Most of us become aware of characters like Allen Ginsberg only after they have already become known commodities on the cultural scene. And when that scene becomes embedded in an historical juncture – a cultural revolution – we become all the more curious about the parts and the pieces before the fame and nortoriety. What were those important factors in their lives that made them who and what they are.
Even if this only really amounts to who and what we think they are.
Still, back in the 1950s there wasn’t an intenet around. There wasn’t a Google that allowed you to just type in a name. And, then, after you clicked enter, were deluged with all manner of facts and fictions.
About, among others, Allen Ginsburg, Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Lucien Carr. The Beat Generation. Those folks who, along with so many others, helped to usher in that particular cultural revolution we call “the Sixties”.
And, after all, that’s where “I” [meaning me here and now] was more or less reconfigured. On the cusp between the way it’s always been and the way it might otherwise be instead. And not just pertaining to the writing of poetry and to sexual mores. But also relating to things like race and gender and war.
But that one thing invariably true for all of us – men or women, gay or straight, left or right – is this: it’s always never nothing. And though we don’t always end up hurting the ones we love, it is far, far, far from an uncommon occurrence.
This film is “based on a true story”. How true? Who really knows. It all basically revolves around this: nytimes.com/2012/04/06/books … .html?_r=0
Look for Dexter.
IMDb
Dane DeHaan revealed during a Q&A that he was actually strangling himself during the attempted suicide scenes.
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_Your … (2013_film
trailer: youtu.be/AxGgkEHmHHg
KILL YOUR DARLINGS [2013]
Directed by John Krokidas
[b]Allen [voiceover]: Some things, once you’ve loved them, become yours forever. And if you try to let them go they only circle back and return to you. They become part of who you are…
Lucien: …or they destroy you.
…
Lucien [in a cell at the Tombs]: You can’t show this to anyone.
Allen: Then tell the truth, Lu.
Lucien: You weren’t even there! It’s your truth. It’s fiction! You wanted him gone, too. You sent him to me!!
[Allen grabs the pages from Lucien and crumples them]
Lucien: Please. You’ll kill me with that. Allen! No. Allen! Don’t. No! Don’t![/b]
Then back to the future: 1943
[b]Father: Were you gonna tell me that you applied?
Allen: I didn’t want mother to know.
Father: "Love that is hoarded moulds at last “Until we know, the only thing we have…”
Allen: “Is what we give away”
Father: “Is what we hand away” Have, hand. It’s consonance.
Allen: Give, is. Assonance.
Father: Hey, I wrote the goddamn poem. All right? Why don’t you go write your own?
[he hands Allens an envelope from Columbia University]
Father: Open it.
Allen [after reading the letter]: I got in.
Father: You got in?
Allen: To Columbia University.
Father: You got into Columbia.
Allen: Yes!
…
Luke [to Allen with his finger on a map: Christopher Street in the Village]: You don’t wanna go down there. It’s the land of the fairies. Head there, you never come back. Luke Detweiler, Danville, Virginia.
Allen: Allen Ginsberg.
Luke: You’re Jewish, right?
[Allen nods]
Luke: I’m getting good at telling.
…
Lucien [jumping up on a table in the library at Columbia]: “On a Sunday afternoon, when the shutters are down and the proletariat possesses the street there are certain thoroughfares which remind one of nothing less than a big cancerous cock.”
Librarian: What is this nonsense?
Lucien: Henry Miller.
Librarian: Get down immediately. That book is restricted.
Lucien: Which is why I committed it to memory.
…
Professor: The Victorian sonnet has the balance of three tenets, rhyme, metre, conceit. Without this balance, a poem becomes slack, an untucked shirt.
Allen: Professor Steeves. Then how do you explain Whitman?
Professor: Say more. Two more sentences.
Allen: Well, he hated rhyme and metre. The whole point was untucking your shirt.
Professor: What’s your name?
Allen: Allen Ginsberg.
Professor: Ginsberg? Your father, perhaps, is the poet Louis Ginsberg? He writes with rhyming metred verse. Why do you think he chose that form?
Allen: Because it’s easier.
Professor: This university exists because of tradition and form. Would you rather this building be built by engineers or Whitman and his boys at play? There can be no creation before imitation.
…
Lucien: Libation?
Allen: What, you drink in your room?
Lucien: How does a horrible bottle of Chianti sound?
Allen: I don’t drink.
Lucien: Freshman?
Allen: Yes.
Lucien: Excellent. I love first times. I want my entire life to be composed of them. Life is only interesting if life is wide. To Walt Whitman.
…
Lucien [having taken Allen to the Village]: Allen in wonderland…
…
Allen [after William Burroughs offers him a joint]: Uhm, no thanks, I don’t do the cannabis.
William: Show me the man who is both sober and happy, and I will show you the crinkled anus of a lying asshole.
…
Allen: Is he a criminal?
Lucien: He wishes he were a criminal. The Burroughs family is richer than God.
Allen: Well, he looks like a criminal.
Lucien: He’s a Harvard man. He’s going to be an amazing artist. His current medium is himself.
…
Lucien: Some ear job at the bar just called me kid, so I stole his drink.
Allen: That’s Ogden Nash.
Lucien: Who’s Ogden Nash?
Allen: The best-selling poet in the country.
William: Perhaps you’ve heard this one. "The girl who is bespectacled she may not get her nectacled. But safety pins and bassinets… "
David: “…await the girl who fassinets.”
Lucien: And that’s what he’s selling? I’ll kill him.
William: Aim for the throat.
Lucien: No. We’re not going to kill him. Even better, we’re going to make sure nobody remembers him.
