On The Road

This is the long-awaited film version of Kerouac’s famous road trip novel, which I finally managed to watch on DVD – there was no discernable local theatrical release I could find.  Sam Riley plays Sal Paradise (Kerouac), Garrett Hedlund (Tron Legacy) plays Dean Moriarty (Neal Cassady), Viggo “Aragorn” Mortensen plays Old Bull Lee (William S. Burroughs, author of The Naked Lunch), Kristen (“Bella”) Stewart plays Mary-Lou (Dean GF #1), and Kirsten Dunst plays Camille (Dean GF #2).  There’s even Elizabeth Moss (aka Peggy Olson from “Mad Men”) as Galatea Dunkel.  Here she doesn’t have to do any ad copy for sexist clients, just bitch about her husband abandoning her at Old Bull’s place.

            This story ranks up there with The Great Gatsby as a perennial favorite of high school English teachers, I have my theory as to why (assuming my impression as to its popularity is accurate).   Rock journalists love Keith Richards, as we well know.  Keith has done all the things we’d love to do and lived to tell the story – and even outlived many other rock musicians (Elvis, Michael Jackson, John Bonham, Keith Moon, Janis, Jimi, Jim Morrison, etc.).   So with regard to him, I think the rock journalists hold him in awe: “those who can’t, teach.”  And with On The Road you have a similar deal as with my observation on Star Trek: Kirk is who male Trekkers wish they were, Picard is who they actually are.  Here, Dean is who all those English teachers wish they had been, whereas Sal is closer to who they actually were at that age – but hey, Sal is Kerouac himself, so don’t feel too badly. 

            Now on to the movie review.  Funny, I’ve seen Walter Salles’ other movies (“Central Station”, “Motorcycle Diaries” and “Paris Je T’aime”) but this didn’t register to me that it was one of his films.  I suppose my take on directors is, if the technique is so bizarre that you notice it (e.g. Oliver Stone’s “Natural Born Killers”), the guy screwed up somehow.  So Salles did a good job on this one.

This movie had far more bisexuality and men kissing than the book had (though less male-on-male romping than Ser Loras Tyrell in “Game of Thrones”).  Mind you, I didn’t read the book back in high school, I read it very recently.  I can imagine the movie people arguing, “well, Kerouac kept it all out so as not to offend the squares when he published the book [written in 1951 but not published until 1957, and even then after some struggle and difficulty], but that’s what actually happened.  Now that we’re in 2012 and people aren’t so uptight about these things anymore, we can more accurately portray what really happened.”  But this was a novel – a work of fiction loosely based upon Kerouac’s own experiences. 

            So as unpleasant as I found that element of the story, I’ll concede it’s probably closer to portraying the aggregate of experiences which the group did back then.  They smoked pot.   They crossed the country by bus, car, hitch-hiking, etc.  When they drove themselves, Dean was behind the wheel terrifying whoever they picked up with his maniac driving, this back when cars had shitty brakes and suspensions – and no seat belts.  When suitable female companionship was not available, they jumped in bed with each other, or engaged in MMF threesomes as the whim and opportunity arose.   Ultimately the whole thing was each person’s surrender to sensuality and hedonism, pushing tolerances to the limits, of which Dean’s was probably the highest.  Getting back to the high school English teachers, the novel gives the rest of us a chance to live vicariously through these characters.  [“Don’t try this at home.  These are professional beatnik novelists.”]

            Then again, maybe someone should recreate the experience again.  And by that I don’t mean, cross America on back roads in Hudsons or buses, necessarily.  Not an exact slavish recreation of the 1949 experience, but a recreation based on existing circumstances.  Take Amtrak or Greyhound.  Take I70 or I80.  Take ecstasy or LSD, which weren’t around for Dean and his buddies to enjoy in 1949.   As per The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, the Kesey road trips in Furthur in 1964 were their On The Road for that time, especially since Neal Cassady was driving the bus, and thus was a common element of both; at that time not only was LSD available, it was still legal.  Now that bisexuality is more accepted, it’s optional in the 2013 version because we’re not out to shock anyone anymore – bring along Marilyn Manson & Eminem?  Surrender again, but in the world as we know it now, with the Internet and iPods.  Every generation should have its On The Road, not just the beatniks of the late 40s or the hippies of the early 60s.  

