Howl

Using the titular poem as a Launchpad, Howl is an ode to one of the most groundbreaking works of literature, a poem who took preconceived notions of style, voice and form in poetry and blasted them into the stratosphere. Narrowing in on a life as varied and richly lived as Allen Ginsberg’s was probably one of the smartest ideas the filmmakers had, as was casting James Franco, yet I couldn’t help but feel as if parts of Howl were undercooked or too literal.

Howl traces through the early artistic life of Ginsberg in brief patches, covering in quick succession his first meeting with Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady and his beginnings in poetic verse. We see in black-and-white footage throughout the film the first public reading of an early version of “Howl” and the obscenity trial that followed it’s publication. A longer, well-developed film could have been made out of these materials and kept this entire cast, for it is an embarrassment of riches.

As Ginsberg, Franco is tasked with carrying the entirety of the film on his shoulders. While he frequently seems adrift or lost in big-budget movies like Oz the Great and Powerful, smaller films like this showcase his intelligence as an actor. He works best in more adventurous and dark material, and his performance is mostly a series of monologues to an unseen interviewer and pantomiming with various would be and actual lovers. By turns intellectual, charming, boyish, insecure, Franco develops a portrait of Ginsberg that is fully realized and one wishes that the film had matched his well thought and developed reading of the character.

Lots of actors turn up in what is essentially one-and-done walk-ons – Mary-Louise Parker, Jeff Daniels, Alessandro Nivola, Aaron Tveit, Treat Williams – the only main supporting players are John Hamm, Bob Balaban and David Strathairn as the lawyers and judge in the obscenity trial. But each actor brings a unique voice and presence to the film and I wish they had found more for each of them to do.

The film’s structure, while very loving and admiring to the original poem, while unique and interesting, is also problematic since it never focuses in long enough on any particular part of the poem’s life to continuously hold our interest. But I know for certain that the animated sequences, which literalize the words in the actions of two figures, could be completely removed and the film would be all the better for them. That time and space could have gone to more sequences building up the intensity of the trial or investing us in the relationship between Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky (Aaron Tveit).

Well, there you have it in a nutshell: Howl has its heart in the right place, but it boils down to an 85 minute trailer for a longer and better movie. I do hope that Franco gets another chance to portray Ginsberg in a more developed film, because he is honestly just that good in the role.