Monday, April 8, 2013 - 7A
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
'Road' self-indulges
Reminiscing on records
of teenage nostalgia
Cinematography
drives otherwise
meaningless film
By NATALIE GADBOIS
DailyArts Writer
"With the coming of Dean
Moriarty began the part of my
life you could call my life 'on the
road."'"
With those B
iconic words,
spoken in a On the Road
scratchy drawl At the
by protagonist
Sal Paradise, Michigan
director Wal- IFC
ter Salles ("The
Motorcycle
Diaries") begins his reverently
faithful adaptation of Jack Ker-
ouac's 1957 beatnik novel, "On
the Road." Starring Garrett Hed-
lund ("TRON: Legacy") as the
enigmatic Moriarty and British
newcomer Sam Riley ("Woman
in Love") as Paradise, his quietly
rebellious counterpart, the film
deftly encapsulates the anar-
chy and crippling freedom that
defined the Beat generation, but
falters asit becomes tangled in its
own mystique.
Paradise is a student living in
Queens who, after meeting wild
and mercurial Moriarty and his
pouty, over-sexed child bride
Marylou (Kristen Stewart, "Snow
White and the Huntsman"),
decides on a whim to hitchhike
across the country. A high-mind-
ed writer, bored and lonely in his
static life, he imparts on a search
for self-awareness or, at least,
meaning behind his discontent.
Though Riley's attempt at a
smoke-addled New York accent
is often distracting, his pilgrim-
age is where the film excels: Salles
has already proven his talent
IFC
"It's OK, we got a babysitter for Renesmee."
for portraying landscapes, and
Paradise's journey - both literal
and metaphorical - exudes the
beauty of a United States that was
more trusting and naive; a United
States in which drifters like Para-
dise formed their own hyper-
connected culture. The imagery
of the unending landscape of the
midwestis breathtaking and helps
relate the yearningthese men felt,
caught between a war and an
unknown future.
Moriarty and Paradise reunite
in Denver before once again set-
ting off on some scheme for love
and drugs, and here is where
Hedlund shines. He seamlessly
renders Moriarty's manic energy,
overt sexuality and selfish dis-
regard for the lives he affects.
Originally basedon real-life ren-
egade Neal Cassady, Moriarty is
a complex figure, and Hedlund
stands up to the task of playing
an inscrutable man. Similarly,
Stewart is at last inher element as
his whiny and unhinged partner.
Their chemistry is palpable as the
two speed fatalistically toward
their futures.
The film is studded with a
parade of periphery characters
with big names (Kirsten Dunst,
Amy Adams, Viggo Mortensen
and Steve Buscemi, to name a
few), all meant to provide dif-
fering lenses on this generation.
However, they overwhelm an
already disjointed story, and as
the names build up, this beautiful
homage to a generation crumbles.
Salles self-indulges, stuffing
the film with discordant sex
scenes and overdone symbol-
ism. His stark landscapes and
arresting main characters lose
focus. Any meaning is lost in the
(multiple) threesomes and Ben-
zedrine trips. These characters
become canvasses for tropes of
thV Beat generation, rather than
members themselves. It's as if
the film lowers in esteem every
time we see Moriarty's bare ass
or Marylou proposes a wild sex-
ual escapade.
Ratherthen definethese char-
acters and show their progres-
sion (or regression) as humans
in a world increasingly at odds
with their lifestyle, the final
third of the movie is spent show-
ing their idiosyncrasies, prov-
ing just how "crazy" and "free"
this time was. The film becomes
the endless journey they are on,
with no real plan or end in sight.
By JAKE OFFENHARTZ
DailyArts Writer
Today is one of those days
when I'm 15 again, ignoring a
beautiful day and a mountain of
work while listeningto the sem-
inal records of my early teenage
years. These are the albums that
I pretend to havk outgrown, to
have traded in for the superior
musicianship of Radiohead or
Arcade Fire.
These are the albums that
inspire a simplistic angst that,
for reasons unclear, I some-
times yearn for. They are
albums written by melodramat-
ic pretty boys who evoke within
me a slightly embarrassing adu-
lation, a form of hero worship
that I, for better or worse, can
no longer summon. And oddly
enough, a surprising amount of
these albums turn 10 in 2013.
So, as I am in a perpetual state
of sentimentality, allow me the
indulgerice of some semi-fabri-
cated nostalgia.
The year 2003 saw the release
of Fall Out Boy's Take This to
Your Grave, Branfd New's Deja
Entendu, The Format's Inter-
ventions and Lullabies, Death
Cab for Cutie's Transatlanticism
and Bright Eyes's Lifted or the
Story Is in the Soil. While I was
struggling to multiply improper
fractions and heavily immersed
in a surprisingly raunchy rap
phase, America's tender-souled-
youth were having a pretty
remarkable year.
I was an aspiring thug at 11
years old, hiding my Naughty
By Nature tapes in a hollowed
out "Harry Potter" book, steal-
ing candy bars from the local
pharmacy and dreaming about
escaping my upper-middle class
suburb for the ghetto - to up you wish it was 2003?" Even at
my street cred, naturally. This the age of 15, I harbored illu-
delinquent infatuation contin- sions of a grandertime and delu-
ued more or less for the next two sions of what that time actually
years, until one day in seventh meant. I moved backward as I
grade when, without warning, grew older, eventually immers-
I quit the rap game altogether. ing myself in the work of '90s
This transformation may emo pioneers like Jawbreaker
have happened overnight - and Sunny Day Real Estate, but
though I admit I have little I could never feign generational
memory of the exact circum- ownership of these records. The
stances involved. What I do first year in music that I could
know is that, against all odds, truly - if not accurately - rem-
Take This to Your Grave found inisce upon was 2003, and for
its way into my boom box, and that reason alone 2003 is a tre-
it didn't ever leave. At the age of mendously important year.
14, I traded in my Ja Rule CDs
for the new Dashboard Confes-
sional album; I tore down my A throwback
Ludacris pin-up pictures for
a Conor Oberst poster and I to the music
declared to my mom that, from
then on, I would only wear band memories of
shirts from Hot Topic.
The underlying forces at work adolescence
here were powerful - I had an
adorably broken heart from a
girl that may not have known
we were dating and an insatia- Now it's 2013 and I'm - tech-
ble desire for melancholy. There nically - an adult. These days,
was something alluring about my anxieties just aren't as poet-
boys wearing skinny jeans and ic as they once were and even
hearts on their sleeves and Jesse Lacey would have trouble
something more alluring about writing a heart-tugging song
the girls who idolized them. about hunting for an intern-
Most important though, in this ship or choosing a major. Inbed
radical metamorphosis from listening to Deja Entendu, I'm
wannabe thug to pop-punk kid yearning for a time when angst
- emo, if you insist - was the was simpler and prettier, but
element of wistful longing. I'm also, I realize, having nos-
I can remember my first of talgia about having nostalgia.
many bouts with musical nos- As I spend the day revisiting
talgia. Sitting on a park bench, the dusty MP3s of old, reflect-
sharing a headphone with a best ing upon the glory days of
friend while listening to Fall pop-sensible woe and obnox-
Out Boy's second studio album, iously long song names, I am yet
From Under a Cork:Tree, we'd again struck by the sheer awe-
say things like, "This album someness of 2003. I remember
lacks the unrefined truth of remembering it like it was yes-
their previous," or, "Man, don't terday.
ERS D'OEUVRES,
rITA NMENT &