LFF 2010: 'Howl'

"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked..." along with William Burroughs's The Naked Lunch and Jack Kerouac's On The Road, Allen Ginsberg's Howl is one of the key Beat Generation texts. The influence of all three on today's literature and culture remains massive and unquantifiable, but it was the obscenity trials around Burroughs's novel and, before that, Howl, which granted the most immediate fame. The language in both is undeniably fruity ("who let themselves be f**ked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed with joy?"), but from a 2010 vantage point, the fact that their literary merit was called into question seems incredible.

This fine biopic from Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman intertwines four strands in its exploration of Howl. There's Ginsberg (James Franco) in rich, smoky black and white, performing the poem aloud for the first time at the Six Gallery Reading in 1955. There's the 1957 obscenity trial - shot as a standard courtroom drama. There's a concurrent interview with an unseen journalist, with Ginsberg talking about his life and about Howl. Lastly, there are animated segments, which provide an occasionally inspired - and rarely too-literal - backdrop to verses from the poem.

To its immense credit, Howl the movie makes a huge success of this potentially problematic mish-mash. Franco is incredible as Ginsberg and the supporting cast impress in the courtroom (attorneys David Strathairn and Jon Hamm and judge Bob Balaban especially so). The whole package evokes a real sense of excitement in a critical moment in literary and cultural history without overstating the case. It's crying out for a DVD with complete animated versions of Howl and a full take of Franco-as-Ginsberg in '55, but as a cinematic celebration of poetry, this can't be beat.


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