A new Coen brothers film celebrates Greenwich Village in its 60s heyday, but what's left of Dylan and Kerouac's New York? Karen McVeigh takes a cycle tour of the area
Five decades have passed since America's troubadours and beat poets flocked to Greenwich Village, filling its smoky late-night basement bars and coffee houses with folk songs and influencing some of the most recognisable musicians of the era.
A few landmarks of those bygone bohemian days – most recently portrayed in the Coen brothers' film Inside Llewyn Davis, out on 24 January – still exist. The inspiration for the movie's fictional anti-hero, Davis, was Brooklyn-born Dave Van Ronk, a real- life blues and folk singer with no small talent, who worked with performers such as Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan, but remained rooted in the village until he died in 2002, declining to leave it for any length of time and refusing to fly for many years.
Five decades have passed since America's troubadours and beat poets flocked to Greenwich Village, filling its smoky late-night basement bars and coffee houses with folk songs and influencing some of the most recognisable musicians of the era.
A few landmarks of those bygone bohemian days – most recently portrayed in the Coen brothers' film Inside Llewyn Davis, out on 24 January – still exist. The inspiration for the movie's fictional anti-hero, Davis, was Brooklyn-born Dave Van Ronk, a real- life blues and folk singer with no small talent, who worked with performers such as Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan, but remained rooted in the village until he died in 2002, declining to leave it for any length of time and refusing to fly for many years.
- 12/22/2013
- by Karen McVeigh
- The Guardian - Film News
Review by Big Daddy Dane Marti Pow! As old, withered, but still dedicated Hipster, I had trepidations (very un-hip thoughts, Daddy) about seeing this film, sort as if I were undressing in front of millions of strangers. Still, Cat, while someone like Norman Mailer might write fervently about hipsters, the term for many folks is still rather broad and ephemeral, of course. For me, The Hipster is at his best – or for some of you Squares, at his worst– during the Beat Generation, the latter 50′s era personified by Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. These Post WW11 guys and their friends were a different cool animal from the kids personified in the zany film under review! Hipsters, as opposed to Beatniks, were often African American and more knowledgeable about the harsh underbelly of life. Duh. They knew how to remain cool under unpleasant situations (which often seemed to pertain to...
- 11/16/2012
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
It's no surprise that the film adaptation of Kerouac's book is rocky: the Beats have rarely fared well on the big screen
The Beat generation was vibrant for just a short cultural moment, proclaiming a loud "no way" to the great American "yes sir" sighed by fat, complacent Eisenhower-era America. The Beats sought escape in jazz, marijuana and heroin; in racial and sexual transgression and spiritual questing; in language still deemed obscene (Ginsberg: "America, go fuck yourself with your atom bomb"); and with a determination to live free of ambitions and schedules. Their exploits unfolded in a world now vanished, where racial segregation was the norm, and jazz was still a living music, not a museum art; before Eisenhower shrank America with the transcontinental highways, and the road was still The Road. They're people in history now, the Beats.
It's taken 55 years for Kerouac's On The Road, the movement's signature novel,...
The Beat generation was vibrant for just a short cultural moment, proclaiming a loud "no way" to the great American "yes sir" sighed by fat, complacent Eisenhower-era America. The Beats sought escape in jazz, marijuana and heroin; in racial and sexual transgression and spiritual questing; in language still deemed obscene (Ginsberg: "America, go fuck yourself with your atom bomb"); and with a determination to live free of ambitions and schedules. Their exploits unfolded in a world now vanished, where racial segregation was the norm, and jazz was still a living music, not a museum art; before Eisenhower shrank America with the transcontinental highways, and the road was still The Road. They're people in history now, the Beats.
It's taken 55 years for Kerouac's On The Road, the movement's signature novel,...
- 10/5/2012
- by John Patterson
- The Guardian - Film News
New York — Jack Kerouac's only full-length play will be staged for the first time this fall.
Merrimack Repertory Theatre and the University of Massachusetts Lowell said Monday – on what would have been Kerouac's 90th birthday – that they will produce the three-act play called "Beat Generation" in the novelist's hometown of Lowell, Mass.
The premiere of the play – a staged reading for eight performances only – will be the centerpiece of the 2012 Jack Kerouac Literary Festival, which will be held Oct. 10 through Oct. 14.
Kerouac wrote "Beat Generation" – which draws on his life and those of other Beat writers, including Neal Cassady and Allen Ginsberg – in 1957, the same year his classic "On the Road" was released.
