Iconoclasts - Season3 - Sean Penn + Jon Krakauer

In this original series, leading innovators and creative visionaries meet to discuss their passions and creative processes, providing an inside glimpse into the inspiration and motivation that made these iconoclasts who they are today. The third season's opening episode unites actor Sean Penn and best-selling author Jon Krakauer (Into Thin Air; Under the Banner of Heaven). Penn recently adapted and directed a film starring Emile Hirsch based on Krakauer's Into the Wild, the true story of a young man who disappeared in the Alaskan wilderness. This episode includes music from the INTO THE WILD soundtrack composed and performed by Eddie Vedder.

Sean Penn

FILMMAKER

Academy Award winner Sean Penn has become an American film icon in a career spanning nearly three decades. He has been nominated four times for the Academy Award as Best Actor in DEAD MAN WALKING, SWEET AND LOWDOWN, and I AM SAM. Most recently, he won the Oscar in 2003 for his searing performance in Clint Eastwood's MYSTIC RIVER. Penn has appeared in over thirty films including TAPS, FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH, THE FALCON AND THE SNOWMAN, AT CLOSE RANGE, COLORS, RACING WITH THE MOON, CASUALTIES OF WAR, WE'RE NO ANGELS, STATE OF GRACE, CARLITO'S WAY, U-TURN, THE THIN RED LINE, DEAD MAN WALKING (Winner Best Actor /1995 Berlin Film Festival), SHE'S SO LOVELY (Winner Best Actor / 1997 Cannes Film Festival), HURLYBURLY (Winner Best Actor / 1998 Venice Film Festival), 21 GRAMS (Winner Best Actor / 2003 Venice Film Festival), THE INTERPRETER, and most recently ALL THE KING'S MEN. Penn's feature film directorial debut came with 1991's THE INDIAN RUNNER, which he also wrote and produced. In 1995, he directed THE CROSSING GUARD, which he also wrote and produced. His third film as director/producer was 2001's THE PLEDGE starring Jack Nicholson and was named in the Top Ten Films of 2001 by The National Board of Review. Since then, Penn wrote and directed the United States' contribution to the compilation film 11'09"01. This important project gathered 11 acclaimed directors from around the world to create short films in response to the horrific events of September 11, 2001. In 2003 the film was nominated for a French Cesar in the best European Union Film category and received a special recognition award from the National Board of Review. Penn has appeared on stage in productions including Alfred Hayes' "Girl On the Via Flamnia" and Albert Innaurato's "Earthworms in Los Angeles". On Broadway, Penn performed in Kevin Heelan's "Heartland" and John Byrne's "Slab Boys". He appeared in David Rabe's "Hurlyburly", at the Westwood Playhouse, and "Goose and Tom Tom" at Lincoln Center, both productions directed by the author. Most recently, Penn starred opposite Nick Nolte and Woody Harrelson in "The Late Henry Moss", written and directed by Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Sam Shepard. In 2002, Sean Penn was presented with the Modern Master Award at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, and in 2003, he became the youngest ever recipient of the Donostia Lifetime Achievement Award from the San Sebastian Film Festival. Additionally, in 2004, he received the John Steinbeck Award for outspoken torch-bearers in the creative arts. As journalist, Penn has written for Time, Interview, and Rolling Stone magazines. In 2004, Penn wrote a two-part feature in The San Francisco Chronicle after a second visit to the war-torn Iraq. In 2005, he wrote a five-part feature in the same paper, reporting from Iran during the election, which led to the Ahmadinejad regime. As writer, producer and director, Sean Penn's next film INTO THE WILD will be released in Fall 2007. The film is based on Jon Krakauer's best-selling book.

Jon Krakauer

AUTHOR

Born in 1954, Jon Krakauer grew up in Corvallis, Oregon, where his father introduced him to mountaineering as an 8-year-old. After graduating from Hampshire College in 1976, Krakauer divided his time between Colorado, Alaska, and the Pacific Northwest, supporting himself primarily as a carpenter and commercial salmon fisherman. For the next two decades, however, his life revolved around climbing mountains. In 1977 he traveled alone to Alaska's Stikine Icecap, went three weeks without encountering another person, and ascended a previously unclimbed route on a huge, intimidating peak called The Devils Thumb. In 1992 he journeyed to Patagonia and climbed an ice-encrusted, mile-high spike of granite called Cerro Torre—once considered the most difficult mountain on earth, and still regarded as one of the loveliest. In 1996 Krakauer reached the top of Mt. Everest, but a storm took the lives of four of the five teammates who climbed to the summit with him. An analysis of the calamity that he wrote for Outside magazine received a National Magazine Award. The unsparingly frank book he subsequently wrote about Everest, Into Thin Air, became a #1 New York Times bestseller and has been translated into more than 25 languages. It was also honored as the "Book of the Year" by Time magazine and was one of three finalists for the 1998 Pulitzer Prize. For the past 27 years, Krakauer's writing has been published in the likes of Outside, GQ, Smithsonian, National Geographic, Architectural Digest, Playboy, and Rolling Stone. An article he wrote for Smithsonian about vulcanology received the 1997 Walter Sullivan Award for Excellence in Science Journalism. His 1996 book, Into the Wild about an idealistic young man named Chris McCandless who perished in the Alaskan bush, spent more than two years on the New York Times bestseller list. In 1998, as a tribute to his companions lost on Everest, Krakauer established the Everest '96 Memorial Fund at the Boulder Community Foundation, endowing it with royalties from Into Thin Air. As of 2007, the fund has disbursed more than $1,000,000 in humanitarian aid, primarily to the indigenous peoples of the Himalayan region. In 1999 Krakauer received an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a prestigious award intended "to honor writers of exceptional accomplishment". According to the Academy's citation, "Krakauer combines the tenacity and courage of the finest tradition of investigative journalism with the stylish subtlety and profound insight of the born writer. His account of an ascent of Mount Everest has led to a general reevaluation of climbing and of the commercialization of what was once a romantic, solitary sport, while his account of the life and death of Christopher McCandless, who died of starvation after challenging the Alaskan wilderness, delves even more deeply and disturbingly into the fascination of nature and the devastating effects of its lure on a young and curious mind." Krakauer's most recent book is Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith, published by Doubleday in 2003. Currently he is working on a new book-length work of non-fiction, for which he spent 4 months of the past year in remote corners of eastern Afghanistan conducting research. This book, as yet untitled, will be published by Doubleday in 2009.

Buy the INTO THE WILD Soundtrack

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Photos from this episode:

Image from Sean Penn + Jon Krakauer pairing from ICONOCLASTS Season 3.

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