…
Lucien: Let’s come up with new words, new rhythms. We need a name. How did they come up with “Dada”?
William: Tristan Tzara jabbed a knife into a dictionary.
Lucien: Shit. So that’s been done.
…
Allen [after his mother is taken away to in “institution”]: Complicated enough?
Lucien: At least you have her. My father left me when I was four.
…
Allen: I’ve been thinking about what Yeats said. To be reborn, you have to die first.
Lucien: What do you suggest?
…
Allen: The New Vision declares…
Lucien: "Proclaims. " It’s better.
Allen: Proclaims the death of morality.
Lucien: The expression of self.
Allen: The true, uninhibited, uncensored expression of the self.
William: Words, boys. Empty words.
Lucien: Well, what do you suggest?
William: The derangement of the senses.
…
Professor: Kill your darlings, your crushes, your juvenile metaphysics. None of them belong on the page. It is the first principle of good creative work, a work of fiction you will deliver as your final exam.
[he glances down to Allen]
Professor: Look. Whitman Junior graced us with his presence today.
[he reaches down and yanks up Allen’s notebook]
Professor: “The New Vision. Extraordinary men propel us forward. It is our duty to break the law.” Fantastic.
Allen: There’s more life in those five pages than in the dozens of bad sonnets we’ve read in this class.
Professor: You want life? You want the world on fire? The war awaits. What will it be?
…
Allen: David is not here to write it for you.
Lucien: It’s complicated.
Allen: I love complicated.
Lucien: He is a professor working as a janitor so he can be near his precious Lu-Lu. He is a goddamn fruit who won’t let me go.
Allen: A fruit?
Lucien: A queer.
Allen: Then…you know, let’s get rid of him.
Lucien: Right now’ I just need you to write us something beautiful. First thought, best thought…
…
William [to Allen and Lucien]: Pervitin. The Germans called it the "Wunderdroge. " Prescribed for superhuman feats. But beware of the side effects which include sudden bouts of blindness, diarrhea, heart palpitations and a severe decline in moral standards.
…
Allen: Why is Jack a real writer?
Lucien: Once you meet him, you’ll see what I mean.
…
Lucien: [on Jack’s writings]: What so you think? It’s brilliant, no?
Allen: It’s missing some periods and commas.
Lucien: It’s better than anything you’ve ever written.
Allen: I use periods and commas.
…
Jack: “A new vision” Sounds phoney. Movements are cooked up by people who can’t write about the people who can.
Allen: I don’t think he gets what we’re trying to do.
Jack: Listen to me. This whole town’s full of finks on the 30th floor writing pure chintz. Writers. A real writers gotta be in the beds, down in the trenches and all the broken places. Where were your trenches, Al?
…
Allen [reading his poem]: Be careful, you are not in Wonderland. I’ve heard the strange madness long growing in your soul, in your isolation but you fortunate in your ignorance. You who have suffered find where love hides, give, share, lose, lest we die unbloomed."
Jack: Allen, that was beautiful, kid.
Lucien: You wrote that?
Allen: You asked me to.
…
Allen: Where are you going?
Lucien: You know me now. I’m only good at beginnings.
Allen: What, you’re dropping out?
Lucien: Best of luck.
…
Allen: Fuck you! You’re a phoney. And you got me and Jack and Bill making your vision come true because you can’t do it yourself.
Lucien: No, Allen. You got what you wanted. You were ordinary, just like every other freshman. And I made your life extraordinary.
…
Sammy [on a voicegram recording]: "A mortar round came and found me in my tent. I can feel metal under my skin some places. Some went clean through. They’re not even trying to take it out no more. The nurses gave me the same morphine I gave to dying boys when I didn’t know what else to do. “Wake, melancholy Mother, wake and weep! Quench within their burning bed, Thy fiery tears, and let thou loud heart keep…”
Edie: What was that?
Jack: Shelley’s elegy for Keats.
Edie: What does that mean?
Jack: It means he’s dead.
…
Allen [on the phone]: Edie. Is Jack there?
Edie: You don’t know?
Allen: Know what?
Edie: The police came and took him down to the Tombs as an accessory. Bill, too.
Allen: What happened?
…
Lucien [to Allen from a Tombs cell]: We’re going to say that it was an honour slaying…
…
Allen [reading from a law book]: “Honor killing. Relating to a lethal attack committed when the accused is defending himself against a known homosexual. If the accused is heterosexual, he shall be pardoned. But if the accused is homosexual, the charge of murder in the first degree shall stand.”
…
William [to Allen]: The libertine circle has come to an end. Go back to the beginning.
…
Allen [voiceover]: Another lover hits the universe. The circle is broken. But with death comes rebirth. And like all lovers and sad people, I am a poet.
…
Title card:
Portraying David Kammerer as a homosexual predator, Lucien Carr pled guilty to first degree manslaughter. He served 18 months in a reformatory. He worked as an editor at United Press International, where he remained until his death in 2005. He married twice and had three children.
Edie Parker’s family bailed out Jack Kerouac on the condition that they marry and move to Michigan. Craving his friends in New York, he annulled his marriage and began a journey that would inspire his novel On The Road.
William Burroughs left his family to pursue a criminal life in New York that he documented in his novels Junkie and Naked Lunch. He co-wrote his first book with Jack, a novel based on David Kammerer’s murder. It was kept from publication for over sixty years.
After his expulsion from Columbia University, Allen Ginsberg became one of the most awarded poets in American history. He dedicated his first published collection, Howl and Other Poems to Lucien Carr. In response, Lucien asked that his name be withdrawn from all further editions. [/b]