Arts & Entertainment

Renegade Artist

In Howl, James Franco stars as a young
Allen Ginsberg — the poet, counter-culture
adventurer and chronicler of the Beat Generation.

Michael Fox
Special to the Jewish News

T

he picture most people have of the
late Jewish poet Allen Ginsberg is
of a bearded, hippie-ish intellectual
with strong liberal views. They don't know
the half of it.
The young Ginsberg of the 1950s — an
explicitly gay firebrand for whom candid
confessional and political diatribe were
inseparably intertwined — is brought to
dynamic life in Academy Award-winning
San Francisco filmmakers Rob Epstein and
Jeffrey Friedman's Howl.
The film embraces Ginsberg's ground-
breaking Beat poem from a variety of angles,
from its recitation in its entirety through
the course of the film, to the 1957 obscen-
ity trial of publisher (and poet) Lawrence
Ferlinghetti of City Lights (the publisher of
Howl), to the re-creation of a vintage inter-
view with a chain-smoking, hyper-articulate
Ginsberg (James Franco, in a mesmerizing
performance).
The film reclaims the poet as a gay icon
and a literary lion. Ginsberg's Jewishness isn't
emphasized to the same degree, although
Epstein confides that the co-directors guided
Franco — whose mother is Jewish — to
deliver some of his lines with a little more
ethnic inflection.
"There are certain turns of phrase that we
discussed': Epstein says, "and it came back to
kind of a Jewish humor, a Jewish outlook. So
many of the elocutions come from that tradi-
tion, so [Ginsberg's Jewishness] came up in
that context — what the words meant and
why they were phrased that way. It's sort of a

Jewish joke!'
Friedman likewise views Ginsberg as an
unambiguously Jewish writer, but his refer-
ence point is dramatically different.
"His voice is a prophetic voice, and it's
very influenced not only by [Walt] Whitman
but by the Bible. The Old Testament, the
real Bible, the original, not the sequel" —
Friedman chuckles — "or the remake.
And he comes from a very strong moral
perspective, which I think is informed by
his upbringing, which was a combination of
Jewish and Communist and humanist:'
"I never thought about this before':
Epstein says, "but there is a kind of talmudic
quality to Howl, in that it's so personal and
it's also so all-knowing in its perspective."
Epstein grew up in New Jersey, and vividly
remembers Ginsberg from a teenage outing
to see the Living Theater in the late '60s.
"They were doing Paradise Now and
somehow I ended up backstage before the
performance chanting with the actors':
Epstein recalls. "The chant was being led by
this guy with a beard and a harmonium, and
I sort of figured out at some point that it was
Allen Ginsberg. He was the grandfather of
the counterculture in my mind. And I was
very much a child of the counterculture. So I
felt there was a lineage there."
Ginsberg's influence on the next genera-
tion is underscored by the Bob Dylan song
(from The Basement Tapes with the Band)
that the filmmakers picked to play under the
closing credits.
Friedman, whose father was a writer, edi-
tor and publisher of the Greenwich Village
literary magazine Venture, first encountered
Ginsberg on the page. "I grew up in New

Nate Bloom
Special to the Jewish News

New Flicks

Opening Friday, Nov.
5, is the comedy-
drama Due Date.
Robert Downey Jr.
stars as an expect-
ant first-time father
whose wife is five
Todd Phillips
days away from her
due date when he is forced to take a
wild car ride with an aspiring actor
(Zach Galifianakis). The director is
Todd Phillips, 39, who had a huge hit
with The Hangover.

36

November 4 • 2010

,114

York, and it was all Jewish, and it was all
radical': he says.
Howl marks the duo's first foray into
fiction after a long string of documen-
Filmmakers Jeffrey Friedman and Rob
tary successes. Epstein won his first
Epstein on the set of Howl with James
Oscar for the 1984 doc The Times of
Franco, who portrays Allen Ginsberg. The
Harvey Milk and took the statuette with actor, who just released a book of his short
Friedman five years later for Common
stories, titled Palo Alto, is working on a Ph.D.
Threads: Stories From the Quilt (1989).
in English at Yale University.
Their other films include Paragraph 175,
which documents the Nazi persecution
of homosexuals.
"The whole act of speaking frankly and
The filmmakers started out in their non-
creating art out of that is something that
fiction comfort zone by closely basing Howl
young people relate to',' Friedman notes.
on actual interviews and trial transcripts.
"They're used to the form of it as it's evolved
Then they made the aggressive creative
into poetry slams and rap music and hip-
choices of adopting a fragmented structure
hop. It's all become of the vernacular in a way
and using animation to illustrate the poem.
that makes the experience of Howl feel very
"That was an overt goal, that the film be
fresh and contemporary!'
challenging in the way that the poem was
At the same time, Epstein says, Ginsberg's
and is challenging," Epstein says. "To do the global insights in the poem itself are as rel-
poem justice we had to take risks and do
evant as ever.
something that would be perceived as new
"The global has to do with the military-
and different, because that's what the poem
industrial complex that continues to hang
was."
over all of us, and consumerism, which is
Their adaptation of Howl, consequently,
addressing not buying into everything that
connects with younger moviegoers who
we're being sold. All these things play out
might not be immediately drawn to a poet
again and again and again. He was just so
who died in 1997.
prescient:'

Opening
Wednesday, Nov.10,
is Morning Glory,
a romantic com-
edy starring Rachel
McAdams as Becky,
a TV producer at
a network morn-
Aline Brosh
ing news program.
McKenna
The show's low
ratings go up when Becky's boss
(Jeff Goldblum) lets her hire Mike
Pomeroy (Harrison Ford), a legend-
ary network anchor. But Pomeroy
is a handful and at odds with his
former beauty queen co-host (Diane
Keaton). The original screenplay

Screening as part of the 2010 CAN/AM Grand Prix Of Cinema, Howl will be
shown at 9:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 4, at the Detroit Film Theatre in the Detroit
Institute of Arts (for tickets, at $7.50, to be held at the box office, call (313)
833-4005 or go to http://tickets.dia.org ) and at 9:50 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 6, at
the Capitol Theatre,121 University Ave. W. in Windsor, Canada, as part of the
Windsor International Film Festival. The WIFF run Nov. 4-7. For a complete festi-
val schedule and to purchase advance tickets ($10 adults, $6 students) that will
be held at the box office, go to www.wiff10.com .

is by Aline Brosh McKenna (Devil
Wears Prada, 27 Dresses), 42.

Hoping to appeal
to young mothers,
CBS has replaced
the long-running
soap As the World
Turns with a View-
like women-oriented
talk show called The

On The Tube

Gwyneth Paltrow will appear on
the Country Music Awards 8 p.m.
Wednesday, Nov.
10, on ABC. She'll
make her live sing-
ing debut perform-
ing the title number
from her upcoming
film, Country Strong,
in which she plays a
legendary country
Gwyneth
singer just out of
Paltrow
rehab.

Sara Gilbert

Talk.

The series, airing
weekdays at 2 p.m., is produced and
co-hosted by actress Sara Gilbert,
35, who became famous playing
the younger daughter on the hit TV
sitcom Roseanne. Gilbert and her
life partner, Allison Adler, have two
young kids.

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