Howl

Guest Writer Dean Newby

Howl is a film concerning the 1957 obscenity trial of Alan Ginsberg’s poem after which the film is named. It is written & directed by film-making partners of over 20 years Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman and co-produced by Gus Van Sant (‘Milk’, ‘Good Will Hunting’). It stars James Franco as the now legendary but, at the time, little-known poet, Alan Ginsberg, as well as a host of other well known actors such as Mary-Louise Parker, Jeff Daniels, and Jon Hamm.

I have to admit from the offset, that I am a massive Ginsberg fan. Not just of his work (some of his poems being my favourite of all time), but also of the man, what he stood for and how(l) and why he wrote. With that in mind, I had 3 questions when I entered the cinema to watch ‘Howl’:

1. Will non-Howl/non-Ginsberg fans or those who simply do not know his work like or get anything positive from the film?
2. Will the film remain true to the poem, the trial and the man (Ginsberg)?
3. How can a poem such as ‘Howl’ be successfully portrayed on-screen?

The answers in short, are a resounding: Yes. Yes. Brilliantly & Beautifully.

The film opens in black & white with Franco’s Ginsberg on stage preparing to read his poem. The room is filled with people, with a haze of cigarette smoke hanging in the air. The audience is waiting, some clearly with bated breath.

When Franco begins speaking his voice higher than usual, with a touch of nervousness. His pitch, intenation, and rhythm all contribute to the feeling that at times, one could actually be listening to Ginsberg reading his poetry – as I have courtesy of a ‘Voice of the Poet’ CD of his work. There is a tenderness to Franco’s performance that cements his portrayal as Ginsberg, he deals with the reading of the poem with the same energy and passion as Ginsberg, and his interview with the same calmness and confidence. This shows the two sides to most people: the performer and the ‘real’ person.

We’re soon introduced to scenes of real-life colour, alternating between Ginsberg’s interview and the current trial of 1957. There are also animated sequences which act as a visual interpretation of the poem. Reminiscent of Van Gogh in their swirls of colour, they are juxtaposed with scenes in black and white. In contrast they seem like silent snapshots of memories past.

The film carefully balances several scenes: Ginsberg’s interview with an unidentified interviewer, the trial, his past and the animated poem, and it does so perfectly, which considering the number of scene-changes, is an extremely skilled thing to do. There is enough imagery & speech that the viewer doesn’t get bored or lose interest, but not so much that they are left feeling dazed or lost somewhere between Franco laying in on some steps and animated penises floating through the night sky.

The film is bigger than ‘Howl’, Ginsberg, or the trial. It skillfully delivers the message that art often outlives all of us, and lives eternally in a world beyond time. This is shown beautifully in a scene of the past in which the only object of colour is a painting in a gallery Ginsberg is visiting. If black & white is the past, and colour the present, then this painting displayed in Ginsberg’s past continues into his present, into our present.

Of the many things this film has to offer; superb acting, some of the most beautiful animation I’ve ever seen, and a story of a man who wrote what he saw at a time when many were blinded by anger and fear, I think one of the most important is a renewed interest Ginsberg and his work. That can only be a good thing.

While testifying at the trial, Treat Williams’ character, academic Mark Schorer, states that ‘poetry cannot be translated into prose’, but having watched ‘Howl’ I think it’s fair to say that it can, in this case anyway, indeed be translated into film.

1st

Cinematically beautiful with an honesty and appreciation of history

that is too often overlooked in today’s ‘quick-buck’ film industry.

(If you are confused about the rating system please click on the ‘About This Blog Page’ which will explain it all)

R.E.D

reviewed by guest lecturer Will Tooke

Another month brings out another comic book adaption. The playful, immersive odyssey of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World and the subversive, ultra violent thrill ride of Kick-Ass are still fresh in my mind, I went to see RED with high hopes – after all, with an incredible cast of Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich and your Grans favourite, Helen Mirren, what could possibly go wrong? Err, well, quite a lot actually.

Based on the DC comic written by Warren Ellis and the unfortunately named Cully Hamner, this movie version of RED is similar in name only. A cursory Google (I hadn’t heard of RED before either…) revealed that the scriptwriters had changed quite a bit. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a purist – one of the greatest things about good movie adaptation of novels or books is how the screenwriter handles the source material. Think of 2001s About A Boy based on Nick Hornby’s novel. Gone – thank God – is the heavy handed, zeitgeisty sub-plot to do with Kurt Kobain’s death, a reason why it stands as an example where the film is better than the book. Of course, film adaptations don’t always work out for the best – 2009s Watchmen suffered terribly from an overlong script, and the fact that for some reason it never quite managed to live up to the spirit of the dystopian epic that is Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ 1986 graphic novel. Yes, screenwriting – particularly adapting works – is a difficult game indeed, one that demands subtlety in approach if not content.

