Howl (2010)

HOWL   (2010)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman
    James Franco, David Strathairn, Jon Hamm,
    Mary Louise Parker, Jeff Daniels, Bob Balaban,
    Alessandro Nivola, Treat Williams, Aaron Tveit
James Franco plays Allen Ginsberg, writing and reflecting on his famous (and once infamous) poem. It's hard to imagine now how poetry could cause such a stir, but the obscenity trial that followed the publication of "Howl" in 1955 was a significant chapter in the ongoing battle between censorship and the arts. Epstein and Friedman are documentarians, and the movie plays out on at least four tracks: the trial, Ginsberg chain-smoking and composing at his typewriter, Ginsberg in a taped interview expounding on his life and work, and animated sequences that take off from and play around with the images in the poem. Movies haven't done a great job of capturing the Beats, who shared a collective disregard for conventional narrative. "Howl", which doesn't follow a conventional narrative, either, might be the best Beat movie yet: outside the lines and outside the box, the film and its subject both at odds with the rules.