''Howl'' is a 2010 American film which explores both the 1955 Six Gallery debut and the 1957 obscenity trial of 20th-century American poet

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...

's noted poem "

Howl Howl most often refers to: *Howling, an animal vocalization in many canine species *Howl (poem), a 1956 poem by Allen Ginsberg Howl may also refer to: Film * ''The Howl'', a 1970 Italian film * ''Howl'' (2010 film), a 2010 American arthouse b ...

". The film is written and directed by

Rob Epstein Robert P. Epstein (born April 6, 1955), is an American director, producer, writer, and editor. He has won two Academy Awards for Best Documentary Feature, for the films '' The Times of Harvey Milk'' and '' Common Threads: Stories from the Quil ...

and Jeffrey Friedman and stars

James Franco James Edward Franco (born April 19, 1978) is an American actor and filmmaker. For his role in '' 127 Hours'' (2010), he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. Franco is known for his roles in films, such as Sam Raimi's ''Spider-M ...

as Ginsberg.

Plot

''Howl'' explores the life and works of 20th-century American poet,

. Constructed in a

nonlinear In mathematics and science, a nonlinear system is a system in which the change of the output is not proportional to the change of the input. Nonlinear problems are of interest to engineers, biologists, physicists, mathematicians, and many othe ...

fashion, the film juxtaposes historical events with a variety of

cinematic techniques This article contains a list of cinematic techniques that are divided into categories and briefly described. Basic definitions of terms ;180-degree rule :A continuity editorial technique in which sequential shots of two or more actors within ...

. It reconstructs the early life of Ginsberg during the 1940s and 1950s. It also re-enacts Ginsberg's debut performance of "

" at the

Six Gallery Reading The Six Gallery reading (also known as the ''Gallery Six reading'' or ''Six Angels in the Same Performance'') was an important poetry event that took place on Friday, October 7, 1955, at 3119 Fillmore Street in San Francisco. History Conceive ...

on October 7, 1955 in black-and-white. The reading was the first important public manifestation of the

Beat Generation The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by Silent Generatio ...

and helped to herald the West Coast literary revolution that became known as the

San Francisco Renaissance The term San Francisco Renaissance is used as a global designation for a range of poetic activity centered on San Francisco, which brought it to prominence as a hub of the American poetry avant-garde in the 1950s. However, others (e.g., Alan Watt ...

. In addition, parts of the poem are interpreted through animated sequences. Finally, these events are juxtaposed with color images of the 1957 obscenity trial of San Francisco poet and

City Lights Bookstore City Lights is an independent bookstore-publisher combination in San Francisco, California, that specializes in world literature, the arts, and progressive politics. It also houses the nonprofit City Lights Foundation, which publishes selected tit ...

co-founder,

Lawrence Ferlinghetti Lawrence Monsanto Ferlinghetti (March 24, 1919 – February 22, 2021) was an American poet, painter, social activist, and co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers. The author of poetry, translations, fiction, theatre, art criticism, an ...

, who was the first person to publish "Howl" in ''

Howl and Other Poems ''Howl and Other Poems'' is a collection of poetry by Allen Ginsberg published November 1, 1956. It contains Ginsberg's most famous poem, " Howl", which is considered to be one of the principal works of the Beat Generation as well as " A Super ...

''.

Cast

, a central figure of the

Aaron Tveit Aaron Kyle Tveit (; born October 21, 1983) is an American actor. Tveit originated the lead role of Christian the composer in the stage adaptation of ''Moulin Rouge!'' on Broadway, a performance for which he won the 2020 Tony Award for Best Acto ...

Peter Orlovsky Peter Anton Orlovsky (July 8, 1933 – May 30, 2010) was an American poet and actor. He was the long-time partner of Allen Ginsberg. Early life and career Orlovsky was born in the Lower East Side of New York City, the son of Katherine (née ...

, fellow poet and Ginsberg's life partner for over forty years *

Jon Hamm Jonathan Daniel Hamm (born March 10, 1971) is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Don Draper in the period drama television series ''Mad Men'' (2007–2015), for which he won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Televisi ...