The fact then that screenwriters Jon and Erich Hoeber take great big blundering axe chops to the original is a bad sign. Bruce Willis’ character, ex-CIA agent Frank Moses, survives from the original lineup. The rest are all new additions. Whereas the comic is apparently a darker, straighter story of murky political intrigue and shady secret service dealings, on celluloid RED is a much lighter, family friendly affair. It is, after all a 12 A, and I can’t help wonder if somewhere in the ether floats a grittier, original script, more faithful to the original, before the studio talked it down from an 18 or a 15 to a 12 certificate. It’s a real shame actually, because the core idea is a good one – old spooks come out of retirement to kick some butt after someone or other tries to have them killed. The cheap and easy way to make this family friendly of course is to a) have curiously bloodless fight scenes and b) add some humour.

Oh sweet Jesus, the humour.

In a big loud dumb action movies, there is nothing wrong with a few jokes. Brucie’s own Die Hard quadrilogy is the stronger for them, and cheesy jokes and lazy innuendo pretty much substituted plot for much of Roger Moore’s stint as Bond. But in RED, the cheesy jokes are ladled on like fondue. And it just gets incredibly annoying, right up to a silly pre-credits scene that sees Brucie wheeling John Malkovich through a Moldovan minefield in a wheelbarrow, whilst the latter clutches a nuclear bomb. Typing that out, it sounds pretty funny, like something out of under rated Cold War farce Top Secret! (Seriously, you must see it before you die), but after a few hours of cutesy posturing, my sense of humour failure was borderline terminal.

And even if the awful jokes had been exorcised from RED, I’m not so sure it’d have worked, either. The plot has more flabby twists than Ann Widdecombe’s routines on Strictly Come Dancing: to the extent that it’s unforgivably hard to follow, which is why I haven’t mentioned what happens so much. ‘So wait, now that guy isn’t a baddie?’ one little boy sat near me in the cinema said out loud, to no one in particular. His guess is as good as mine, frankly.  The story circles around something about the covering up of something bad that the now Vice President of the United States (perhaps?) did in Guatemala in 1981 whilst he was in the army. Now bearing in mind said V.P is played by Nip Tuck’s Julian McMahon, this is particularly hard to swallow seeing as McMahon would have been 13 in 1981. Yup, that particular plot hole bugged me so much, I looked up an actor’s actual birthday, just to give me something else to complain about.

I suppose I should provide a bit of a balance by saying that parts of the film are OK – the sight of Helen Mirren firing a huge machine is funny for a bit, and the whole thing is filmed well, each shot framed like a comic book pane. Bruce Willis does his trusty trademark ‘McClane smirk’ – the same facial expression since the good old days of Die Hard, back when Brucey had hair. The same smirk Brucey has done in pretty much every film he’s been in since 1986. If Bella Lugosi was cinema’s Man of a Thousand Faces, then Willis has become cinema’s Man of Just One Smirk. I’m being harsh on Brucey, he does the hand-to-hand combat fights very well, and as a protagonist he’s hard not to like. It’s just I can’t remember the last time he was truly stretched in a role. Perhaps in The Sixth Sense? Which was also the last time M. Night Shyamalan made a decent film. And that was a long, long time ago. In any case, the few good points don’t make up for the whole – in the same way that the excellent German motorway system doesn’t excuse the regime that created them.

I suppose the biggest crime is that this is perhaps the greatest example of recent cinema of a truly brilliant cast who are truly wasted. In the opening credits, there is literally not one actors name that popped up that I didn’t recognize and who isn’t good. Alongside the main four stars are Brian Cox, Karl Urban – two veterans of the Bourne Trilogy, as well as James Remar from TVs Dexter, Mary-Louise Parker from Weeds, Richard Dreyfuss, and the 93 year old Ernest Borgnine. I can only presume they were very well paid or just don’t care anymore.

Degree-2.2 If you like your films with lots bullets that pass in slow motion making a

WOOOSH noise, explosions that seemingly compete with plot holes

to see which one can be the biggest, then you’ll love this.  Otherwise you should probably

just stay away.

It narrowly escaped a third solely because Helen Mirren fires a big loud machine gun.

(If you are confused about the rating system please click on the ‘About This Blog Page’ which will explain it all)

 

R.E.D-A few little clips

Here are some fun clips from R.E.D that I stumbled across. They are nothing particularly new, but you get to see Helen Mirren wield that machine gun again and many more things besides. I really think she will be the best bit of the movie-enjoy!

R.E.D

Dame Helen Mirren with a machine gun? This will spike anyone’s interest. When asked why she chose to do the film, Mirren’s first response was ‘It’s not the Queen’ and she is certainly right about that. With the great veteran cast Morgan Freeman, Bruce Willis and John Malkovich Mirren is in very good company.