Rebels – A Journey Underground

Our feature today – “A New Kind of Bohemia“, segment two in a six-part series by Kevin Alexander, made in 1999 for Canadian television, Rebels – A Journey Underground. [2020 update – this video is no longer available on You Tube, however, a version can be accessed here]
(The other episodes, incidentally, are also well worth catching – see here)

From the episode synopsis – “Following World War II, a new period of post-war social complexity overtook America. It was during this turbulent, often repressive Cold War time that Jack Kerouac coined the phrase “beat” and gave birth to a new literary movement. This film follows the activities of this new breed of writer – Kerouac, (Neal) Cassady, (Allen) Ginsberg, and a handful of outsiders who became known as the “Beat Generation”.”

Featured on-screen observations by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Michael McClure, David Amram, Anne Waldman, Carolyn Cassady, Gerald Nicosia, Dennis McNally, Al Leslie, Ann Charters, Steve Allen..

Narration is by Kiefer Sutherland.

Harold Norse appears at approximately 26 minutes in and tells a delightful story about his first meeting Allen:
“I met Allen Ginsberg at 3 or 4 in the morning on a subway train going to the Village, from where I was.. had been.. I don’t remember, and he walked into this empty car and sat down opposite me and started reading from a book and I.. and, as the roar of the train subsided at each subway stop, I could tell that it was Rimbaud that he was reading and I said, “The Drunken Boat – Rimbaud”, and he looked up and he said, “You’re a poet!”- and that’s how we met. We ended up in my room, a little freezing room in Greenwich Village.”