The Beat Generation

(photo by jurek d.)

I’m personally on the fence about whether or not anyone will ever try to make another movie about the Beat Generation. But today two blogs are reporting that Howl, a movie about the life and obscene times of Allen Ginsberg, is currently underway.

From the Orlando Sentinel:

Howl won’t really be “about” the classic Allen Ginsberg poem, but a bio-pic of Ginsberg himself, the obscenity trial that the poem and poet were subjected to, and that whole Beat Generation milieu. James Franco is slated to star as Ginsberg (a bold choice, but a savvy one), with Mary-Louise Parker, Alan Alda, Paul Rudd, David Strathairn and Jeff Daniels on board. If they’re not “the best minds of my generation,” they’re close.

Gus Van Sant will produce, with a couple of documentarians currently on tap to direct the film about the 50 year old poem that sort of launched the 1960s.

Jeff Daniels and Gus Van Sant, really? I just don’t think so.

Devin Faraci, over at Chud, is reporting similar news:

Howl started life when the Allen Ginsberg Trust approached Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, directors of the documentary The Celluloid Closet, to make a film honoring the poem’s fiftieth birthday. This will be their first narrative feature.

So if the movie is about the trail surrounding Ginsberg’s obscenity charges, what about the poem itself? In a cool move, the filmmakers have hired Eric Drooker (who has illustrated Ginsberg poems before. He also designed the cover of Faith No More’s King For a Day… Fool For a Lifetime and got some acclaim with his wordless graphic novel FLOOD! A Novel In Pictures) to create an animated interpretation of the poem.

For my money this is the kind of movie news people should be getting excited about, not the most insane rumors of who will play Captain America.

He seems to have the idea that Howl will focus more on the obscenity trials surrounding the poem. And if so, I think that there is something—enough, at least—to make a decent movie out of. But maybe I’m just keeping my fingers crossed and being blindly optimistic.

Let us know what you think in the comments.