Howl
James Franco stars as the young Allen Ginsberg - poet, counter-culture adventurer and chronicler of the Beat Generation. In his famously confessional, leave-nothing-out style, Ginsberg recounts the road trips, love affairs and search for personal liberation that led to the most timeless and electrifying work of his career, the poem HOWL. Meanwhile, in a San Francisco courtroom, HOWL is on trial. Prosecutor Ralph McIntosh (Strathairn) sets out to prove that the book should be banned, while suave defense attorney Jake Ehrlich (Hamm) argues fervently for freedom of speech and creative expression. The proceedings veer from the comically absurd to the passionate as a host of unusual witnesses (Jeff Daniels, Mary-Louise Parker, Treat Williams, Alesssandro Nivola) pit generation against generation and art against fear in front of conservative Judge Clayton Horn (Bob Balaban).
- Director
- Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman
- Actors
- James Franco, David Strathairn, Jon Hamm, Bob Balaban, Alessandro Nivola, Treat Williams, Mary-Louise Parker, Jeff Daniels
- Genre
- Drama
- Run Time
- 1 hour 30 minutes
Reviews from Rotten Tomatoes
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Admirable if fundamentally academic.
Todd McCarthy, Variety, 01.03.2011 -
What could have been a trivial exercise in nostalgia instead becomes a powerful case for the cathartic power of art.
Ann Hornaday, Washington Post, 10.28.2010 -
It's sweet stuff, a portrait of an artist in turmoil, under fire and laying himself bare. Howl captures Howl beautifully.
Tom Long, Detroit News, 01.28.2011 -
It's about literature itself, the ways in which it works on the reader and the folly of applying some objective standard of decency and meaning to words on a page.
Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News, 10.22.2010
