Director Lindsay Jaeger brought her film ‘Wilderness Song’–a documentary about Everett Ruess–to the Tower Theatre in Salt Lake for a work-in-progress screening April 3.

It is rare for filmgoers to see an unfinished cinematic work, that hasn’t been polished to the point of sheer, shiny blandness by the time all the production and marketing teams have had their hands all over a film. This indie production is something still in embryo, not fully formed, in a sense like the subject matter, Ruess himself. The sound, and color in some of the shots, appeared to not be precisely balanced or fine-tuned, but that seemed to add to the vividness of the story. Music by Dan Bern, based on Ruess’ words, is also effective in creating a tone.

This retelling of Everett Ruess doesn’t present any new facts to our knowledge of his story, but presented personal insights into his personality from interviews with people who knew him, many on-site in the area around Escalante, Utah, where he is thought to have disappeared. The artist, poet and writer wandered the Southwestern US and vanished in 1934, barely twenty years old, and was never heard from again, although letters and diaries remain.

His story has attained a mythic quality in the years since. His is an unlikely myth, although it resonates with us in the world today in some ways more than legends of rough-hewn frontier gunslingers and ‘cowboys and Indians.’ Certain elements touch open current themes, very hauntingly so because they are things we feel we’ve lost: American individuality taken to an extreme of living a solitary existence, the essential need for solitude, the nature of wilderness–what it means and the importance of its preservation–and survival in that kind of environment.

There are dangers, as local rare book dealer Ken Sanders reminds in the film, you could die very easily in that environment. A US geologist in the film noted that same thing–the rush of adrenalin she doesn’t feel any more, now there is someone a mile or so away, you can hear engines, even out there the traces of development.

The diarist and letter-writing tradition, and of introspection into one’s experience, is something we have lost in the age of Facebook, in the age of saying things off the top of your head without much consideration, in the age of being ‘connected‘ 24/7. This was also a philosophical journey for Ruess. He didn’t believe one could really understand another’s experience without experiencing the same things. The red rocks were so beautiful that he found it painful, he noted, and he wanted people to see the beauty, but he wasn’t sure they could withstand the pain of it, but he still wanted them to share some of it. He felt a deep connection with the land.

Also, he theme of the innate, natural beauty of the world. This region was untouched, except for native American rock paintings. What would he think of our perception of him, and what his myth has become to us, a personality cult of sorts? He saw himself as very small in the perspective of the massive red rock landscapes around him.

In the post-film discussion with Jaeger and Sanders, the latter noted that Ruess at 20 was still a child, an adolescent, not a fully-formed human being. It was a romanticized adventure, and that’s something else we’ve lost, for good or ill. It was a quest that Ruess was on. Who goes on a quest any more? The late Bob Moss, local artist and musician, in the film says Ruess was a ‘man of the heart,’ rather than the head, perhaps one of the ‘hidden pillars of society’ in Sufi thought.

Sanders said Ruess didn’t ‘get real,’ although he ultimately gave himself to the land. I took it to mean he didn’t ‘get real’ in the sense of actually confronting the land on its own terms, life and death, and the price he would ultimately have to pay for entering into a completely ‘wild’ environment away from civilization.

Activist Tim DeChristopher is interviewed in the film, before he was jailed, and Sanders says the activist did get real, in the sense of facing up to the price he would have to pay for sacrificing himself to the land in his own way, sacrificing his freedom and going to jail. DeChristopher says he decided he could live with the consequences of his protest, but couldn’t live with himself if he had failed to act. Wilderness Song is ultimately about the question, what kind of life do you want to live?

Jaeger is looking to finish the film soon and start submitting it to film festivals. Jonathan Demme, with whom she has worked in the past, is the film’s producer.

Wilderness Song kickstarter page