Bohemian Creativity
Kill Your
Darlings captures and holds an audience from first scene to last. John
Krokidas and Austin Bunn - director and co-writers - have created a film about
the Beat Generation poets that succeeds on every level. That success is won by
their willingness to be daring in casting, writing, and filming technique.
The Beats met
as students at Columbia in the late ‘40s and created an academic and behavioral
ruckus that was fueled by alcohol, drugs, sex, and a refusal to abide by the
guidelines of either Columbia or the post-war culture in New York. It was a
dissolute path to self-discovery. The movie covers this New York period as
prelude to 1956 when Ginsberg published Howl and Kerouac On the Road, the work
that put them forever on the public map.
In this movie
we watch an innocent Allen Ginsberg leave his poet father and mentally impaired
mother to become a freshman at Columbia. One of the first people the shy young
writer encounters is Lucian Carr trumpeting his views from the top of a library
table. Their connection is immediate though Ginsberg soon sees the persistent
shadow of David Kammerer who is besotted with Carr and stalks him wherever he
goes. Public disapproval by a then homophobic culture forced these men to live a
big part of their lives in secrecy.
Carr,
Ginsberg, Kerouac, and Burroughs become the foundation of the Beats as they
focus on Carr’s New Vision of literature that swirls chaotically around an
alcohol soaked reinvention of Bohemian creativity. At 19, they intend to recast
the nature of literature.
By
concentrating on the Columbia years, the filmmakers explore the seeds of the men
the three became. Rebellious and arrogant, smart and original, Lucien Carr was
the master magnet of the group until he went too far. It’s the familiar story of
drugs, sex, and alcohol undermining brilliance.
In every
case, the casting in this film works superbly: Daniel Radcliffe as Allen
Ginsberg, Dane DeHaan as Lucien Carr, Jack Huston as Jack Kerouac, Ben Foster as
William Burroughs, and Michael C. Hall as David Kammerer. Add a salute to the
parents who raised these boys. It can’t have been easy. David Cross as Louis
Ginsberg, Jennifer Jason Leigh as his wife Naomi, and Kyra Sedgwick as Marian
Carr;
From the
disturbing elements of arrogance and betrayal, the team has made a riveting film
that is aided mightily by a bold performance from Daniel Radcliffe as Allen
Ginsberg. This is the movie that puts Radcliffe’s earlier fame in proper
perspective as his boyhood work. Dane DeVaan’s unsettling portrait of the
malicious Lucien Carr will linger, unbidden, in a deeply uncomfortable way.
Working in extreme close-up, Krokidas’ imaginative camera forces the actors to
reveal their characters through expression. Writing, directing, acting, editing,
and design – all of it is the work of inspired filmmakers. Unpleasant, brave,
and rewarding – we don’t get many movies like this.
Film Critic : Joan Ellis
Film title : Kill Your Darlings
Distributor : Sony Pictures Classics
Running Time : 1:44
Word Count : 493
Rating : R
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