It might not match the bohemian pedigree of the Chelsea Hotel, but in the late 1950s, Paris’s Beat Hotel housed William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso as the writers created many of their most enduring works. Alan Govenar’s straightforward docu-celebration of this hospitable hotbed of creativity has enough insider details (a reconstruction of the magic tricks Burroughs performed for his friends, the Naked Lunch author’s development process of the cut-up technique) to keep any Beat fan feeling adequately Zen, though the fact that it’s far more concerned with burnishing an overly fetishized lit movement than serving as an in-depth exploration of the hotel’s inhabitants may make you want to check out early.
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