On The Road’s Cannes debut has to be the lead news. Here’s the AP wire story. Here’s Steve Chagollan’s interesting background article for The New York Times. Joan Dupont also reports on the movie for the Times – and Manohola Dargis, on their blog, provides an early, (not entirely unsympathetic), review. Carlo Marx, Allen’s character, she observes, is “played with energy and heavy glasses, by the pretty, deeply un-Ginsbergian British actor, Tom Sturridge”.
The curmudgeonly British reviews, noted earlier, continue – with this one, from Kaleem Aftab in the London Independent. “Not that the film is boring. It’s just very safe”, he writes – and – (surely cause for rejoicing, no?) – “It’s a lyrical and literal adaptation and cannot be faulted for its faithfulness to the novel” (a sentiment shared by Kerouac aficionado, Jerry Cimino, who sums it up with the headline “On The Road – Delivers!” – (“(The) On The Road movie adaptation delivers, for novices, for fans, and for those who lived it!..Rest easy, my friends. If you’re like me, you’re going to absolutely love this movie. These filmmakers got it right. They are kindred spirits in the story of the Beats. Kerouac fans will be proud.”).
One Kerouac fan is French personality and philosophe, Bernard-Henry Levy. His piece, “Kerouac at the Cinema” may be read here.
For further Kerouac reflections, check out our postings from the first (1973) Jack Kerouac Conference here and here
Our good friends at Dangerous Minds have constructed a contest (why didn’t we think of this?!). Prize is a Presspop Ginsberg figurine. All you have to do is provide a suitable caption for this photo (provided) of Allen (with Joe Strummer and Mick Jones of The Clash). The contest runs through the weekend and the winner will be announced Tuesday, May 29. To enter the contest, you must first be following Dangerous Minds on Twitter or Facebook
William Hjortsberg’s biography of Richard Brautigan (that we mentioned some weeks ago) was recently reviewed in the New York Times (“Allen Ginsberg didn’t like Brautigan nicknaming him “Frood”, we’re informed – well, who would?)
Here’s an interesting article on Timothy Leary (and Richard Alpert)’s historic shenanigans at Harvard (in the suitably local Harvard Crimson)
Tom Sturridge‘s Ginsberg (Carlo Marx), cinematically, takes the lions share of the news, but we haven’t forgotten Daniel Radcliffe, have we. This is him discussing his Ginsberg in Maxim: “I’m playing him the youngest that anybody’s ever played him before, and I think this is about a period in his life that people aren’t particularly familiar with. For me, it was about capturing the essence of the man that I saw and read about. I think he was somebody who was full of life and curiosity and enthusiasm and a huge amount of pain and sadness. Really that was what I tried to bring in and also a longing to be something more than what he is. That’s what I think my Ginsberg will be”