The American film industry is desperate desperate desperate to tap into the prevailing fondness that postmodern society harbours for the Beat Generation of the 40s, 50s, 60s - which also happened to be an unprecedented period of American glory, creativity and technological innovation when they were at the spearhead of the civilised world, sure of their white man ideals, vastly removed from the broken social ills of the modern States. The Beats were a landmark group of American men who subverted and inverted literary traditions to forge new ways of writing that was original and visceral and angsty. The principal three figures of said movement are here portrayed in this decent rendering of that period - for the uninitiated that's Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and Bill Burroughs.
Previous attempts at capturing their spirit in visual cinematic form have been mixed: the Kristen Stewart On The Road immediately springs to mind, although the David Cronenberg rendition of Burroughs' 'novel' Naked Lunch was, to my mind, curious and surreal enough to be considered good (that was a semi-biographical biopic, though heavily based on some of the abstract scenes from the book). So debut director and screenplay writer John Krokidas had gumption to take on the Beat legend and wrestle it into a workable filmic framework. His portrayal had two main approaches: tackling the Beats when they were still at the University of Columbia as the New Vision, before their ideals were yet fully defined; and making Lucien Carr, an early figure in the Beat story, a central character specifically his murder of David Kammerer. These are intelligent approaches and, to a degree, work nicely.
Problems arise when the four characters - Ginsberg, Carr, Kerouac, Burroughs - are split, and Krokidas doesn't seem necessarily sure which of the men to focus on; there are montage scenes which try to centralise all. He's prevaricating to include all Beats in one singular orgy of celebration. As the end notes configure when they detail the successful lives that these men would go on to leave, apart from Carr.
Obviously the main attraction to this picture is Daniel Radcliffe playing Ginsberg. Some, like myself, have queried Harry Potter's acting ability in the past but in Kill Your Darlings Radcliffe is actually very good; he interprets early Ginsberg as a young writer with ambition though nerved out by the new philandering narcotic surroudings that Lucien Carr introduces him to. At this stage in his life Ginsberg is caught between his adult artistic lifestyle and the sheltered middle-class upbringing he's had under his poet father and mentally maladied mother. Dane DeHaan is the social renegade and homme fatale, a suave young man who whips naive fellows into the whirlwind of his life and spits them out with sexual rejection. He leans his life on figures captivated by his persona, like David Kammerer and briefly Ginsberg, and relies on the safety net they provide to live wantonly. DeHaan is good at portraying these hidden haunted characters; he's an actor set for the big lights: he did well in The Place Beyond the Pines earlier this year and stars in the new Spiderman, next.
Kill Your Darlings is a decent addition to the canon of biographical Beat movies though it never strays into the pasture of excellence, even when it uses TV On The Radio for a night-time escapade. Oh yeah there's a lot of homosexuality but it never feels strained or forced but a natural progression. Krokidas never approaches these themes awkwardly or inorganically and they are executed with delightful emotion and brio.
The Place Beyond the Pines was released into the world way back in spring of this year, a kind of dramatic epic that sprawls across its 140 minute runtime incorporating three distinct acts and time periods. The first sees Ryan Gosling in his usual reticent role choosing to look stay in Schenectady to watch over his son Jason, who lives with mother Eva Mendes. But he approaches the issue of financial support in a demonstrably non-lawful manner and is shot by the policeman Bradley Cooper, who is subsequently wracked with guilt. Cooper has a son called AJ, the same age as Jason. The third act concerns their volatile, dysfunctional friendship which is ignorant of the morbid connection between their respective father's.
Director Derek Cianfrance (who also co-wrote) has constructed a very tender story set in rural town America spanning nearly two decades, infusing the stories with effervescent cinematography (by Sean Bobbitt who I am a big fan of) that furnishes every image with a staccato pungency that bristles with colour, life, deliberation, spectacle and a soundtrack that, with the aid of Suicide and Bruce Springsteen and Salem, reaffirms that.
Gosling's Luke Glanton is a stuntman attached to an itinerant circus with a talent for motorcycles, though he's limited in other areas like subtlety and job prospects; the responsibility of a son is thrust upon him by Mendes, a local girl from Schenedactady (however the fuck you spell that). Lured by the quick fixes a bank robbery could supply him and his son, Luke with his friend Robin (Ben Mendelsohn) become successful at their heists. Luke goes one job too far. He is face to face with Cooper's Avery Cross and the story is transposed to him. Cianfrance's introduction of Cross is sneaky and well executed, shifting the focus between the two characters in a convincing manner.
Cross becomes a public hero after his exploits against Glanton though he faces moral dilemmascorruption from within his own police force
Those two stories though are, in fundamental terms, the prologues to their teenaged sons Jason and AJ, played by Dane DeHaan and Emory Cohen. They're both fucked up druggies with daddy issues and frequent the local police stations though Avery Cross, now an attorney or something, using his political influence to keep an eye on both of them. Self-discovery, good acting and debauched parties ensue and young Jason is left liberated yet stultified with the truth of his father - he disappears to find himself.
