Film Reviews

Howl

• Rating:
• Director: Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman.
• Starring: James Franco, Jon Hamm, David Strathairn.
• Details: US / 84mins (TBC).

The Beat Generation are invading the cinema. Walter Salles's adaptation of Jack Kerouac's On The Road (starring Sam Riley and Kristen Stewart) will be hitting the cinemas soon but there's a little teaser before that in Howl. James Franco flexes his arthouse muscles as poet Allen Ginsberg, writer of Howl and Other Poems, the focus of an obscenity trial in 1957. Split up between a personal interview with Ginsberg (Franco) in his apartment, the trial, and a reading of the poem set to animation, Howl pulls the audience in before knocking them over with the power of the poem (and there is power – some of the sentences are like a punch to the head. And the groin). The open and candid interview sees Ginsberg relate what writing should be and what it means to be homosexual in 1950's America. The poem is narrated by a passionate Franco and set over a gothic style animation, but sometimes dumps that in favour of a reading, shot in black and white, to a smoky club full of wowed beatniks. The trial offers some welcome moments of humour: Mad Men's Jon Hamm, arguing the case for the defence, attacks literary types (among them Mary-Louise Parker and Jeff Daniels) who take the stand to state that Howl has 'no literary merit' and therefore obscene. The prosecution is handled by David Strathairn, who bullies professors (Treat Williams, Alessandro Nivola) that deem Howl a work of art. Directors Epstein and Friedman (who also co-wrote the screenplay) serve up a sumptuous celebration of words here, backed up by gorgeously animated sequences. Franco's narration keeps perfect time with the beats of the poem; following the words, as they get harsher and the rhythm faster, the audience is pulled along, bouncing off the rough imagery Howl conjures up. Chopping up the lengthy poem, interrupting it with the trial and Ginsberg's interview, before it can get a little monotonous was an inspired stroke but Epstein and Friedman fail to offer anything different as the film progresses: the first third is exactly like the final third, with the middle third been rather similar too. Despite the evolving nature of the poem, the film stays on a steady course, refusing to deviate, and a change in approach would have been welcome.

Review by Gavin Burke