How to react when a movie is not intended to be “just” a movie? The new film “Howl” isn’t intended to be a direct narrative as much as an introductory course. You’ll get more from watching this in an intro to poetry class than at the cineplex; better to have a pen and pad than a bucket of popcorn. “Howl” is so named for the seminal poem by Beat Generation avatar Allen Ginsberg: who isn’t played by multi-hyphenate renaissance man James Franco as much as mimicked and impersonated. As significant as the source is (the poem itself is a desperate cry for help during a period veering towards the political compromise some ignore but that we’re currently embroiled in), “Howl” the movie can only, at best, serve as a companion.
The film, from documentarians Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, interweaves three methods of telling the same story. One strand of the film utilizes what we’re told are the recorded musings of Ginsberg from an interview taken during the trial, where “Howl” publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti was prosecuted on charges of obscenity. As the poet, it’s difficult to divorce this Ginsberg manqué with the very public persona of Mr. Franco, whose profile has gained mileage less from a string of watchable movies than for erratic, unpredictable performance art comprised of off-center interviews, ersatz public appearances, and self-mocking stunts disguised as film performances. It’s quite the hurdle for any accomplished actor, never mind the Emmy winner Franco, who embodies Ginsberg’s dismissive concerns about the lasting influence of his artistic contemporaries. His casual, lying-around-the-couch physicality in these moments, shot with a handheld camera, makes it hard for the viewer to distinguish where genius/bloviater Ginsberg beings and the very public art student Franco (currently angling for multiple literary degrees) ends.
The second strand follows the obscenity trial, again based on actual court documents. During these proceedings, shot with a flat TV sheen, the prosecution, represented by an especially-actorly David Strathairn, faces off against the far sexier, more convincing defense, represented by the most lethal of weapons, Mr. Jon Hamm in a suit. The more things change, the more they stay the same: as cartoonish as the prosecutions’ arguments against the value of “Howl” may be, the government continues to struggle against labels of obscenity and arbitrary regulations of free speech. The case proposed by the prosecution is that “Howl” cannot be considered “art” or not, considering the profane language and unconventional attitude. Our government’s definition of obscenity has changed, but not the fact that the standards remain arbitrary and a slave to the whims of a few politicians and self-appointed guardians.
The third, and least-successful strand of the film involves the actual reading of the poem. In a black-and-white café, Franco-as-Ginsberg recites his work for yuppie beatniks who react as if, familiar with Ginsberg’s work, they are attending a Greatest Hits session. Franco reads the poem the way a fat person eats a sandwich: sloppy and ravenous, but not without panache. Accompanying him (because simply reading the actual poem isn’t enough) are a series of arcane illustrations and animations making a futile attempt to render Ginsberg’s work literal. It’s a crushingly ill-conceived idea for several reasons, but specifically that it tries to visualize what Ginsberg’s words already evoke, thus undermining the actual work by considering it a candidate for visual recontextualization. It’s a testament to how strong Ginsberg’s words were (and how shoddy the animation is) that you will likely be distracted from the onscreen images by the visuals the text conjures up in your own head. “Howl” is still discussed today on more than just the merits of the obscenity case.
For those unfamiliar with “Howl” the poem, the movie should assist in awakening this interest, and so credit must be given to the film that spotlights a socially-significant work of art. Where Friedman and Epstein go wrong is in almost obscuring the subject in hand with what amounts to a series of gimmicks. The courtroom sequences stack a deck that needs not be stacked, explicating how one cannot measure the merits of poetry with prose, a feat that all great poetry accomplishes on the page. The nuts-and-bolts interview segments with Franco-as-Ginsberg have that under-thought, thrown-together element always present when artists who don’t care to explain their work are thrust in front of a mic. They also commit the crime of spotlighting Ginsberg’s intellectual origins with bullet-point precision, unsure as to whether this is a film about a work of art or its cavalier creator. And of course, the animation does not work. “Howl” has merit as an introduction to a great work of art, but aside from doing the library legwork for uninformed viewers, its entirely perfunctory. [C]