Howl
Starring: James Franco, David Strathairn, John Hamm
Director: Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman
Rating: 3 and a half (out of 5)
Summary: San Francisco 1957, and the obscenity trial of poet Allan Ginsberg's Howl - a masterpiece of the American beatnik counter culture - is in full swing. As the trial unfolds, we see the poetry brought to life via animation and Ginsberg's own performances...
A film which attempts an audacious mixture of animation, courtroom drama and biopic, Howl can be dizzying a lot of the time but it's able to convey the raw power and emotion of Ginsberg's poetry and it's effects on 1950's America seamlessly and with humour, beauty and pathos in spades.
As the film recreates Ginsberg's performances from backstreet beatnik bars to his candid autobiographical audio interviews from the era, it takes a captivating and idiosyncratic performance from James Franco to provide a lynchpin for a narrative that on occasion takes obscure but beautifully produced flights of fancy. In each rage filled poem recital Franco fantastically recreates Ginsberg's voice but also his movements, his poetic gestures and gait to the waiting hordes of horn-rimmed glasses, bottles of scrumpy and black suited introspective beatniks. Whilst to many this may seem simply an impression, and many at the screening who knew Ginsberg praised this, Franco is also able to show a tender streak during depictions of Ginsberg's sexual shyness and awakening. As an actor, he has come of age over the past few years and the real movie star potential, which has been seen in small glimpses before, is now coming to fruition.
As the poetry unfolds, animation – inspired by Eric Drooker's illustrations from a collaboration with Ginsberg in 1992 - blazes across the screen and brings the verbose descriptions of “angel-headed hipsters” leading a sexual, cultural and drug induced revolution to life. Apparently these vivid, colourful and LSD inspired pieces were produced “on the cheap” in Thailand, give the animators a raise because they depict the work expertly, not being too literal but leaving everything open to interpretation – like good art should.
Where the film falls down is director's Epstein and Friedman's inability to bring the same creativity to the stuffiness of the courtroom and the reenactment of obscenity trials that brought Ginsberg's work into the conscious of more people than your usual counter culture poet could have dreamed of. That bastion of 1950's Americana, Mad Men's John Hamm, plays the council for the defence with his usual lantern jawed strength and bland charm, whilst the prosecution led by David Strathairn gives a certain experience and wry comedic timing but smacks of lazy casting. The courtroom occasionally lights up, for example when stiff “literary expert” Mary Louise Parker as Gail Potter gives her two minute cameo but unfortunately it leaves you wanting more surprise witnesses who are just as exciting - and sadly they're never forthcoming.
Despite Ginsberg and Howl being as alien a concept to me as an early night and a cup of cocoa is to a beatnik, it's frank but imaginative depiction of his work and Franco's performance are mesmerising. At many points in the film I found myself closing my eyes but not down to tiredness, rather the dream like quality of the animation and the need to let this new discovery wash over me. If you're a newcomer to this world then Howl is thoroughly recommended as your first step on the ladder to a world of bespectacled black suits and sexual revolution.
Viva Le Phallus!
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