On the Road Review

 

          "On the Road" is a book about certain events in the life of it's author Jack Kerouac when he went on a series of pot and Benzedrine induced road trips and adventures during the late 1940's, filled with jazz, sex, and misadventure.

          The book was  written in 1951 apparently on a paper towel roll he'd gotten because he was out of paper and the impending prose would later be published by Viking press in 1957 and be a major catalyst in spawning what has been referred to as 'The Beat Movement'.
 (Excerpts from this text would be extremely bizarre in the "Star Wars" title scroll.)


I've only read about the first 3 chapters of this book. Yeah listed on Time Magazine's list of 100 greatest modern novels and I only got 3 chapters in and the Modern Library ranked it as 55th on its list of 100 best English-language novels as well.

So let's talk about the movie . . .

If you know anything about the book you know that each character represents a real life person...the names have been changed blah blah blah. If you know the history of the beat movement and the 3 catylists that started it are Kerouac and this book. "Howl" an epic poem by Alan Ginsberg  and "Naked Lunch" by William Burroughs.  All three of which make  an appearance in this film. Obviously Kerouac is played by actor Sam Riley  whose only other film role I can think of is as Ian Curtis in "Control" the movie about the band Joy Division.  (Which makes me hope that Sam will be the kind of actor that chooses his roles and persona very carefully, so I'm eager to see what he'll do next.)

Viggo Mortensen as "Old Bull Lee" or his real life counter part William Burroughs.


Garrett Hedlund plays the lead character or better yet the catalyst, "Dean Moriarty" or Neal Cassady (also one of the very best performances in the film)


Tom Sturridge plays Carlo Marx also known as classic beat poet Alan Ginsberg (he was the one I didn't notice right away, mainly because I'm used to the look of the older bearded Ginsberg.) 
(Who sadly isn't in the film a whole lot, but I guess it's based on a true story.)

I like this film and I like this film a lot more now that I'm still thinking about it.



      One of the most striking things about this film is the cast, it gets to a point in the film where you say oh she's in it, he's in it, she's in this too wow. Your almost blown away by the variety of great character actors in the ensemble. But even with Francis Coppola producing, even with IFC and Sundance backing the film, even with great reviews in countries like France, even with this cast I cannot see this film appealing to a mass audience do to one glaringly obvious fact...and a fact of the novel as well. The novel was written in one night on a paper towel in a Benzedrine kick and spewed out two parts life philosophy and quick paced anecdotes about wild impromptu road trips across the country...it has absolutely no plot.

      This is extremely compelling because of the vastness of the cast and attention to the detail of the period. This film does not look cheap in any way. It's edited and moves like free form jazz from one moment and story arch to the next and seemly stops to pause before it turns another corner. The cinematography captures the starkness and beauty of how America was in the late 1940's. And it's just a serious of sexual endeavors, talking about writing, doing drugs, going to jazz clubs and the occasional pauses and beautiful poetic moments of sobering up and looking at real life through those glass eyes. For the most part I refer to Dean Moriarty as the lead character not Sal mainly because Sam plays a great reactionist, for the most part, like the audience he is along for the ride that is his wild friend Dean. Most people are used to the main characters in a film being all about action but the main character in this film pauses and goes along for the ride and is mostly about reaction which allows the film to have beautiful, sometimes funny, quiet reflective moments about everyday wild life being caught up in the shit-storm and passion and energy that was Neal Cassidy's (Dean's) real life. The film is a masterpiece in terms of poetic pauses and moments of 'real life' clarity and all the sloppiness that ensues in an 'adventure' that most adventure films tend to forget.

"Boys and Girls in America have such a sad time together; sophistication demands that they submit to sex immediately without proper preliminary talk. Not courting talk - real strait talk about souls, for life is holy and every moment is precious."― Jack Kerouac, On the Road


 The beat movement defined a generation and continues to influence writers, artists, and poets.

 This is the meaning of the film. It's a mediation on life and it's meanings. It says that everything in it doesn't have to be so rigidly structured and much like the style of the generation the film isn't structured. The film plays like a stream of consciousness memory recall from point to point, anecdote to anecdote and moment to moment.

As I have said, the film lacks a structure but everything else about it is top notch, the music, acting, character moments, cinematography and everything else about it. So if you like the stream of conciousness style and especially if you like the book this film is for you.

What "Dazed and Confused" did for teenagers in the 1970's  "On the Road" does for poets and writers in the 1940's and does it with just as much passion and zest.

If you don't mind a style that is kind of like the Jazz of the period and if you don't need a rock solid plot to 'know what the film is about' or if a film doesn't really need to be about anything solid, just about reflections of life...than this film is probably for you.

    

   "So in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the old broken-down river pier watching the long, long skies over New Jersey and sense all that raw land that rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the West Coast, and all that road going, and all the people dreaming in the immensity of it, and in Iowa I know by now the children must be crying in the land where they let the children cry, and tonight the stars'll be out, and don't you know that God is Pooh Bear? the evening star must be drooping and shedding her sparkler dims on the prairie, which is just before the coming of complete night that blesses the earth, darkens all the rivers, cups the peaks and folds the final shore in, and nobody, nobody knows what's going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old, I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty."

     This movie is about how you affect other people's lives, and how the people you surround yourself with affect yours...so if you're the type of person who can "Howl" for Carl Solomon, than you probably wouldn't mind going on the road with Dean Moriarty.