Have you ever wanted to know what happened during Allen Ginsberg’s
college years? Have you ever wanted to see how the relationship between
him, Lucien Carr, Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs blossomed? Have
you ever wanted to see Daniel Radcliffe masturbating furiously in front
of a typewriter or being sodomised semi-lovingly by a strange man? Of
course you have and despite the knife wound to the childhood of Harry
Potters fans, you would and should enjoy Kill Your Darlings. If you
love beat poetry, the film “On the Road” or even just good cinema you
should watch this film. Essentially just a story about a few friends
trying to make a difference in the world, this just happens to be a few
friends who did make a difference to the world.
Allen Ginsberg (Radcliffe), years before he wrote ‘Howl’, has just been
accepted into University and though he doesn’t want to leave his sick
mother, his father (David Cross) encourages him to go and to learn. In a
role that has strange echoes of my own life, he arrives all optimistic
and ready to learn and with a love for school until he meets a young
Aryan chap named Lucien Carr (Dane DeHaan). Lucien is a bit of a knob
and you’d definitely hate him if he was in your school, but he has a
similar outlook on life to Ginsberg, which is a hatred of what is
normal, and the hatred of rules, for rules sake.
I’ve always shared their thoughts on this but also have my own rules
that I can’t comfortably break. Creative writing, and art can never
truly be taught in my opinion rather encouraged, so what these guys did
was very important, very needed. Though they at the time reeked of
rebellion, it was rebellion for a reason, a need to express themselves,
not a self-absorbed rebellion based in a proud lack of empathy. Too
many people nowadays will find themselves claiming they do what they
want and that they don’t care how it affects others, like it’s something
to be proud of. They completely misunderstand the nature of rebellion
which is to make the world realise it’s stupid and become a better
place. These guys rebelled against literary and creative repression,
Miley Cyrus is rebelling against what people thought she was so that she
can make more money, or spend a longer time in the limelight, this is
all about her and nothing to do with art.
This film is a tribute to the genius that was these men. It needs to be
seen and they need to be held in the esteem today that they were held
in before. It is a fabulous film and it if nothing else it reminds us
that there was a time when people gave a shit about poetry and
literature and it was the adults, the boring people, that liked the
emotionless nonsense ‘pop’ society. It was young who realised that that
was not the way it was meant to be, that lives were to be lived and
recorded with beautiful words.
So go watch this film and remember these people helped create the world
you live in, and shaped it so the entertainment you can enjoy would be
allowed to be made.
Kill Your Darlings gets a 4/5, [★★★★☆]
Dave Roberts
Kill Your Darlings CeX
