Howl (2010)

Howl

★ ★ ★ out of 5

Directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Freidman

Starring James Franco as Allen Ginsburg

Imdb Link

Allen Ginsbourg is a poet, whose poem Howl is being tried for being obscene literature. We see him talk about his poem, as well as animation over a reading of the poem, and a court case.

Howl is a strange little experimental film that’s unlike any other I have ever seen. It jumps back and forth between interviews, black and white flashbacks, a court case, and gorgeous animated versions of the titular poem. All the interviews and court scenes are word for word taken from actual interviews and the actual Howl obscenity trial. The way the story is told is completely unconventional, and it feels a lot more like a documentary filmed with actors rather than a film. It achieves exactly what it’s going for, and the key to that is a line in the interview section, where Ginsburg says something to the like of “People have this idea of what literature should be, but it doesn’t have to be that way.” He wrote Howl as a screw you to conventional literature, these filmmakers made Howl as a screw you to conventional filmmaking. Of course the fact that it succeeds doesn’t make it good. I admired it, but I didn’t enjoy it, I found it to be incredibly stilted in the way the film was put together and the dialogue was delivered. The actors, even while saying real people’s words, all seemed to be just acting, no one made you believe that these were real words, it just felt acted. Even from James Franco, who is one of the best actors out there under the right direction, gave a really flat performance. Just overall, it’s an admirable movie, but it’s not very enjoyable. I would possibly recommend it because it’s interesting, but not for much else.