The Source
by Chuck Workman
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Deborah Norville, J. Edgar Hoover, Jack Micheline, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Neal CassadyDirector: Chuck Workman
DVD: Region Code 0
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Format: Black & White, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 89 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2000-07-05
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Fox Lorber
Movie Reviews of The Source
Movie Review: Great clips but too damn Hollywoodized
Summary: 3 Stars
What's good about this documentary is all the great footage of the Beats. There is amazing interview footage of Corso and Burroughs later in life that I haven't seen anywhere else, along with choice clips of interviews of all the Beats that are in the other three or so good documentaries out there. (Really worth seeing are "Kerouac: King of the Beats," "What Ever Happened to Kerouac?", and "The Beat Generation".) It's very worth watching just for this footage.
But unfortunately it tries to be too hip and too cute and ends up just being too glib and too distracting. It jumps frenetically between little swatches of otherwise great archival footage to stupid TV shows of the time, or to unrelated street scenes or bands playing. All of which gives it a distracting Attention Deficit Disorder/MTV music video feel. Very polished and Hollywood and very out of sorts with the Beats focus on authenticity. The film didn't need all this mess. The subjects of the documentary are so fascinating and energetic all by themselves, I don't know why the makers would try to spice it up by interrupting the enthralling footage with endless splices of goofy sounds and images.
Another annoying thing is that the makers work far too hard to draw the lineage between the Beats and the Hippies and the free speech movement. They end up talking about the 60s and to 60s personalities much too long. The connection between the Beats and Hippies is there, of course, but the makers way oversimplify and make it seem as if it's obvious to everyone that the Beats started the whole social revolution singlehandedly. And that's silly. It would have been much more potent if they'd spent less time on all that and instead had shown more of their great interview and performance footage of the main folks.
Again, very worth watching but I sure found the meddling of the film makers frustrating.
Summary of The Source
This documentary is a treat, a look at the beat writers that benefits not only from a wealth of vital source information, including interviews with major figures, but also from an abundance of intelligence and wit. Interspersed with clips of Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, and William S. Burroughs are brilliant montages of clips that set the beats in the context of their times. The story of how the beats rebelled against American conformity in the 1950s is well known, of course, but this documentary manages to find fresh ways to relate their views on life and writing. Segments in which Johnny Depp, John Turturro, and Dennis Hopper portray, respectively, Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Burroughs may strike some as extraneous, but the good performances redeem their inclusion in the film. As befits the documentary's title, The Source devotes considerable attention to the influence of the beats, and interviews with such notables as Ken Kesey, Jerry Garcia, and Philip Glass, performance clips of Bob Dylan, and news footage from the 1960s establish how the sensibility of the writers trickled into all of society. This is not only a fine introduction to the beats, but those who already revere them will find the profusion of material contained it to be a delight. --Robert J. McNamaraDocumentary DVD Video
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