HOWL

Allen Ginsberg’s infamous work, working up the lather during Beat Generation

HOWL imbibes on the legacy of Allen Ginsberg’s signal work. It is an insightful fusion of documentary, drama and animated filmmaking that calls for the exploration of his ceremonial poem Howl, one that needed to burst through the traditional patterns as a documentary to express everything on its mind. The urge that would have beseeched Allen Ginsberg through Howl would be agonizingly strong. Imagine what bull would it be back in 1956, to be discussing the artistic merits of his work, or any other work for its own sake. The musical question of the time, “Who is to say what is or is not art or literature?” The 1957 trial that put Ginsberg’s publisher on trial for obscenity seems nothing short of a mockery in this age. Yet, the “so seemed trivial” nature of the trial now had grave importance, dealing in larger issues of censorship and democracy. 

The trial faced by Ginsberg’s publisher reminds me of the account of censorship that had taken place in India during British Raj. Some arrogant Act was implemented by the British Raj, after India had begun using the theatre as a protest tool against their colonial rule. I guess the same alarm might have struck the cultural era of Allen Ginsberg’s time, only now the tool to be functioned as a voice hurling against the American constitution. 

The infamous prosecutor in the 1957 obscenity trial argues that the language used by Ginsberg is “filthy, vulgar and disgusting”. Howl certainly imbibes a whole lot of filthy, disgusting, obscene language in its verses, but to illustrious use in regard to his themes. The words Ginsberg cast are fluent, raunchy, and edible. It certainly holds power and gravitas, regardless of its artistic merit. The role of this infamous trial seems very much like the first decisive break from the coherent postwar years, closely followed by the hippie generation of the 60’s. I liked the fact the trial bore the attention to how uncomfortable and clueless the prosecutor (David Strathairn) is with the substance of Howl, he’s sometimes forced to recite in court.

Ginsberg’s form of poetry was much like an ode to the society. Imagine the spur knotted in his stomach, the blood-thirsty urge of etching out words, expressions, statements, oozing out of him, raping the question of “decency” over honesty. I imagine whether the movie would have sustained without the phantasmagorical effect of its animated visuals, candidly being supplied to superimpose the poetry’s excessive themes. The film dives into his life, his experiences that made him a poet, without dragging it into mindset. It is more than a biopic, or maybe less. Its about the ways the literature works on the reader, and the idiocy of applying “your objective standard of meaning” to its page.

The film overlays four pieces of the exploration of Howl. There’s Allen Ginsberg(James Franco) in his rich, smoky black and white palette, reeling out his poem in a coffeehouse, and friendships with other Beats as Jack Kerouac. Then there’s the 1957 trial- shot straightforwardly as a standard courtroom drama. Thirdly, there’s the interview with an unseen journalist, with Ginsberg talking about his life and Howl. Lastly, there are animated segments, which provide occasionally too-literal backdrop to verses from the poem. But eventually, I think, the movie does not aim to be recollected or acknowledged in its full sense. But rather felt in its glorified visuals, often needed to be realized. 

We see Ginsberg, played by James Franco with restraint and care, to be uncertain about many things. His confusion about his sexuality, filled with the heady joy of early poetic success bears certain weight into Howl’s themes. There is one verse from “Howl” that I very much realized it. Or so to speak. The Beats created poetry, art, and music, but most of all, they created Goliath of themselves- “Angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night”. Allen Ginsberg, with his horn-rimmed glasses and young face, certainly appears far less of an angelheaded hipster destroyed by madness. Maybe, he honed to be one. His writing is feisty, and filled with piping hot expressions like “who wept at the romance of the streets with their pushcarts full of onions and bad music,” 

We get glimpses of Ginsberg’s early days as a poet, including his relationship with Kerouac and Cassady, as well as representation of the trial, where a parade of critics and literature professors articulate his work to be either genius or utter bullshit. Filmmakers Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman choose to illustrate the burning imagination of Ginsberg with an “overheated student film” like animation. 

The film “Howl” gradually lights Ginsberg’s reluctance in having his great early poem published, as he wasn’t eager to have his daddy find out his personal form, such that he was homosexual. All of the biographical part of the film is wisely crafted. The Orlovsky scenes focus more on idealized romance. The interview scenes are mainly about clarification of his work and how Ginsberg felt it be perceived. He admits, among many other things, to his fear of his poet father’s reaction to his work and his personal space; his mother’s schizophrenic illness; his sexual infatuations; and his view that Howl was not a promotion of the merits of homosexuality, as some perceived, but rather an argument about “frankness for any subject”

Howl laid central importance to the betrayal of American democracy, which Ginsberg riddled in euphemisms, and also free versed about the importance of erotic experience. In his personal life, Ginsberg was a practicing Buddhist and also studied other Eastern religious disciplines. His association with great teachers like the Tibetan Buddhist, “Chogyum Rinpoche” were famous. Through the 60’s, Ginsberg started being involved with Krishnaism, greeting Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the founder of Hare Krishna movement in the west.

The film Howl expertly brings to us the shade of Ginsberg, behind his extensive piece of work, delicately handled by the filmmakers through the use of funky story-telling, and effective dramatization of the courtroom sequence, which is the core beat of the film.