“There's no Beat Generation,” said Allen Ginsberg, “just a bunch of guys trying to get published”.

In 1957, his poem 'Howl' was put on trial for obscenity, a process that ironically made him one of the most celebrated, and thus most published, of the beret wearing, drop-out 'beat' poets. He became the poster boy for a generation of writers disaffected with a buttoned-down 1950's society and set about voicing their tumescent reality in most purple prose. Was it art, or pornography?

Howl is neither documentary nor drama nor biopic, but a compelling interpretation lodged somewhere in-between. Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman (The Celluloid Closet) run four lines of narrative to present both poem and poet with an inspired, vivid and sometimes shocking use of mixed media that, if not always successful, is always engrossing. Ginsberg (another remarkable performance from James Franco (127 Hours)) enthusiastically presents his landmark poem to an equally enthusiastic audience in a small, packed, smoky bar. Two years later and his publisher's lawyer (John Hamm, Madmen) is defending the right to free speech; David Strathairn (Good Night and Good Luck) prosecutes, Bob Balaban (Gosford Park) sits in judgement. In another thread, an older Ginsberg is 'interviewed' about his life and work as each narrative is linked by an animated interpretation of the poem that is both bewitching and bewildering.

Taking on Ginsberg's masterpiece is an act of courage matched only by the filmmakers willingness to tackle the subject in such a bold and innovative fashion. Here is a man who was inspired by his crush on Jack Kerouac, whose homosexuality took him through mental institutions and delivered him into the waiting arms of a frustrated generation. The cinematic results, while forceful, target mind rather than heart and occasionally want for an emotional wallop befitting the artist: one whose audacity placed the many uses of genitalia in an entirely new, public, light. Yet any softness around the edges is made good by moments of blinding fury that ensnare Ginsberg's unequivocal candour and literary genius. Witness the director's sensational introduction of Moloch. Here is a thrilling work - a cry, a shout, a howl if you will – that like its subject, reaches across generations.

// COLIN FRASER
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