Jake Ehrlich Jake W. Ehrlich (October 15, 1900 – December 24, 1971) was an American lawyer and writer. Biography Ehrlich was born near Rockville, Montgomery County, Maryland. He earned a law degree and later a doctorate at Georgetown University. He marr ...

, Ginsberg's prominent defense attorney, whose slogan was "Never plead guilty" and whose life inspired the TV series ''

Perry Mason Perry Mason is a fictional character, an American criminal defense lawyer who is the main character in works of detective fiction written by Erle Stanley Gardner. Perry Mason features in 82 novels and 4 short stories, all of which involve a c ...

'' *

David Strathairn David Russell Strathairn (; born January 26, 1949) is an American actor. Known for his leading roles on stage and screen, he has often portrayed historical figures such as Edward R. Murrow, J. Robert Oppenheimer, William H. Seward, and John Do ...

as Ralph McIntosh, prosecuting attorney *

Alessandro Nivola Alessandro Antine Nivola (born June 28, 1972) is an American actor. He has been nominated for a Tony Award and an Independent Spirit Award and has won a Screen Actors Guild Award, a British Independent Film Award (BIFA), and the Best Actor Award ...

as Luther Nichols, literary critic/book editor of the ''

San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. de ...

'' and defense witness *

Mary-Louise Parker Mary-Louise Parker (born August 2, 1964) is an American actress. After making her Broadway debut as Rita in Craig Lucas' '' Prelude to a Kiss'' in 1990 (for which she received a Tony Award nomination), Parker came to prominence for film roles i ...

as Gail Potter, radio personality and prosecution witness *

Bob Balaban Robert Elmer Balaban (born August 16, 1945) is an American actor, author, comedian, director and producer. He was one of the producers nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture for ''Gosford Park'' (2001), in which he also appeared. Balab ...

as Judge Clayton W. Horn * Jeff Daniels as Professor David Kirk *

Jon Prescott Jon Prescott (born August 10, 1981) is an American actor. Early life He was born in Mountain View, California, but raised near Portland, Oregon. Prescott has two brothers, and a sister. He attended Emerson College in Boston. After college h ...

as Neal Cassady *

Treat Williams Richard Treat Williams (born December 1, 1951) is an American actor, writer and aviator who has appeared on film, stage and television in over 120 credits. He first became well known for his starring role in the 1979 musical film '' Hair'', and la ...

Mark Schorer Mark Schorer (May 17, 1908 – August 11, 1977) was an American writer, critic, and scholar born in Sauk City, Wisconsin. Biography Schorer earned an MA at Harvard and his Ph.D. in English at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1936. Duri ...

* Todd Rotondi as

Jack Kerouac Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac (; March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Of French-Canadian a ...

* Andrew Rogers as

Production

Principal photography of the film took place in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. Animation was provided by Eric Drooker, a former street artist who had collaborated with Ginsberg on his final book of poetry, ''Illuminated Poems''.

Reception

Critical response

''Howl'' received an overall approval rating of 63% from critics at

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, based on 105 reviews, with an average rating of 6.4/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "James Franco gives it his all as beat poet Allen Ginsberg, but ''Howl'' never develops enough of a focus to do his performance justice." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, the film had an average score of 63 out of 100, based on 24 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

gave the film three stars and stated that actor James Franco portrays

with "restraint and care." David Edelstein of '' New York'' magazine noted that "Since the Sundance opening of James Franco’s take on Allen Ginsberg in ''Howl'', I’d heard the movie was howlingly bad — which makes me think that some of the best critical minds of my generation have been destroyed by cynicism. The film... is an exhilarating tribute from one form (cinema) to another (poetry). It takes Ginsberg's momentous, paradigm-changing poem as its launching pad and landing place; its beginning, middle, and end. You could call it a deconstruction except that sounds too formal. It’s a celebration, an analysis, a critical essay, an ode." A.O. Scott of the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' noted that "'Howl' is an exemplary work of literary criticism on film, explaining and contextualizing its source without deadening it." Damien Magee of

