Film
What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases
Bookmark this pageKerouac (1984)
Director: John Antonelli
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
This feature length documentary, narrated by Peter Coyote, reminds us that Kerouac wasn't just a handsome beatnik drifter who hung out with Burroughs and Ginsberg, and travelled across America striking moody poses. He was also a formidably talented writer. (One pundit, his biographer Ann Charters, rates him alongside Hemingway, Wolfe and Whitman.) The story is dispiriting - five unpublished novels before On the Road catapulted him on to the chat show circuit, then decline to a premature, drunken death at age 49. Antonelli has assembled a gallery of old rogues (Burroughs, Ferlinghettim Corso) to reminisce about their pal Jack. He's also dug up archive footage of Neal Cassady, 'the flaming comet from the west' who inspired much of Kerouac's best work. Almost inevitably, the dramatic reconstructions of the writer's life seem dreary by comparison.Author: GM
Cast & crew
Director: John Antonelli
Producer: John Antonelli
Cast: Jack Coulter, David Andrews, Jonah Pearson, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gregory Corso, Neal Cassady full cast
Genre(s): Documentaries
Duration: 72 mins
Top Stories
Ridley Scott interview
Director Ridley Scott tells Cath Clarke why he's making a science fiction comeback
Cannes Film Festival 2012: half-time report
Dave Calhoun reports on the hits, misses and a shocking new masterpiece from Michael Haneke
What do you think?
Post your review now