Sundance ’13: Bug Sur

Big Sur has a long history of inspiring artists, from Henry Miller to Charles Lloyd.  Jack Keouac was also one of them, sort of.  Adapting Kerouac’s autobiographical novel of his time spent along California’s scenic central coast, Michael Polish conveys an impressionistic sense of Kerouac’s language and the lonesome unspoiled environment in Big Sur (trailer here), which screens during the 2013 Sundance Film Festival.

To protect the guilty (most definitely including himself), Kerouac changed the names of the Beat elite who appear in Big Sur.  Polish changes them back, perhaps to make the film more commercial, but frankly there is no mistaking Kerouac or the Cassadys (or Ferlinghetti for that matter).  Only a few years have passed since the publication of On the Road, but Kerouac is not dealing with success well.  The literary rock star has come to California with the intention of holing up in Ferlinghetti’s Big Sur cabin to purge his soul.  However, a typical Kerouac bender delays his arrival at City Lights.

Eventually, Ferlinghetti ensconces Kerouac in Big Sur, hoping his time spent in isolation will recharge his creative drive.  For a few days, Kerouac enjoys communing with nature, but he gets antsy quickly.  Before long, he is reconnecting with Neal Cassady, launching into a doomed relationship with his friend’s soon to be former mistress, and generally carousing with the usual suspects.

As plot goes, Big Sur leans to the sparse end of the spectrum, making it a real cinematic challenge.  However, Polish arguably captures the rhythm and vibe of Kerouac’s language better than any other filmmaker, directly incorporating generous excerpts from Kerouac’s novel, read by Jean-Marc Barr in the persona of the author.  Accompanied by images of natural beauty and underscored by a subtle but stylistically diverse score, Big Sur is not unlike a cinematic tone poem at times. 

Yet, the film is surprisingly peppy.  Rather than hold one striking image for an interminable length of time, Polish shows the audience one after another, after yet another, in rapid succession.  As result, Big Sur always feels like it is getting somewhere, even when it has little narrative business to show for itself.

A rich visual feast, Big Sur functions as a heck of a show-reel for cinematographer M. David Cullen (whose extensive credits include Jennifer’s Body).  Barr also sounds great reciting Kerouac, but dramatically his work is something of a mixed bag.  He lacks Kerouac’s considerable physicality and charm, but he certainly expresses the restlessness that defined the author, as well as his aura of danger and dissolute inclinations.  Cullen’s lens also loves Kate Bosworth.  Nonetheless, she is largely wasted as Kerouac’s increasingly exasperated lover Billie, but Anthony Edwards adds an appealing human dimension to the proceedings as Ferlinghetti.

If you see one Beat Generation related film at Sundance, it should be Big Sur rather than the over-hyped Kill Your Darlings.  Granted, it might not completely pull it off, but Polish’s film comes far closer to translating Kerouac to the big screen than other recent attempts.  There are even surprisingly playful moments that suggest the Pull My Daisy spirit.  Recommended for Beat fans, Big Sur screens today (1/25) in Ogden and tomorrow (1/26) in Salt Lake as a Premiere selection of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Sundance ’13: Kill Your Darlings

In 1944, by a confluence of fate, the leading lights of the Beat movement assembled together around Columbia University, including Allen Ginsburg, Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, and Lucien Carr.  There is a reason you might not recognize the latter name.  Poetry and scandal mix freely in the Beat origin story dramatized in John Krokidas’s Kill Your Darlings, which screens during the 2013 Sundance Film Festival in Park City.

Allen Ginsburg is certain poetry is his calling.  His sexuality is another matter.  Arriving at Columbia, his Jewish background automatically sets him apart as an outsider.  His resistance to aesthetic orthodoxy establishes his credibility with Carr, the campus literary rebel.  Soon Ginsburg is visiting jazz clubs, sampling Benzedrine with their mutual friend Burroughs, and pining for the androgynous Carr.

Ginsburg is not the only one carrying a torch for Carr.  Former professor David Kammerer appears to exert some sort of malevolent emotional hold on his ambiguous friend, which Carr increasingly resents.  Since Darlings starts in media res, viewers realize this will all end in tragedy.

Known to a scruffy handful of fans for a series of British films about boarding school students dabbling in the occult, Daniel Radcliffe is serviceably nebbish as Ginsburg.  At least he looks like a confused kid.  However, Ben Foster is almost worth the price of admission by himself, nailing not just the Burroughs drawl, but also his eccentric cadences and precise demeanor.  Unfortunately, Jack Huston’s Kerouac is 100% meathead and 0% poet.  Still, even though he looks like he stepped out of a fashion commercial, Dane DeHaan is convincingly dissolute as Carr.

Darlings is a decent period production, featuring some swinging tracks from Vince Giordano.  Frustratingly, music comes dead last in the closing credits, well after the caterers and the drivers, even though it contributes far more to the overall viewing experience.  What would Ginsburg and Kerouac say about that?  However, the colorless underscore is a truly baffling creative decision.  David Amram is still at the top of his game and has considerable experience scoring films.  Had Darling brought him onboard they would have had an apostolic connection to the Beat Generation.  That’s his music in Pull My Daisy, after all.  Instead, they opted for the light classical approach.

Indeed, Darlings represents a series of missed opportunities.  Foster is terrific and the mid-1940’s New York vibe is appealing.  It even has Sledgehammer!’s David Rasche as the Dean of Columbia.  Nonetheless, the film’s lurid preoccupation with Carr’s sex life becomes tiresome.  More music and more poetry would have made it a stronger work.  Mostly of interest to earnest Ginsburg and Burroughs fans, Kill Your Darlings screens again today (1/22), tomorrow (1/23), and Friday (1/25) in Park City as part of this year’s Sundance.