The movie trailer for Kerouac's Big Sur has been released, and it looks like the film will be worth catching.
The book by Jack Kerouac is a classic novel in the series of fictionalized autobiographies written by the beat author in the 1950s and 60s. This one is about how Kerouac struggled to cope with being feted as an author, and escaped with friends to a cabin in Big Sur, CA.
The film, starring Jean-Marc Barr as Kerouac's alter ego Jack Duluoz and Kate Bosworth as Billie, is expected to be released later this year.
The trailer really seems to capture the rhythm of Kerouac's speech and writing. Following last year's fairly lackluster adaptation of On The Road, perhaps this time a filmmaker has finally managed to capture something of that elusive beat spirit.
However, as David L. Ulin of the LA Times points out,
the film appears to have discarded the idea of Big Sur as a work of fiction, instead portraying its characters — Ferlinghetti, Michael McClure, Neal Cassady — by their real names. That's understandable, but it's also unfortunate, the kind of misreading (hagiography?) that has obscured Kerouac's intentions, and achievement, for more than 50 years.
What do you think?
(Bonus: look out in the trailer for the movie's 1960s recreation of classic San Francisco bookstore City Lights. )