He tried to build interest for "Beat Generation" in the theater world, contacting such people as Lillian Hellman and Marlon Brando, but he failed and set the manuscript aside. Kerouac died in 1969. The manuscript was found...
Merrimack Repertory Theatre and the University of Massachusetts Lowell said Monday – on what would have been Kerouac's 90th birthday – that they will produce the three-act play called "Beat Generation" in the novelist's hometown of Lowell, Mass.
The premiere of the play – a staged reading for eight performances only – will be the centerpiece of the 2012 Jack Kerouac Literary Festival, which will be held Oct. 10 through Oct. 14.
Kerouac wrote "Beat Generation" – which draws on his life and those of other Beat writers, including Neal Cassady and Allen Ginsberg – in 1957, the same year his classic "On the Road" was released.
He tried to build interest for "Beat Generation" in the theater world, contacting such people as Lillian Hellman and Marlon Brando, but he failed and set the manuscript aside. Kerouac died in 1969. The manuscript was found...
- 3/12/2012
- by AP
- Huffington Post
On The Road Letter: Jack Kerouac Wanted Marlon Brando for Dean; Kerouac Would Play Sal [Photo: Leslie Caron.] On the Road was never made into a movie during Jack Kerouac's lifetime. However, the lesser-known The Subterraneans, which Kerouac mentions in his letter to Marlon Brando, was turned into an MGM movie in 1960. Needless to say, the final film had little in common with Kerouac's semi-autobiographical novella about an interethnic romance. In the Subterraneans movie, Kerouac's character, Leo Percepied, is played by George Peppard. The "colored" girl, Mardou Fox, minus the color but with the addition of a French accent is played by Leslie Caron. Others in the film's cast were Janice Rule, Roddy McDowall, Anne Seymour, and Jim Hutton (as the fictional Allan Ginsberg). Former screenwriter Ranald MacDougall (Mildred Pierce, Possessed, The Hasty Heart) directed from a screenplay by Robert Thom. "While none of the portrayals is distinguished," wrote A.H. Weiler in the New York Times,...
- 1/9/2012
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Two legendary rebels of the 1950s, one legendary opportunity missed.
Jack Kerouac famously became a recluse, but it turns out he had movie star ambitions. In this 1957 letter, found by a memorabilia expert in 2005 and recently sold at auction by Christie's, the famed beat author asked Marlon Brando to buy the rights to "On the Road" and turn it into a movie -- in which they would both star.
The letter begins:
I'm praying that you'll buy On The Road and make a movie of it. Don't worry about the structure, I know to compress and re-arrange the plot a bit to give a perfectly acceptable movie-type structure: making it into one all-inclusive trip instead of the several voyages coast-to-coast in the book, one vast round trip from New York to Denver to Frisco to Mexico to New Orleans to New York again. I visualize the beautiful shots could be...
Jack Kerouac famously became a recluse, but it turns out he had movie star ambitions. In this 1957 letter, found by a memorabilia expert in 2005 and recently sold at auction by Christie's, the famed beat author asked Marlon Brando to buy the rights to "On the Road" and turn it into a movie -- in which they would both star.
The letter begins:
I'm praying that you'll buy On The Road and make a movie of it. Don't worry about the structure, I know to compress and re-arrange the plot a bit to give a perfectly acceptable movie-type structure: making it into one all-inclusive trip instead of the several voyages coast-to-coast in the book, one vast round trip from New York to Denver to Frisco to Mexico to New Orleans to New York again. I visualize the beautiful shots could be...
- 1/6/2012
- by Jordan Zakarin
- Huffington Post
The first production from recently formed "Kerouac Films" is a documentary on the Kerouac's retreat from society and the writing of his novel Big Sur. This same production company also has feature versions of both Big Sur and Dharma Bums in development, and this is along with news that UA is backing an adaptation of On the Road while MGM is supposedly backing The Subterraneans. Jeez, let's hope they don't kill the legend. Apparently this doc has been playing a few fests since last year but I can't find a dvd release on the horizon. There is, however, an audio cd release coming up of the readings.
He was called the vibrant new voice of his generation -- the avatar of the Beat movement. In 1957, on the heels of the triumphant debut of his groundbreaking novel, On The Road, Jack Kerouac was a literary rock star, lionized by his fans and devotees.
He was called the vibrant new voice of his generation -- the avatar of the Beat movement. In 1957, on the heels of the triumphant debut of his groundbreaking novel, On The Road, Jack Kerouac was a literary rock star, lionized by his fans and devotees.
- 10/9/2009
- QuietEarth.us
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