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Howl
| Released |
25 February 2011 |
| Director |
Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman |
Starring
|
James Franco, Jon Hamm, David Strathairn, Bob Balaban, Mary-Louise Parker, Treat Williams, Jon Prescott, Aaron Tveit, Todd Rotondi, Jeff Daniels, Alessandro Nivola |
| Writer(s) |
Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman |
Producer(s)
|
Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman, Elizabeth Redleaf, Christine Kunewa Walker |
| Origin |
United States |
| Running Time |
84 minutes |
| Genre |
Drama |
| Rating |
18 |
|
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More of a yelp.
Allen Ginsberg was one of the leading writers of the ‘Beat Generation’ in America in the 1950s. Along with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, he sought to explore and expose the underbelly of America. In 1955 he wrote his seminal poem 'Howl' which railed against conformity and sexual repression. City Lights Books published it, but due to its language and sexual imagery, the owner Laurence Ferlinghetti stood trial in 1957 for obscenity.
Howl starts in 1955 with Ginsberg (James Franco) reading the poem in public in San Francisco for the first time. It then skips forward to the obscenity trial two years later where defence lawyer Jon Hamm is defending the publisher against prosecutor David Strathairn. A succession of expert witnesses debate the issue of the poem’s literary merit with the lawyers. There’s the prim Mary-Louise Parker, the dour Alessandro Nivola and the more liberal Treat Williams. These interactions are quite short and the most prolonged encounter is between the haughty Jeff Daniels and Hamm.
However, don’t be fooled into thinking that this is a courtroom drama as the trial doesn’t actually feature that much. The poem itself is brought to life with some pretty stunning animation but the film mostly consists of Ginsberg telling the story of his life and the events that led up to the trial. Ginsberg goes on, and on and on and this endless narration is the film’s main problem as it sucks the life out it.
James Franco deserves some credit for being willing to play a gay ‘50s poet, but with his leading man looks he’s not really convincing in the role, especially to anyone who was familiar with the real Ginsberg. The supporting cast don’t really feature enough to make a strong impression. Hamm looks like he wandered in on his lunch break from Mad Men and Strathairn is decent but uninspired as the prosecutor. The cast of literary experts is unnecessarily and distractingly starry as the roles aren’t big enough to merit such big names.
The biggest problem with the film is its format, which tries to fit too much into what (at 84 minutes) is quite a short film. The trial sections are based on the actual court transcripts, which largely explains why they are so dull and lifeless. The film is redeemed somewhat by the superb animated sequences which are computer generated but based on drawings by Eric Drooker, an old collaborator of Ginsberg. They perfectly capture the nightmarishly hallucinogenic feel of the poem and bring it to life.
Overall though, this is a disappointing and pretty dull film.
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Jim O’Connor |
