video (c) Lake Vazakas
Today, the anniversary of the death of the great “Beat godfather”. Herbert Huncke
(Huncke died in New York, August 8, 1996).
As ever, our gratitude to friend and video documentarian, Laki Vazakas
From his extensive footage (see, for example, here, here and here),
Today – “Beat storyteller Herbert Huncke and his longtime friend Louis Cartwright reflect on a trip to Chicago”
Huncke and Louis – a tragic tale – a heartbreaking love story from the end of his life
from a review of the film by “Levi Asher” aka Marc Eliot Stein in Literary Kicks, back in 1998:
“..a young independent filmmaker named Laki Vazakas invited me to a screening of his new movie about the late Herbert Huncke’s stormy relationship with a younger and more troubled companion, Louis Cartwright. Both Huncke and Louis were lifelong heroin addicts, occasionally switching to methadone maintanence or other substitutes, but in any case the routine of drug acquisition seemed to have ruled their lives completely. The film was shot with a handheld videocamera in their Chelsea Hotel apartment and other locales, without a plan or a script. Unlike the characters in MTV’s “The Real World”, though, Huncke and Louis were often too strung out and world-weary to play to the camera, and so the movie is filled with startlingly honest moments. Louis clowns happily in the early scenes, but then begins to slip into a drug burnout so devastating that even Huncke is forced to separate from him, and finally the camera catches Louis crying and alone, hiding in a dark apartment unwilling to face the beautiful weather outside. Finally he is murdered on a Lower East Side street, and we see the most startling image of all: a naked, aged, skeletal Huncke sobbing uncontrollably for his lost friend, groping for an understanding of what has happened.”
Louis’ murder on the streets of New York in 1994 was something Huncke, not surprisingly, never got over, a singular, horrifying, traumatic event which cast a pallor over his final years. He died heartbroken, shattered by his loss, little more than two years later.
For footage of Huncke and Louis, there’s also, (from 1990), James Rasin and Jerome Poynton‘s The Burning Ghat (written and directed by Rasin and Poynton, edited by Francois Bernadi and shot by Michael Slovis, on location, in Huncke’s then-apartment on Henry Street in Brooklyn).
Allen perceptively wrote of it:
“O Rare Herbert Huncke, live on film! “The Burning Ghat” features late-in-lifetime old partners Huncke & Louis playing characters beyond themselves with restrained solid self-awareness, their brief masquerade of soul climaxing in an inspired moment’s paradox bittersweet as an O.Henry‘s tale’s last twist”.
“Bittersweet” – Allen nails it.
Here’s a brief portfolio of images of Louis:
and a coda:
Letters From The Grave – by the pseudonymous “Marie Cardinal” appeared just last year –
A brief synopsis/description of the book:
“After forty-seven years of searching for her biological parents, Marie takes a DNA test and finds herself diving deep into the world of her Father, (Louis), who was murdered in NYC. After NYC opened their adoption records, Marie received letters from him and answered them back, although he had already died.”
Rest in peace, Louis, rest in peace, Huncke. Tragedy and romance.