What Happened to Kerouac?
|
List Price: Our Price: $9.30 You Save: $5.65 (38%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $6.95 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of What Happened to Kerouac?
Movie Review: Entertaining portrait of this tragic beat poet
Summary: 4 Stars
I think there are two types of successful documentaries. Great films regardless of subject matter (ie: Ken Burns work, Woodstock, Errol Morris's films) and documentaries that exist because of their subject matter (most of Michael Moore's films, Supersize Me, almost every musician or film star doc). This second group does not necessarily need to be a work of art to be successful. If you're a fan of the subject, you'll almost inevitably like the film.
For me, this film falls into the 2nd category. Obviously the subject matter is a no brainer. Most of Kerouac's contemporaries were still alive. His daughter and ex's talked on camera. Lots of footage of Jack himself (looking sharp and at his peak with Steve Allen; drunk, sad and near-death with Buckley). There is also lots of photos and audio of Jack with friends, fellow poets and contemporaries. I'm sure the filmmakers had to whittle down their footage to a managable length.
Another way to judge a documentary is to ask the question: What if I don't know anything about the subject? What portrait does it paint? Does it make me want to seek out more info on this person, read their books, watch their films, etc.
I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I knew very little about Kerouac before watching the film. I gravitated more to the work of Charles Bukowski, which some feel (I don't) was part of the Beat movement. I knew about Kerouac and had thumbed through a couple of his books; I'd even read some of his contemporaries - a little Ginsberg - a lot of William Burroughs. But knowing little definitely qualifies me to say, yes, the film is very successful in presenting its subject in interesting ways. I will now have to dig out a copy of On The Road! What better complement can you give a movie of any kind!
The movie itself moves quickly. It has a great score (that is mostly jazz from Thelonious Monk with a little Charlie Parker) and all of the interviews are fascinating. It lacks a certain style that would have made it a great film, but the subject matter more than makes up for it. I believe that fans as well as the ignorant (me included) have an equal chance of enjoying the film.
Unfortunately there are no extra features (other than a trailer - not for this film). If any film seemed to cry out for extended interviews, complete segments featuring Kerouac or commentary from the filmmakers and even some of the personalities featured on film, this film certainly does! Perhaps its the age of the film (about 20 years) that prevented that type of material? However, the lack of features should not sway you from seeing the film.
Movie Review: Interesting, but sad, tale of a largely wasted talent.
Summary: 3 Stars
"What Ever Happened to Kerouac?" is a documentary now available on DVD about sporadic creativity enshrouded in decadence, degeneracy, and decay. It impressionistically recounts the adult life of Jack Kerouac (1922-1969), the literary beat of the "beat generation."
The "Beats" (circa 1948-1960?) are sometimes cast as proto-hippies: Bohemian; anti-establishment; aflame with the exotic and taboo; worshippers at the Dionysian fount of creativity; nonconformists-now nihilist, now visionary; poets of the absurd and the profound; idolizers of Charlie Parker's jazz. Theirs was gut-existentialism and "Beat Zen," Hindu cosmology and nuclear eschatology. "To be Beat," wrote Kerouac, "was to be at the bottom of your personality looking up." Beat was birthed by the misfits, the downbeat, the offbeat-not by the poor urchins who could manage no more than sleeping in parks and begging money, but by the artistic urchins who gave a voice to their rebellion and (somehow) got published.
Kerouac was arguably magnificent at times-churning out rambling, but poetic prose-despite the fact that he was dubbed by one of the literati as "a Neanderthal with a typewriter." The film is appropriate punctuated by Kerouac reading chunks of prose on "The Steve Allen Show." Kerouac's work was impassioned and original; he invented a genre of continuous, spontaneous narrative seen in novels such as "The Dharma Bums" and "On the Road" which was written at high speed on a continuous sheet of paper a hundred feet long. Beat poet Allen Ginsburg called it "a magnificent single paragraph several blocks long."
