What Happened to Kerouac?
by Lewis MacAdams, Richard Lerner
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Fran Landesman, Gregory Corso, Herbert Huncke, Jan Kerouac, William F. BuckleyDirector: Lewis MacAdams, Richard Lerner
Brand: Uni
Producer: Lewis MacAdams
Editor: Nathaniel Dorsky
Producer: Nathaniel Dorsky
Producer: Eve Levy
Producer: Malcolm Hart
Writer: Jack Kerouac
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Black & White, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 96 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-08-05
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Shout Factory Theatr
Movie Reviews of What Happened to Kerouac?
Movie Review: Kerouac the Enigma
Summary: 4 Stars
I got into Kerouac by way of my interest in Neal Cassady, whom I can't really remember how I discovered. (I have yet to read "On the Road" but am familiar with Jack's prose style through spoken word recordings.) Anyway, I came to this doc more from an interest in the person than his work, which I think is common to a lot of people who love the Beats. Their personas are as much a part of their legend as anything they wrote.
That said, Jack looks like a troubled boy even in his best clips here, which are undoubtedly the earlier ones on the Steve Allen Show--probably in part because he was in what he perceived to be a sympathetic environment and therefore felt at liberty to indulge his playful and vulnerable side. He is in fact most touching as he reads excerpts from "On the Road". He is also a ruggedly handsome and charismatic figure, although his tendency for brooding and blustering is apparent even here. Far less flattering is his appearance on a later talk show, aptly titled "Firing Line" in which ,visibly drunk, he (understandably) reacts defensively and plays the fool to host William Buckley's cross examiner. This was only a year and a half before Jack's premature death from alcoholism, and he seems too beleagured with complexes to get out anything coherent. He seems to be trapped in a subjective hell wherein he believes everything and everyone to be part of some "organized effort to ignore him".
As a younger man however, his appeal--both personal and literary-- is obvious. He got American literature out of its stodgy rut, writing in bold, Hemingway-like strokes, blending narrative fiction with poetry off the top of his head in what was to be called "spontaneous prose". As one of his contemporaries points out in the interviews, this was a wildly adventurous choice to make in the fifties/sixties, from a man who could "write any way you want" but chose the road less travelled because that's where his passion was.
Neal Cassady is seen briefly in a clip filmed at A Different Light Bookstore, San Francisco in 1965. He appears with Allen Ginsberg, who is clearly enamored of him. Neal, as everyone knows, was Jack's muse/alter ego, the inspiration for the character of Dean Moriarty in "On the Road", and--according to many of his contemporaries--a kind of genius in his own right. However, nothing he says in this clip made any sense to me at all--and even Ginsberg seems at a loss to communicate with him. He too seems lost in his own head, trapped in some internal dialogue with himself. Still, it's easy to see how he could draw people in and inspire them. He had that alpha energy that makes things go. Mix it with good looks and charisma and you've got a cult! The cult of Neal. I think in some ways Jack was brooding because he wasn't Neal. Neal was the doer, and Jack was the observer/commentator, and one can never be the other, although each usually longs to be.
Carolyn Cassady--Neal's wife of 20 years, is unexpectedly good-humored and funny to listen to. Poor Carolyn was the anchor that kept Neal from floating into the outer stratospheres. Compared to Jack and Neal, her solidity and insistence on at least an operating level of convention make her a heavy in most books about the Beats, but it's clear from this interview that she was simply SANE. Pretty even in old age, with unbelievably beautiful blue eyes that still twinkle when she reminisces on Neal and her affair with Kerouac, she proves herself humorous, resilient and every inch their intellectual equal. She must also have been remarkably patient to deal with these two exasperating egotists, not to mention sporadic sexual meddling with her husband by Ginsberg. Somebody give this lady a medal!
In the end, this is a good doc for anyone interested in its subjects--it's a little heavy with talking heads and light on vintage footage, but all in all compelling, illuminating and worthwhile.
Summary of What Happened to Kerouac?
What Happened To Kerouac? is a lively and revealing investigation into the personal history and creative process of Jack Kerouac - father of the Beat Generation, author of "On The Road" and pivotal figure of the fifties countercultural revolution. This portrait shows us what happened when fame and notoriety were thrust upon an essentially reticent man whose influence is still felt all over the world.Features Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, William Burroughs, Steve Allen, William Buckley, Charlie Parker, Neal Cassady, Carolyn Cassady, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Michael McClure and Gary Snyder
Directed by Richard Lerner & Lewis MacAdams
Produced by Richard Lerner
Music by Thelonious Monk
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