Jon Krakauer…

I came across a random trailer in youtube for the following film:

It is appalling that Hollywood hasn’t sunk their claws into this one yet. I think the book came out in 1997, also titled ‘Into the Wild‘. An amazing read, highly recommended! The book explains the journey of a rich boy from Georgia whom gives away everything he owns on an expedition to Alaska. The book is written from piecing together his journey west, then north from people he ran into along the way. He hit some famous areas, like the campgrounds out in Sun City and a few others. I don’t want to go into detail about the story (I don’t remember everything all that clearly) but it is a good venture into non-fiction if you are feeling so inclined. The lineup in the movie looks great, Katherine Keener (Maxine from Being John Malkovich) and Jena Malone (Saved, Stepmom), two of my favorite actresses. Of course the lead is a cutie, but Vince Vaughan is in a large supporting role, and I have trouble taking him very seriously. We’ll see I guess. I may even go to the movie theatre to see it, a luxury I rarely experience….that is if we are lucky enough to get it to play in our small theatre.

The author is Jon Krakauer, the first book I read by him really blew me away. The title is ‘Under the Banner of Heaven‘. It is a chronicle of the history of Mormonism in a modern day context based on the murder of sister by her two brothers whom transferred to the fundamentalist LDS church from the popular, more mainstream LDS church.

Let’s start at the ordination of Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism. Apparently, a heavenly body instructed him to go into the woods where he found ‘the golden pamphlets’ in a wooded hillside. Then, immediately after he read them, they mysteriously disappeared. There is an event every year in the small town in upstate NY, Palymra, where the pamphlets were found. I have a friend who lives nearby, and I accidentally got caught in the middle of it when I was on my way to visit her. It was like I was in the middle of an episode of the Twilight Zone. Many many similarly dressed women and men drifting in a sea of toe-headed children. Reminds me of driving through Utah. I passed many billboards advertising 6, 7, and 8 bedroom homes. The drastic rate of population growth is simply astonishing.

I digress. The book chronicles the westward movement of the Mormon church as they were forced out of many eastern states. Members of the Mormon church faced a number of travesties in spreading their religion. Frequently, the government stepped in to settle or to dispel the startup organizations. Perhaps more appalling was their treatment of the native Americans. Any tribe within the path of the Mormon party were destroyed. I recall a few questionable extinctions of entire tribes in the vincinity of the Mormon caravan.

The church grew through the realization of self-proclaimed prophets. These prophets claimed that God spoke to them, and clarified their function on Earth. Even to this day, more and more prophets are speaking up. In the book, the two brothers were exactly that….self-proclaimed. They each heard God instruct them in a dream to kill their sister-in-law and her 2 year-old daughter. And this remains their defense to this day.  I won’t get into the details, but READ this book!

Since writing this post, I found out that Eddie Vedder is supplying the entire soundtrack for this movie.

Cheers!