Big Sur

If you're fascinated with Kerouac, the Beats, or the era, you may enjoy this picture. Everything is solid, but we're not given music as viewers to digest. Stuff happens, and more stuff happens. Is there a conclusion? Maybe there doesn't need to be.

I really like this movie a lot, if for no other reason than it shows how dark and paranoid alcoholism gets. I love the Beats, especially Kerouac, but it's a turbo-bummer how his life ended up, and "Big Sur" really nails how awful it is. Kerouac's story is a reminder that you only have ONE life. You only have ONE body and mind. For the most part, you only get ONE shot at relationships. You don't need to be plastered to be yourself.

If you can sift through the drunken self-hatred, there's still some good Beat nuggets in there: the Buddhist explorations, the meditation, the zest for life. It's a nice juxtaposition to Kerouac's paranoid state.

Big Sur is the Beat Dream gone bad.

After watching the "On The Road" movie and reading negative reviews about "Kill Your Darlings" I wasn't expecting much from "Big Sur". But I was very pleasantly surprised with how well it was done. The majority of the dialogue is voice-over in Kerouac's own words and other than a couple of minor details the movie stays true to the book. Jean-Marc Barr gave an excellent portrayal of Kerouac, even though he doesn't sound like him very much or even attempt to replicate Kerouac's accent. Patrick Fischler was great as Lew Welch and Henry Thomas offers up some of his best work as Philip Whalen. My only complaint is in the portrayal of the sub-story regarding the goldfish in Billie's apartment. Without giving anything away I'll just say that I didn't think it was handled very well.

Other than that the cinematography is absolutely beautiful and the soundtrack set the mood perfectly throughout the movie. I'm really glad that someone finally made a Kerouac movie the right way, by respectfully staying true to the book. This is easily my favorite movie of 2013 so far.

Big Sur is the end of Kerouac's literary journey which he called the Legend of the Duluoz. Sure he wrote more novels but he never chronicled his life beyond Big Sur and if you read the book, you'd understand why. Kerouac, a free spirit by the time of this book, was around 36 and popular. He lost the freedom he celebrated in his work to celebrity. He found he had less and less in common with his friends and the alcohol started to flow and really take it's toll on his body. I read Big Sur when I was 16. I was struck by how his disillusionment grew when he was surrounded by people and how freeing and peaceful it was when he was alone in the cabin on Big Sur. Kerouac wrote in a descriptive whirlwind when the nightmarish DTs struck. It was night and day how life was for him and he crafted a brilliant literary work chronicling this. I am always disappointed when I see someone else's vision of how they interpret books I like. Maybe I have a vivid imagination and am bringing these images to life in my mind better than what is shown to me on a screen. Never liked any screen adaptation of The Great Gatsby. Not many directors as good at their craft as F Scott Fitzgerald was at his.

Maybe it's not fair to complain about the attempt so much. Big Sur is a difficult novel to bring to life for anyone. The book is the closest Kerouac ever came to something like William Burroughs' Naked Lunch. The surreal horrific terrors he experienced from his alcoholism are descriptive and not brought to life well in this movie.

It's also a dour story and frankly, it makes for a great book but not a movie where you expect three acts. The novel itself doesn't really have that. It's just a stage in Kerouac's life. He carries on when it's over and his descent simply continues....

It's impossible to discuss this movie without putting it in the context of "On The Road", which could not find an audience. Knowledge of who Kerouac was is limited in the TV age; and his books, all fictionalized tales, yet autobiographical in nature (and to some a serialized mythology of an artist's life) are reduced to a cult-fan base in this era. If the iconic road story that launched Kerouac into the literary firmament was rejected by the Superhero loving movie audience of today, what chance does a psychological internal monologue about an artist's descent into alcoholism have.

So we are left with a simple dividing line: do you know the work of Kerouac and the milieu of "The Beats"? If you don't, then this movie will seem odd and slow-paced, overwhelmingly pointless and pretentious. If you are a fan, then we are confronted with another question: Is simply seeing the narratives underlying Kerouac's poetic stream of conscious writing brought to life worth dealing with the limitations of converting works of art that are not plot-based to film? Like "On The Road", "Big Sur" delivers a simple enough joy to the Kerouac fan. There it is: a dramatization of Kerouac's iconic writings, replete with tons of required voice-over narration of the jazz-based flowing verbiage that makes Kerouac Kerouac. But, you can't help but think, wow-it's just not possible to make a conventional movie out of a Kerouac story, you must have excessive narration, because Kerouac was entirely about the words - the rhythm, the cadence, the explosion of images and alliterations. None of this is bad, but it requires an acceptance of the source we are dealing with to accept such an extensive override of normal plot-driven movie storytelling.

The movie is well directed. Polish mixes imagery well, establishes mood and atmosphere, and handles the semi-hallucinatory descent into alcoholic stupor with a pleasant restraint.

The actors all do top-notch work, although some of the peripheral characters such as Lew Welch, Ferlinghetti, and Whalen seem to have no emotional connection to the main character or his problems. They are just there. Even Neal Cassady ultimately fades away at the end.

Kate Bosworth enters the movie halfway through the story and becomes the last lifeline that Kerouac throws away. While undeveloped as a character, she does a fine job representing the last real thing left to hold onto. She fits the role well, and plays out the heart-wrenching string aptly, as a character smart enough and jaded enough to cope with her fate.

As a fan of Kerouac, I can say that there is so much good about this movie and it's straight forward attempt at delivering Kerouac's last important novel as a film, that I would recommend it highly to anyone that enjoyed "On the Road" as a film. If you were bored with OTR, or didn't get it, you will not enjoy this subtle intelligent movie.