John Krokidas
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Filmography
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Naked Lunch (1991)
Directed by David Cronenberg
influenced Kill Your Darlings (2013)
Themes Characters
The Beat poets have inspired writers and filmmakers for many decades now, resulting in innumerable documentaries and movies, ranging from the amazing Naked Lunch to the terrible On the Road .
Ben Foster channels Burroughs in a delightfully dry rendering as the future “Naked Lunch” author finds himself mildly amused by talk of a “literary revolution.”
"Kill Your Darlings" is not as kitschy as 2010's " Howl " (with James Franco as Ginsberg) or as dull as director Walter Salles' Kerouac adaptation, " On the Road ," but it's a muddled and silly enterprise that wastes a wonderful central performance by skinny, bespectacled Daniel Radcliffe as the young Ginsberg, whose virginity, bookishness, Jewishness, relative poverty and closeted homosexuality mark him as an outsider even after he is accepted to an exclusive Ivy League school.
James Franco did it a few years ago in the little-seen “Howl,” and now Daniel Radcliffe – apparently well known to the public for some sort of fantasy-adventure series – plays the even younger Ginsberg as a Columbia undergrad, exploring poetry, drugs and sexuality in John Krokidas’ energetic debut feature, “Kill Your Darlings.”
The entire cast (including Elizabeth Olsen as Jack’s fiancé) is excellent, and the film rises above James Franco’s solid turn as Ginsberg in “Howl.”
Perhaps because On the Road (2013) was so lackluster and Howl (2010) was so insular and specialized, I was not exactly looking forward to another movie about the Beat Generation.
Over the past three years there have been no less than four narrative films about the beat generation, starting with “Howl” in September 2010.
From last year's " On the Road " to 2010's trippy " Howl ," they've proven to be largely film-resistant.
"Kill Your Darlings" is not as kitschy as 2010's " Howl " (with James Franco as Ginsberg) or as dull as director Walter Salles' Kerouac adaptation, " On the Road ," but it's a muddled and silly enterprise that wastes a wonderful central performance by skinny, bespectacled Daniel Radcliffe as the young Ginsberg, whose virginity, bookishness, Jewishness, relative poverty and closeted homosexuality mark him as an outsider even after he is accepted to an exclusive Ivy League school.
Unlike the lusty recent adaptation of “On The Road,” “Kill Your Darlings” has somewhat loftier goals.
But despite its unsure moments, “Kill Your Darlings” has considerable advantages over both Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman’s “Howl” and Walter Salles’ ambitious, hit-and-miss adaptation of Kerouac’s iconic “On the Road,” which featured Sam Riley and Kristen Stewart.
"Kill Your Darlings" is a microcosm of Allen Ginsburg's college beginnings, and indeed covers the period in Jack Kerouac's life prior to him writing his most famous piece, "On The Road".
Killer Films, which nursed Kill Your Darlings through its long development, also deserves credit for supporting Krokidas with its own expertise in movies based on real-life incidents involving queerness and murder, Kimberly Peirce ’s Boys Don’t Cry (1999) and Tom Kalin’s Swoon (1992) being notable examples.
Soon to be seen as Harry Osborn in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, followed by James Dean in Anton Corbijn’s Life, DeHaan is a compelling screen presence.
DeHaan, meanwhile, plays Dean as the more openly flirtatious of the two, a flashier generational companion to his louchely inspired Lucien Carr in 2013’s “Kill Your Darlings.”
It’s these subtle touches that all make sense when you realize that Colette is produced by Killer Films, which often produces films with queer themes: Todd Haynes’ Carol (and many of his other works), Kimberly Peirce’s Boys Don’t Cry, John Krokidas’ Kill Your Darlings, to name a few.
Killer Films, which nursed Kill Your Darlings through its long development, also deserves credit for supporting Krokidas with its own expertise in movies based on real-life incidents involving queerness and murder, Kimberly Peirce ’s Boys Don’t Cry (1999) and Tom Kalin’s Swoon (1992) being notable examples.
With the focus on Ginsberg's pining for Carr, and his uneasy witness to Kammerer's humiliations at the idolized boy's hands, the ancillary battles fought in the name of Romanticism and Joycean abandon occasionally bring to mind an Ivy League Animal House, with disapproving lectures from the dean, scandalized parents, and a crusty poetry prof condescending to Ginsberg as “Whitman Junior.”
