James Franco & David Strathairn

As cautious as the poem itself was not, "Howl" began as a documentary but turned into something else in its making.

It honors poet Allen Ginsberg, played here by a studious James Franco, and spends a good deal of its time recreating highlights (verbatim, but selectively chosen) of the 1957 obscenity trial brought on by the raging poem championed, and then published, by City Lights bookstore owner Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

The poem's images of restless, rootless searching; carousing, yearning and mourning; institutional madhouse nightmares; and Beat icon Neal Cassady on a sexual tear are depicted in several animated sequences designed by artist Eric Drooker. (There's also a new Drooker-created graphic novel edition of the poem, working the same trippy visual territory.) A third strand of the script takes us to the first public reading of "Howl" in 1955; in a fourth, Ginsberg speaks to an unseen interviewer, around the time of the trial, about catch phrases ("The Beat generation? Just a bunch of guys trying to get published."), and Ginsberg's attempts to rid himself of an "inauthentic" persona.

Directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman are careful researchers and passionate ones. Franco can be a wonderful screen presence, in everything from "Milk" to "Pineapple Express," but he appears to have gotten caught in a mimicry trap with this role, working like an earnest student to nail Ginsberg's speech rhythms and lovely little hesitations -- all of which is an interpretive start, but not quite a finish.

David Strathairn plays San Francisco prosecutor Ralph McIntosh, who did what he could to prevent Ginsberg's feverish literary landmark from infecting the nation's morals. Jon Hamm plays the attorney for the defense. Other roles include a University of San Diego literature professor played by Jeff Daniels, starchy as you please, brought in by the prosecution to put the poem in its place.

It didn't work; the poem would not stay put. Epstein and Friedman see in Ginsberg a man who lived too long in the closet but found his way out on his own terms. It's well-crafted, but I wish the film showed us an additional dimension or two of the central figure, who once said the great challenge in writing, any kind of writing, is "to write the same way you are."

 

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"Howl" Movie Trailer

 

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MPAA rating: NR (language and some sexual imagery).

Running time: 1:30.

Cast: James Franco (Allen Ginsberg); David Strathairn (Ralph McIntosh); Jon Hamm (Jake Ehrlich); Bob Balaban (Judge Horn); Jeff Daniels (David Kirk); Mary-Louise Parker (Gail Potter); Treat Williams (Mark Schorer).

Credits: Written and directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman; produced by Epstein, Freidman, Elizabeth Redleaf and Christine Kunewa Walker. An Oscilloscope Laboratories release.