Howl (2010)

I love this movie so much

Thanks for the memories!

One of my all time favorites.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Allen Ginsberg (1926 to 1997) is best remembered as the ultimate American Beat poet. His landmark poem, "Howl," fought in court to prove its literary value and worth. James Franco was perfectly cast to play this charismatic poet. A great supporting cast are in the courtroom scenes. Allen's life is explored here with his life partner, Peter Orlovsky. Allen's relationship with Jack Keroauc is also explored as well. "Howl" is really a major part of the film where there is animation; black and white; color and imagery. The love scenes are tastefully done. Allen was a very talented writer, a visionary and this movie is a tribute to life and legacy. I just wished it was more organized and longer. Surprisingly it is only about 90 minutes.

Alan Ginsberg is an Iconic Figure of the Beat Generation. His Worth as a Poet is, Like All Poets and Art for that Matter, a Matter of Taste. Ginsberg's Howl Might be too Self Indulgent to be Great Poetry but is a Seminal Work that Broke Boundaries, and was Famously Attacked for being Obscene.The Obscenity Trial that was the Result of the Book being Sold Openly on Bookstore Shelves is Witnessed here with Verbatim Trial Transcripts Dramatized by Actors. The Beats are Secondary to Ginsberg's Persona and this One Particular Poem. That Coupled with HIs Homosexuality is the Focus.James Franco seems to be Acting here and the Beard is Laughable at Times. But it is an Honest Effort and doesn't Distract too much from the Overall Impact and Power of the Movie. It is a Unique Format Interspersing Surreal Animation to Illustrate some of the Poems more Lured Laments and it Works Just Fine and has a Distorted and Catchy Style.Overall, the Film is a Fine Gloss of the Beats and a Somewhat Intriguing Probe into One of its Accidental Founders. Ginsberg is Like an Angry Dove and His Stream of Consciousness Poetry is Interesting and its Clunky Style is Either Genius or Nothing More than an Angst Ridden Excuse for Him to Lay Waste to a Hypocritical World that did not Accept His Lifestyle or His Family's Mental Illness with Much Compassion. Overall the Film and Ginsberg's Work is a Matter of Taste or it could be said…"One Man's Meat is Another Man's Poison".

Howl might be a one-of-a-kind film experience if not for Chicago 10, another film that blended documentary, dramatization and animation together into a blender of personal history. But what sets this film apart from that and all others is that poetry becomes interwoven into a courtroom trial procedural - all, apparently, taken from the actual court transcripts of what the prosecution/defense asked of the people on the stand - so that it becomes about free speech. At the same time it's a quasi-biopic on Allen Ginsberg, who was a real free spirit, but also a shy Jewish kid from New York city who lost his mother as a child and worried about writing poems that might irk the ire of his father (he even considered not publishing Howl for that reason).It's a beautifully surreal little treat of a film that treats its subject seriously while also giving life to the epic poem that stays timeless, as with Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass (which also gets name- dropped here). The filmmakers bring together the poetic readings - done by James Franco, one of his real 'embodiment' performances like Saul in Pineapple Express that is basically stunning - from in front of a live audience (where one sees how Ginsberg at first has an audience patient and waiting and then is full of life and looking forward to every next thing he says) and in animation. The poem becomes alive through the low-budget drawings, and depending on the stanza it can be at least acceptable and at most mind-blowing. You almost want the poem to go longer to sink in deeper to those Ginsberg stanzas that flow out with what appears to be stream of consciousness, but really has a structure to it.Acting is fantastic - David Straithairn, Jon Hamm and in a one-scene keeper Jeff Daniels - Franco keeps things moving so well with his performance, and the poem is given it's best context in personal and social history. All of a sudden, thanks to a film like this, the material becomes alive again, like a student picking it up and sinking into it for the first time.

One of the main arguments in Ginsberg's defense during his trial was that dissecting "Howl" line-by-line with the intent of extracting exact prose and literal meaning is a perversion of its existence and the method of which it was written. My question is; wasn't the decision to use illustrations, which quite literally attempted to depict his poems word-by-word displaying corresponding visuals, a contradiction to that very argument? These illustrative clips seemed more of a medium to keep the viewer visually stimulated and maintain interest during his narrations, rather than an endeavor to create a platform in which we can truly envision Ginsberg's true intent behind his powerful words while maintaining one of the most fundamental points of the movie, that narrow and literal interpretations of such work should be discouraged, rather, that we should be invited to dream our own envisionment of a poems content through personal interpretation and wild imagination. I was perfectly content picturing the "angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night" on my own, enhanced by the spirited performance and narration of James Franco; in the crease in his brow, his subtle confidence and strain in his voice. The illustrations, albeit expertly rendered, took away from what I thought the film was all about.