What Happened to Kerouac? features interviews with some of the people who knew Jack Kerouac best: his ex-wife, his daughter and contemporaries such as Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso. And while there is no interview with his mother, "the only woman he ever wanted to marry," this intimate picture of a man destroyed by his public image and personal demons is fascinating.
The highlight of the documentary, however, is the chance to hear Mr. Kerouac read from his own work. The old footage from the Steve Allen Show, where his reading of On The Road is accompanied by piano, is particularly worth watching.
From Walter Goodman at the New York Times:
Whatever one thinks of Jack Kerouac's work, more than 16 years after his death, his career continues to exert fascination. That may have less to do with his books than with his role as the inventor of the beat movement, which William Burroughs claims in ''What Happened to Kerouac?'' incited ''a worldwide unprecedented cultural revolution.''
The documentary, directed by Richard Lerner and Lewis MacAdams, abounds in insights into the French Canadian working-class boy who went on the road, found celebrity and drank himself to death. It consists largely of interviews, in exceedingly close close-ups, with Kerouac's best-known pals of the 1950's, including Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Michael McClure, Gary Snyder and John Clellon Holmes.
A few of them prove better friends than critics as they compare Kerouac's ''spontaneous prose'' to Joyce, Wolfe, Whitman, Baudelaire and other formidable names. Mr. Corso, who is given a lot of attention, seems to be doing an imitation of Sid Caesar imitating a cracked scientist. The goofiness of the Corso segments is accentuated by a restless camera that may be trying to catch up with the vagaries of Mr. Corso's thought processes and an interviewer who has trouble getting through a question without resorting to ''like'' or ''you know.''
But others, especially Mr. Ginsberg and Mr. Snyder, are able to look back on the time of the beats with humor and perspective. Kerouac's influence on his friends comes through strongly, and out of their recollections and those of his wife and daughter and others emerges a touching picture of a writer who labored a decade to attain success and then spent a decade being ruined by it, or ruining himself.
There are vivid vignettes. Mr. Ginsberg tells of finding himself involved with Kerouac and Kerouac's mother in a harrowingly hilarious night as mother and son tried to outcurse and outdrink each other. Kerouac seems to have been a mother case. Several of the women in his life tell of his powerful sexual and little-boy attraction, but as one remarks, ''He couldn't take care of anybody.''
Interspersed in the interviews are clips from two television programs -''The Steve Allen Show'' in 1959, not long after publication of ''On the Road,'' where the strikingly handsome young author read feelingly from his book, and ''Firing Line'' in 1968, a year before his death, with a bloated Kerouac sounding off boozily. As a politically conservative Catholic, he was especially bitter about the beatniks of the 1960's: ''A lot of hoodlums and Communists jumped on my back.''
Kerouac's own readings of his work are artfully accompanied by impressionistic views of New York, San Francisco and Lowell, Mass., three cities that had a deep influence on him.
''What Happened to Kerouac?'' is an affecting and illuminating memorial to a sad figure, who, as his wife remarks, ''left good memories.''
Technical Information:
Title: What Happened to Kerouac?
Year: 1986
Country: USA
Director: Richard Lerner/Lewis MacAdams
Source: DVD5 Retail
DVD Format: NTSC
Container: .iso + mds
Size: 3.36 GB
Length: 1:36:48
Programs used: ImgBurn
Resolution: 720x480
Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Video: MPEG2 @ ~4800 kb/s
Frame Rate: 29.97
Audio: English- Dolby AC3 Stereo @ 192 kb/s
Subtitles: none
Menu: yes
Video: untouched
DVD Extras: none on source
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