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
Directed by Terry Gilliam
influenced Kill Your Darlings (2013)
Themes
(One arguable exception: 1998's "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," which offered a colorful and hyperbolic -- if less than comprehensive -- peek inside Kerouac's mind.)
Added to the mix is Kammerer associate William Burroughs (Ben Foster, "The Messenger"), found in the bathtub wearing a gas mask.
Say what you will about Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby or Julie Taymor’s Across the Universe, but for as messy and flawed as they clearly are they remain artistic visions of periods long gone.
Elizabeth Olsen ("Martha Marcy May Marlene") is tart and sharp as Kerouac's first wife Edie.
Let's show them what we can do!" (Did people ever talk like that, even in the '40s?) Suffice it to say that the climactic montage juxtaposing Kammerer's slaying with Ginsberg's full-on homosexual deflowering doesn't exactly best The Godfather's influential-to-a-fault baptism/massacre.
Playing like scenes from an unusually saucy remake of "Dead Poets Society," the sequence represents an admirable attempt to capture the creative process of writing in cinematic terms, but like much of the film, it glosses over events in stylish, engrossing but ultimately too economical fashion.
In addition to Radcliffe as "Ginsie," we get the always committed Ben Foster ("3:10 to Yuma," "The Mechanic") as a drug-addled, zombie-eyed Burroughs, and rising star Dean DeHaan ("The Place Beyond the Pines," "Chronicle") as Lucien Carr, a decidedly wild breath of fresh air at stuffy 1944 Columbia, and the figure that would draw Ginsberg and Burroughs together with Jack Kerouac (played by Jack Huston), setting all three on the road to re-writing the literary rule book.
Played to perfection by rising star Dane DeHaan (notable as Ryan Gosling’s troubled son in The Place Beyond the Pines), Carr bucks tradition and form, reading Rimbaud and Whitman, reciting Henry Miller, listening to Brahms, drinking cheap chianti, stealing books from the restricted shelves of the Columbia library, leading his friends on adventurous subway rides downtown to Greenwich Village for cannabis and jazz and introducing them to gay sex and Benzedrine-infused assaults on the establishment.
He brings a dangerous edge to the performance, as he has in his recent work in " Chronicle " and " The Place Beyond the Pines ."
His performers, too, are mostly outstanding: DeHaan, the spookily talented young star of Chronicle and The Place Beyond The Pines , makes Carr as magnetic (and cruelly manipulative) as he needs to be.
In addition to Radcliffe as "Ginsie," we get the always committed Ben Foster ("3:10 to Yuma," "The Mechanic") as a drug-addled, zombie-eyed Burroughs, and rising star Dean DeHaan ("The Place Beyond the Pines," "Chronicle") as Lucien Carr, a decidedly wild breath of fresh air at stuffy 1944 Columbia, and the figure that would draw Ginsberg and Burroughs together with Jack Kerouac (played by Jack Huston), setting all three on the road to re-writing the literary rule book.
It also marks a turning point in Daniel Radcliffe ’s career while presenting Dane DeHaan (The Place Beyond the Pines) as a talent on the rise.
Most notable is his infatuation with the manipulative Carr, played to perfection by DeHaan ( The Place Beyond The Pines ).
In the tradition of such before-they-were-famous portraits as The Motorcycle Diaries, Darlings confines its focus solely to the group's pre-formative years, ending just before they emerge as real artists (i.e. when they actually start to get interesting).
Krokidas and director of photography Reed Morano ("Frozen River") give the film the flavor of its time period while also incorporating more modern tricks - scenes replayed in reverse, a jazz club's patrons frozen as Ginsberg and Carr explore.
In addition to Radcliffe as "Ginsie," we get the always committed Ben Foster ("3:10 to Yuma," "The Mechanic") as a drug-addled, zombie-eyed Burroughs, and rising star Dean DeHaan ("The Place Beyond the Pines," "Chronicle") as Lucien Carr, a decidedly wild breath of fresh air at stuffy 1944 Columbia, and the figure that would draw Ginsberg and Burroughs together with Jack Kerouac (played by Jack Huston), setting all three on the road to re-writing the literary rule book.