. He focuses almost entirely on McCandless' sweetness and idealism, emphasizing the largeness of his spirit in an attempt to mythologize him as an avatar of advanced consciousness.
-- Los Angeles Times
And now for something completely different, Sean Penn's uncompromising "Into the Wild," with Emile Hirsch's career-making performance as a young idealist who treks into the Alaskan wilderness to live in harmony with nature, which is not in harmony with him.
-- Roger Ebert's blog (rogerebert.suntimes.com)
A better choice than Emile Hirsch could hardly be imagined. The young actor from "Alpha Dog" and "The Girl Next Door" radiates intelligence, idealism and the personability that made McCandless a joy to practically everyone he met. But he also gets the latter-day hippie's stubbornness, his fatal naivete and how he used resentment against his parents to justify keeping even the people he came closest to on the road at arm's length.
-- Los Angeles Daily News
Penn's direction and writing, like his acting, is emotive to a fault: he can't resist the teary close-up or the throbbing montage of folks whose lives Christopher has touched. But it comes from a good place. ... "Into the Wild" is a bittersweet odyssey of opportunities lost and paradise found.
-- Newsday
Hirsch offers a tour de force as the doomed Christopher McCandless, whose restless wanderings in search of nature, beauty and truth left him dead in Alaska, starved and alone, at 24. ... Writer-director Sean Penn gives him a wealth of material to work with.
-- The Associated Press
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