Ferlinghetti: The Beat Goes On

Lawrence Ferlighetti never attracted the cult followings of his Beat Generation colleagues, but he notched sales that were comparable or stronger.  As a publisher himself, he would appreciate the latter.  Nonetheless, it is clear why scores of college students are more drawn to Kerouac and Burroughs when watching Christopher Felver’s slavish documentary profile Ferlighetti: a Rebirth of Wonder (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Ferlinghetti co-founded the City Lights Bookstore and associated small press, gaining instant notoriety when he published Ginsberg’s Howl.  Ferlignhetti was afraid he would have to take one for the team when he was subsequently brought up on obscenity charges, but the presiding Republican Municipal Judge Clayton W. Horn confounded expectations when he issued a precedent-setting First Amendment ruling.  Yet, the experience obviously did not inspire warm feelings of bipartisanship in Ferlinghetti.

Frankly, Felver spends way too much time on Ferlinghetti the activist, running the risk of alienating half the audience outside New York and San Francisco.  It hardly burnishes the poet’s reputation either, when first he is laudably dubbed an anarchist and then shown celebrating authoritarian Latin American regimes.  No matter how you look at it, the two are mutually exclusive.

Arguably, Michael Polish’s Sundance premiere Big Sur better serves Ferlinghetti’s image, presenting him as the responsible Beat, portrayed with quiet sensitivity by Anthony Edwards.  At least the score is snappy, including original music from David Amram, an apostolic link to Pull My Daisy.  Ferlinghetti clearly granted Felver ample time and access (perhaps too much), as do several of his surviving compatriots, including fellow poets Michael McClure and Gary Snyder.  While Rebirth offers a credible introduction to Ferlinghetti’s poetry, his painting is rather shoe-horned into the seventy-nine minute running time.

Still, brevity is always a wise documentary strategy.  Rebirth sounds great, but it is not especially cinematic, mostly looking like it was shot on a consumer video camera.  Not recommended for general audiences, Ferlinghetti: A Rebirth of Wonder is strictly for Beat fanatics when it opens this Friday (2/8) in New York at the Quad Cinema.

Sundance ’13: Big 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, 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.