Howl (2010)

I liked Howl because it reminds me of my creative writing class and writing in general because the first things I remember writing creatively was poetry. Admittedly, my stuff was never deemed revolutionary or obscene but I've always felt ahead of my time. Howl skips across the filmic styles- from re-inacted documentary to musical biopic to period piece to courtroom drama, in telling the true story of Allen Finsbury and his book Howl and how it was the centre of a court-case on obscenity charges. The film seems weightless as it flits from Ginsberg (methodically played by James Franco) reading Howl to Ginsberg discussing the time to the courtroom.
Maybe this constant mix of setting and style would make other films seem convoluted or confusing but it works in this case.
Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, prolific gay documentary filmmakers seem to be to divine all the of this mixing and transform it into something literate despite not having worked a whole lot with actors. I'm not sure if working with actors after 20years in documentaries would be easier or harder!  but they managed to pull together this cast including Jon Hamm, David Strathaven and Jeff Daniel for the courtroom stuff as well as the Franco.
I guess I preferred the interview/documentry style stuff and would have preferred more of that and less of the courtroom stuff but the courtroom stuff gets cut away from before it becomes repetitive and I guess a little courtroom drama used sparingly goes a long way. It's interesting to watch because it takes you not into the mind of a poet but into the time of a society on the cusp of a significant change in popular culture; where the 50's Beat Generation where warming up for the Peace, Love and Understanding of the 60's...

I watched Howl (2010) on BluRay, via LoveFilm.
My 2011 in Movies will return with The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970)...