The new Kill Your Darlings trailer released! You can check it out here.
Kill Your Darlings is the film about the 1944 murder in which Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs were named as accessories.
Just like in the film adaptation of On the Road where the Marylou/LuAnne character got a lot of publicity because she was played by Kristen Stewart even though LuAnne wasn’t the focus of the book, the buzz around Kill Your Darlings is Harry Potter‘s Daniel Radcliffe playing Allen Ginsberg even though Ginsberg was not the murderer, not the person murdered, and not named as an accessory.
The film is directed by Greek American John Krokidas and stars Daniel Radcliffe as Allen Ginsberg, Ben Foster as William Burroughs, Elizabeth Olsen as Edie Parker, Dane DeHaan as Lucien Carr, David Cross as Louis Ginsberg, Jack Huston as Jack Kerouac, and Michael C. Hall as David Kammerer.
It premiered at Sundance this year, where it was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize, and is set for limited release here in the US on October 18, 2013.
I set up a Kill Your Darlings Pinterest page if you’re interested in seeing photos of the real-life people involved in the murder and of the actors and people involved in the film.
Will you watch Kill Your Darlings when it comes out?
When I first saw the trailer for Big Sur I felt a sense of relief. While I enjoyed the film adaptation of On the Road, the Sal Paradise character (based on Jack Kerouac and played by Sam Riley) fell flat for me. Jean-Marc Barr plays the Kerouac character in Big Sur and at least from the trailer seems to embody him much better.
The film is directed by Michael Polish and the cinematography is by M. David Mullen, who worked together on Stay Cool and The Astronaut Farmer, and it is gorgeously lush.
The story of Big Sur is in many ways On the Road‘s opposite. On the Road brings to life Kerouac’s early adventures roadtripping across the country. His zeal for life explodes across the page. Big Sur, on the other hand, shows the writer in the later years of his life, after fame and alcohol had taken a toll on his life.
The first time I read Big Sur it depressed me greatly, reading how Kerouac struggled and obsessed over death, but I read it again last fall when I was roadtripping down the California coast and saw how Kerouac really was a master at style. There’s a repetition and rhythm of the book that echoes the cyclical nature of the ocean.
Here’s a synopsis of Polish’ Big Sur from the Sundance website:
Big Sur focuses on a moment in Jack Kerouac’s life when, overwhelmed by the success of his opus On the Road and struggling with alcoholism, he retreats to his publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s cabin in the small, coastal California town of Big Sur, which eventually inspires his 1962 novel of the same name. Kerouac’s time begins with quiet moments of solitude and communing with nature. But, struck by loneliness, he hightails it to San Francisco, where he resumes drinking heavily and gets pushed into a relationship with his best friend Neal Cassady’s mistress, Billie.
While writer/director Michael Polish (Twin Falls Idaho) explores a less glamorous moment in Kerouac’s legacy—one of alienation and mental breakdown—Big Sur equally examines the beauty of this time in the writer’s life, witnessed in the romance of friendship and the purity of nature. Jean-Marc Barr embodies Kerouac’s intelligence and masculinity, but also portrays him at his most contemplative and vulnerable. Luscious and breathtaking, Big Surapproaches a religious cinematic experience.
Director: Michael Polish
Screenwriter: Michael Polish
Executive Producers: Mark Roberts, Eddie Vaisman, Jim Sampas
Producers: Ross Jacobson, Orian Williams, Adam Kassen, Michael Polish
Cinematographer: M. David Mullen
Production Designer: Max Biscoe
Sound Designer: Chris Sheldon
Costume Designer: Bic Owen
Principal Cast: Jean-Marc Barr, Kate Bosworth, Josh Lucas, Radha Mitchell, Anthony Edwards, Henry Thomas
RT @MichaelHyatt: You don’t have to see the end from the beginning. All you have to see is the next step. 2 years ago
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Poster photo via imdb
Stephanie Nikolopoulos 