Thursday, January 09, 2014
Kill Your Darlings
"Kill Your Darlings" makes it to Shoe Town's indie(ish) cinema The Forum in the middle of next week, so you can expect to see my thoughts on it soon afterwards. Like most of my creative friends I'm not sure any of the attempts to put the Beats on screen have been completely successful so far--"Big Sur" looks like the most promising one, although I haven't seen it yet myself. I'm not a fan of big CGI movie franchises, so when I heard that Daniel Radcliffe, of all people, would be playing Allen Ginsberg in "Kill Your Darlings" I was vaguely horrified. He has no charisma, I shuddered. Ginsberg had more than most rock stars. Snob, people replied. Just give him a chance. So yes, we'll give him a chance. And in the long run, who cares if he's not totally convincing? or if the film fails to capture accurately the spirit of that wild, decadent, curiously innocent gang of boys? At least the existence of "Kill Your Darlings" and the participation of Daniel Radcliffe will keep people talking about the Beats for one more generation. Someone out there might even have the same thrill I did thirty years ago, coming out of the cinema next week and pulling a book down from a friend's or brother's shelf; they might open the first pages of "On The Road" or "Howl" and trip off on a journey that changes them forever.
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2 comments:
It is claimed that Radcliffe did heavy research into Ginsberg in particular and the Beats in general. So give him a plus for effort. I have my doubts that a successful Beat film is possible, but we will see.
Yeah, I tend to agree with you about Beat movies. It's hard to think of any modern (ie post-nineteenth century) novel that has translated well to film. But Radcliffe is serious, like you say, and keen not to be thought of as Harry Potter for the rest of his life. Although he will be!
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