702 ABC Sydney ABC Radio Sydney (official call sign: 2BL, formerly 2SB) is an Australian Broadcasting Corporation, ABC radio station in Sydney, Australia. It is the flagship station in the ABC Local Radio network and broadcasts on 702 hertz, kHz on the AM bro ...

gave the film three and a half stars out of five and argued that "James Franco is, in a word, perfect" in the role of Ginsberg. Whilst Magee expressed misgivings about the film's tone, he insists that "there is more than enough that is truly great about ''Howl'' for me to recommend it highly".

Mick LaSalle Mick is a masculine given name, usually a short form ( hypocorism) of Michael. Because of its popularity in Ireland, it is often used in England as a derogatory term for an Irish person or a person of Irish descent. In Australia the meaning broad ...

of the ''

'' found it to be a film of "passion and ambition" but also suggested that its "success is intermittent at best."

Criticism

Dismay has been expressed that a characterization of

Shig Murao Shigeyoshi "Shig" Murao (村尾重芳, ''Murao Shigeyoshi'', b. December 8, 1926 – d. October 18, 1999) was a Japanese-American bookseller who is mainly remembered as the City Lights manager and clerk who was arrested on June 3, 1957, for sell ...

was left out of the film. According to his biographer, Patricia Wakida, Murao was "the one who was actually arrested by the San Francisco police for selling ''Howl'' and actually goes to jail. Ginsberg was in

Tangier Tangier ( ; ; ar, طنجة, Ṭanja) is a city in northwestern Morocco. It is on the Moroccan coast at the western entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar, where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean off Cape Spartel. The town is the cap ...

and Ferlinghetti was in

Big Sur Big Sur () is a rugged and mountainous section of the Central Coast of California between Carmel and San Simeon, where the Santa Lucia Mountains rise abruptly from the Pacific Ocean. It is frequently praised for its dramatic scenery. Big Sur ha ...

. Shig was the one who took the fall".

Accolades

*Won: Central Ohio Film Critics Association - Actor of the Year, James Franco (2011) *Won: National Board of Review, USA - Freedom of Expression Award (2010) *Nominated: International Cinephile Society Awards - Best Animated Film (2011) *Nominated:

GLAAD Media Award The GLAAD Media Award is an accolade bestowed by GLAAD to recognize and honor various branches of the media for their outstanding representations of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community and the issues that affect their live ...

s - Outstanding Film - Limited Release (2011) *Nominated:

Berlin International Film Festival The Berlin International Film Festival (german: Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin), usually called the Berlinale (), is a major international film festival held annually in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festi ...

- Golden Berlin Bear (2010) *Nominated:

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival (formerly Utah/US Film Festival, then US Film and Video Festival) is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,66 ...

- Grand Jury Prize (2010) *Nominated:

World Soundtrack Awards The World Soundtrack Awards, launched in 2001 by the Film Fest Gent, is aimed at organizing and overseeing the educational, cultural and professional aspects of the art of film music, including the preservation of the history of the soundtrack and i ...

- Soundtrack Composer of the Year (2010) *Nominated:

Dorian Awards The Dorian Awards are film and television accolades given by GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics, founded in 2009 as the Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association. GALECA is an association of professional journalists and ...

- Performance of the Year, James Franco (2010)HOWL Awards
/ref>

References

External links

Official trailer
* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Howl 2010 films 2010 LGBT-related films American films with live action and animation American LGBT-related films American biographical films American courtroom films Biographical films about poets Films about freedom of expression Films about the Beat Generation Films based on poems Films directed by Rob Epstein Films directed by Jeffrey Friedman Films set in the 1950s Films set in 1955 Films set in 1957 Films set in New York City Films set in San Francisco Films shot in New York City Gay-related films American independent films LGBT-related drama films Films scored by Carter Burwell Films about writers Biographical films about LGBT people 2010s English-language films 2010s American films