But Kerouac burned bright but briefly, then burned out rapidly, because being Beat meant being a rogue. As the interviews with family, friends, and acquaintances make plain, Kerouac was a drunk (who drank himself to death), an adulterer, a drug user, and a buddy of more of the same misfits of the day such as William Burroughs (homosexual and junkie), Allen Ginsberg (homosexual and sometimes psychotic), and other assorted thieves, dopers, and thrill-seekers.
But decadence was heralded as transcendence and orgies as oracular. Cultural critic Carl Raschke notes that "Kerouac was self-consciously attempting to depict the whirl of sensation as the key to cosmic understanding, as a vehicle of liberation: though he left little distinction between the liberation of the mind and libertinism of the youthful rake and rebel."
Decadence was avant-garde, and was touted as the engine of artistry. But the gaunt, sour, bitter faces of many of his now aged or recently deceased compatriots reveal that debauchery indeed debauches-even debauches the Beats, and especially Kerouac. Handsome, lithe, and vigorous as a young man, middle age found him to be bloated and beaten beat.
Particularly pathetic are short clips of William F. Buckley's "Firing Line" in 1969. Buckley presided over the intellectual debris of a quasi-incoherent Kerouac who was asked to consider the relationship between Beats and Hippies. An unflappable Buckley gracefully withstood Kerouac's juvenile ramblings, seeking to bring coherence out of chaos. Buckley smiled knowingly. Kerouac smirked contemptuously-an appropriate Beat response, perhaps. A rummied out rebel without a cause met a conservative rebel with a cause. The juxtaposition was telling, almost painful.
Kerouac at his best may have unmasked some of the pretensions of a complacent, self-righteous, post-war America; he may have celebrated elements of life-such as bebop jazz-that were unjustly ignored by others. But he exacted too high a price. By going "on the road" he deserted the Protestant work ethic that undergirds a productive and healthy culture, exchanging postponed gratification for immediate gratification (and addiction), exchanging hard work for protracted play-and encouraged others to follow suit. His promiscuity denied the sanctity of the family. (We see several clips of his abandoned daughter reflecting on her father's life.) But Kerouac and friends corrupted more than themselves; they inspired a whole counterculture-as William Burroughs notes in the film-that both amplified and refined the Beat spirit of nonconformity, hedonism, and Eastern religious intrigue. And don't we even hear something of "the beat" in the punks?
The film reports that Kerouac said that because he was a Catholic he couldn't commit suicide, so he decided to drink himself to death (which is really gradual suicide). Although his prose drew inspiration eclectically from Buddhism, Hinduism, and just about anywhere-Beat was nothing if not unsystematic-several friends and his priest tell us that Kerouac was entranced by the crucifix, and painted pictures of Christ and cardinals toward the end. Yet no conversion was evident-only an alcoholic's eroded body, mind, and soul. It seemed he never caught the spirit of the one he could not forget. Jesus said "seek and you shall find." Jack Kerouac must have been looking in all the wrong places.
Movie Review: Makes Me Think Who Cares!
Summary: 2 Stars
I turned this documentary off half way through. I didn't find it interesting and I didn't enjoy the interviews. I bought it for my cousin who was doing a term paper on Jack Kerouac and he wondered after watching half the DVD if he wanted to write on such a boring person. But, anyone who knows anything about Kerouac knows he was not boring, he was facsinating! Look elswhere if you want to know more. As a matter of fact try reading a book by or about him.Movie Review: Interesting Man Awful Documentary
Summary: 1 Stars
No one seems to mention how awful shot and Produced this Documentary is. From the lighting to the boring and overly long interviews this is a documentary in need of some good editing and a director who knows something about making an interesting film. It appears the director has no idea how to shoot an interesting and decent looking documentary. Just pointing a camera at poorly lit people and letting them ramble on with no editing does not make for an interesting film. It is said that a great teacher can bring alive even the most boring subject matter and vice versa. This film takes an interesting man and a fascinating time and make it into a complete snoozefest.