Review: Howl

The story of the obscenity trials of poet Allen Ginsberg becomes unexpectedly timely, if a bit scattered.

By Crystal Erickson
Published: November 3rd, 2010 | 12:10pm

The life and greatest work of Beat poet Allen Ginsberg is the base of Howl, an experimental film and this year's Sundance Film Festival submission from Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman. The film. essentially a collage of three radically different approaches to telling the story Ginsberg, played by James Franco, and his controversial work “Howl,” is a bit unfocused. The titular poem grabbed the attention of the Beat generation for both its innovative technique and shocking subject matter—Ginsberg was among the first to openly express his homosexuality in his work, which led to censorship trials.

Howl is hitting theaters at an important time, as anti-bullying laws attempt to save the lives of homosexual youths, who would rather die than live in a society that discredits them. Yet Epstein and Friedman have been at it for years. Howl is among many films the duo have collaborated on (Common Threads: Stories From The Quilt, Paragraph 175) that work to rewrite the history of homosexuality, in a world that somehow insists on keeping the topic taboo.

The film uses actual court transcripts from the 1957 obscenity trial, and proves how shocking a reading the poem was to the general public at that time. A variety of literary experts were put on the stand to determine the book's relevance, questioning various turns of phrases in poetry, and determining whether or not such words ("blew," "blown," "snatch") are "necessary" in order to convey meaning. No courtroom would ever see such a baseless case today, using literary geeks as expert witnesses to criminalize works of art. Or would it?

Mad Men's Jon Hamm plays Jake Ehrlich, Ginsberg's defense attorney, a charismatic voice of reason during the proceedings. Ehrich's closing statement is a powerful one, against censorship based on ignorance and so-called values. ("Let there be light. Let there be honesty. Let there be no running from nonexistent destroyers of morals. Let there be honest understanding.")

A portion of Howl shows Ginsberg talking with a reporter, a dramatized version of a Time magazine interview that was conducted but never released. Ginsberg confesses he never thought "Howl" would be published, saying "I didn't want my daddy to see what was in there." The poem was written as a love letter to Jack Kerouac and is dedicated to the American writer Carl Solomon, whom Ginsberg met in a mental hospital. These men represent core themes of the film, homosexuality and mental illness, two forces that alienated Ginsberg from society and led him to wonder whose reality was correct.

Howl juxtaposes the mock interview with Franco reciting lines of “Howl” in the same manner Ginsberg would, by elongating syllables and experimenting with breathing patterns, adding to the poem's inherent absurdity. The readings segue into animations by Eric Drooker, an artist and writer who’s been commissioned for several covers of The New Yorker. Drooker collaborated with Ginsberg on Illuminated Poems, a book of Drooker’s poetry and art that includes a re-print of “Howl.” Drooker’s style resembles modern urban life, creating worlds of dreary city streets and faceless bodies, devoid of humanity. The style doesn’t mesh well with the overall '50s aesthetic of the film, which is perhaps an attempt to show how unusual “Howl” was in its infancy.