Whilst it may be a little length for those with shorter attention spans The Place Beyond the Pines is a very appealing movie, visually - and style is enough to keep me going for hours; in that sense I guess I'm pretty easy to please. But there is a veracity and vigour of content in here that puts a level above other style heavy pictures like Malick's To The Wonder or anything by Carlos Reygadas. I'm sorry for this review being not very good, but I'm just really tired right now. In a conventional sense it's not really finished, but I'm just going to call it postmodern (or metamodern) and publish it anyway. I ducked out a bit on the story because it's an arduous re-telling and spoiler aplenty; there's good stuff on the cinematography though... but then you don't have to like it
Jim Jarmusch is one of those idiosyncratic filmmakers whom one only discusses in furtive whispers behind bookshelves of Proust, his curious filmography having spread almost by word of mouth. If the shock of platinum hair has always rendered him visually memorable his cinematic studies of curious unorthodox characters has become a filmic trope in American independent circles.
Permanent Vacation was his first full length feature - though even that clocks in at a comparatively lowly 75 minutes. We follow Morrissey-lookalike Ally Parker a daydreaming teenager with a furious wanderlust, both in temporal and spatial terms. Temporal because his music tastes and sartorial look is based on 50s rock'n'roll/teddy boy, slicked back hair; spatial in the sense that he is perennially walking around New York City, but with always with an eye on other places. He's searching for new experiences and locations but never with any intention of settling anywhere, a permanently fleeting spirit with nothing to tie him down. And it's something that he revels in, enjoying the disapproval others have for the manner in which he conducts his life.
Ally explores the broken urban backstreets of America encountering characters stricken by the ruthless pedagogical systems, living amongst the rubble of ruined buildings. But he decides to leave for Paris, though not before meeting an exact French replica of himself going in the other direction: both are enigmatic and laid-back, though seeking a kind of reassurance from the other that their respective cities are worthy of boots-on-the-ground exploration.
Travel, the wandering nature and resistance to a conventional life - jobs, families et cetera - are modes of living that have always appealed to me; thus I see in Permanent Vacation a beautiful idealism, a search for adventure and uncovering of the unknown that appeals to me personally. Constant itinerancy has a romance.
This debut is more a demonstration of Jarmusch's writing abilities - to capture unusual characters in episodic fashion relinquishing the restricting necessity of a plotline. It's a strange beginning to a career but wholesome and curiously optimistic.
Another classic now, Milos Forman (who would later do One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest) and his Czechoslovakian Loves Of A Blonde. This is a succinct tale of naive youthful romance set in a bleak Communist background.
A factory boss is concerned that his all female workforce will become 'lonely' and unproductive without the presence of a local military regiment, and so a small middle aged force of reservists are dispatched to take up residence nearby. Three of those men attempt to coax the rather gorgeous Andula (Hana Brejchova) and her two friends at an introductory dance, but trip over themselves in some hilarious ways. Andula however is dazzled by Mila a much younger piano player from Prague; she spends the night with him instead, then breaks up with her boyfriend and follows Mila to the big city uninvited and presents herself to his parents.
Mila's parents are the quintessential married couple, taking the time honoured roles and opinions usually shared out between the husband and the wife. He is unworried by Andula's sudden appearance and is acquiescent to allow her overnight refuge at their small apartment; the mother becomes anxious over the moral destitution of her son, and blames Andula for being mislead. Mila's philandering cad-ish ways are gradually revealed and Andula returns to her provincial workplace spurned and in diminished mood.
Loves Of A Blonde is a laudably funny film, even 50 years later. It retains the humour because it features the same relationship problems and interchanges that are universal across the spectrum of modern time, poignantly exacerbated by Forman's long drawn out scenes, whose direction is tasteful throughout. It may be twee and cutesy but not in a depletive way, it's coy but prizes naivety as a positive characteristic of youth. Glorifies and romanticises youth yet satires, fondly, it's penchant for brash action.
There is undoubtedly a political statement, subtly enfolded. It has been suggested that Andula and her friends are emblematic of the political docility of a generation grown by a system of government that has no wish for its population to become educated or aware of the world's outside of the eastern European Soviet communist bloc they reside in. Instead of campaigning for democratic liberation they chase boys and love. Deconstructing this theory, one would have to say that the opinion has been forwarded in a world in which democracy has 'won' and communism has 'lost' with, retrospectively, a clear and obvious comparison of inferiority to the lives and pursuits of contemporaneously young people in the west - i.e. by 1965 capitalist juveniles weren't slaving away in factories, mostly, but revelling in High Beatlemania. Therefore retrospective opinion puts a tendentious or slightly misread interpretation on the message that Forman may have been trying to convey. (I could probably source some Forman interviews in which he might have explicitly stated what his political intentions were for this film but I can't be bothered, because I'm not getting paid for this stuff yet therefore I can safely and legitimately write anything I want without any form of factual grounding). There is one scene of particular interest when the girls of the dormitory unanimously VOTE for a new resolution on an agreement of morality. Is this the vanguard of the winds of change or a satire on the unanmity of governmental desire for the uniformity of its people, a reflection of the communist ballots of the time - in which everyone was unanimously in favour, officially, of Soviet coercion. Difficult.
Beyond the potential political implications, Loves Of A Blonde is a luscious film of cinematic daring and execution, purposefully and effectively comical.