Beat Classics

Before the hippies of the 60s, there was the Beat Generation, of the 50s, an extremely avante-garde, anti-establishment clique of writers, of whom the most famous were Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs.  They refer to each other in their writings and certainly ran together in the same circles.  Neal Cassady was one of their buddies, but I haven’t read The First Third, his only known novel; Cassady also became one of Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters, as the driver of Furthur, the psychedelically painted school bus (as described in Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test). 

 I won’t comment on Howl, Ginsberg’s most famous work (or his poetry), but I will address the ones I have read:

 The Naked Lunch, by William S. Burroughs (not to be confused with Edgar Rice Burroughs, the author of Tarzan and John Carter).  This was a remarkably tortured and nonsensical collage of word salad and psychedelic imagery, so strange and twisted – and completely and deliberately devoid of any discernable plot – that the entire effect is that of a bad acid trip or a nightmare.  Oh, and the author’s homosexuality was rampant, front-center, incapable of being surgically removed from the story as it accounts for 60% of the action.  WSB, although married (he killed his wife by misadventure, a William Tell “shoot the apple off her head with a gun” mishap) was clearly, 100% flaming.  Women come off as alien beings not even the same species as men, as misogynistically portrayed as the cartoon animated vagina in “Pink Floyd the Wall”.  The only concept which competes with gay sex in this story is heroin addiction and the spectacular lows to which a junkie will descend to get his fix – including gay sex.  To the extent any moral can be discerned in this whole wacked out story, it is: if you get hooked on heroin, you WILL blow someone.

            David Cronenburg, a horror movie guy, managed to make this into a movie – no mean feat given the afore-mentioned absence of a plot – and didn’t do too badly.  The gay element was still there, but toned down considerably (though still recognizable).  Peter Weller plays the WSB character, Ian Holm and Roy Scheider are in here too, plus an array of talking typewriters who turn into loathsome, talking insects.  Very weird, but hardly any weirder than the book. 

 On the Road, by Jack Kerouac.  Sal Paradiso (this novel’s obvious alter-ego of Kerouac) starts off in Paterson, NJ, and works his way cross-country several times; his West Coast destination is usually San Francisco, by way of Denver.  Written and taking place before the highway system was installed (or the NJ Turnpike), the story necessarily involves an array of rarely-named routes which complicates the task of any modern-day intrepid souls daring to repeat SP’s feat.  Sometimes he hitchhikes, sometimes he takes the bus, and sometimes he drives; his driving buddy is Dean Moriarty (a fictionalized but accurate version of Neal Cassady).  Allen Ginsberg also appears (as Carlo Marx) as does William S. Burroughs (Old Bull Lee).  Dean is close to the focal character:  he dallies with a pair of women, Camille and Marylou, never quite sure which one he’ll settle down with – if either.    I have to admit it must be the ultimate road trip book, though I’m not that impressed with it – like The Great Gatsby, it’s one of these highly overrated “classics” which guys like to refer to in order to pump up their own cred and mystique.  That, and a favorite of high school English teachers, many of whom struck me as enthralled with Kerouac in a vicarious manner, the same way rock journalists worship Keith Richards.  Unlike Naked Lunch, OTR does NOT go into any of the alleged homosexual relationship between Kerouac and Cassady.  Although I consider it overrated, it was certainly enjoyable to read – particularly on the bus to or from New York City.

            They’ve FINALLY made this into a movie, VERY recently – it was panned at Cannes.  Walter Salles, the Brazilian film maker (“Central Station”, “Motorcycle Diaries”, and “Paris, Je T’aime” are his more famous works), directed: The cast includes Sam Riley as Sal, Garrett Hedlund (from “Tron Legacy”) as Dean, Kristen Stewart (aka “Bella”) as Marylou, Kirsten Dunst (Maryjane no more, it seems) as Camille, and Viggo ‘Aragorn” Mortensen as Old Bull Lee.  I can’t seem to find a US release date, “but I’ll see it when it comes out,” even if it winds up being one of those limited artsy release theaters.