Arena: The Source (2001)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 ส.ค. 2024
- This was shown as part of the BBC's Arena series in 2001. This edited version of Chuck Workman's film 'The Source: The Story of the Beats and the Beat Generation' shows how influential this 50s movement was. The film is equal parts documentary and dramatization (the documented moments and interviews are interspersed with John Turturro, Johnny Depp, and Dennis Hopper performing select readings as Ginsberg, Kerouac, and Burroughs respectfully).
Beat artists - Longing to be free and wanting to express oneself.
There is class war going on with the Beats criticism here. Historically that happened with John Keats who was not an aristocrat and shunned by the so called masters at the time. Shelley took him under his wing and recognized his genius. Gregory Corso for example. came from being a street kid and prison from an early age to write from his heart.
Beat poetry is the poetry of the disadvantaged, the shunned. The name Beat means Beat down, poor and struggling that was the meaning of it. It is written with passion and is not academic. It is a unique strain and unlike other style of literature a feeling of freedom from the status quo for those on the bottom.
I consider myself a beat poet from the working class and being a woman I am even more Beat.
The muses didn't fair all that well ...
Byron dismissed Keats' work as: 'piss-a-bed' poetry.
Shelley, the country gent rated it with his high pitched voice.
- Probably in between issuing pamphlets :)
Shelley, Keats, Byron...they lived charmed dissolute lives as writers...Blake, Wordsworth and Taylor-Coleridge were the real original beats. The connection with nature, the politics of experience...the truth. Shelley was a poser and a terrible poet.
@@pyewackett5 Shelley wasn't a country gent!
@@AnthonyMonaghan
His father was a squire & member of parliament
That was Quite Interesting.
There was a time I admired The Beats. But with time, reading more, listening more & watching more their skin's been peeled back.
The Republican Conservative Jack Kerouac (no big fan of Allan Ginsberg -- just watch his interview on William Buckley's Firing Line). The only thing Jack wrote of value was "On the Road." Everything that followed was good but not special. I began to understand why Truman Capote said Jack typed, he didn't write.
None of Jack's writing is a cohesive story with a solid plot, theme, beginning & or ending. Ken Kesey was far better.
Ginsberg's "Howl," & "Kaddish," -- excellent poetry. Nothing that followed maintained this intensity. Allen became a personality on TV & lecture circuits.
William Burroughs was a smart cookie, a junkie, & was crazy. He killed his wife playing William Tell with a gun. Bill's own brother was disgusted by Naked Lunch & couldn't finish it, or understand it. (It's in this video). Bill's work is imaginative & creative -- maybe for a science fiction fan. But this is no Kingsley Amis, Rod Serling, or Ray Bradbury.
Gregory Corso was a comedian. Listen to him talk -- his lunacy is evident especially as he got older. He started out as a handsome young man with great hair but became a disheveled bum. He was disrespectful of Herbert Hunke -- a junkie, hustler & thief who actually started this movement. His character was tragically interesting. Corso was a sad personality. A parasite that hitched a ride on the Beat Generation ("beat" possibly coming from beatific -- a religious word. I didn't suggest it -- Jack Kerouac did).
Even the poet alcoholic Charles Bukowski was not a Beat. Never was. He was superior as a poet & has sold many books over the decades. He disliked the Beats. Didn't get along with Ginsberg when he met him.
I think the Beats served a good influential function as writers early on -- but then it got away from them. Capote knew this -- I originally disagreed but he was in essence right. Many people focus on the Beats as writers, and poets influenced by jazz. If so, why all the bullshit later.
They add to their resume heavy drug-taking, alcoholism, Buddha stuff (Burroughs didn't care about this), playing little cymbals, and love-in. Their political ideas are often times inaccurate, and their exploits -- insane stuff. How do you take people like this seriously? Chanting, calling for peace & not understanding that Islamic terrorists, Communists, Chinese, Russians, don't give a shit what you think Ginsberg. No poetry about that blemish.
Even Tom Waits abandoned his Beat style lyrics & music for more Brecht-Weill German avant-garde carnival type music. Not because he didn't like the Beats -- he knew he could only take it so far if he expected to have a long career. It does get a little long in the tooth.
Kerouac knew this -- this is why he had to "hunt" for inspiration. Jobs as a forest fire watcher lookout. Escape to Ferlinghetti's cabin in the woods. Jack didn't seem to like what he represented. I'm not a big fan of Ferlinghetti but of all, he was probably the most level-headed & smart.
At their meeting at City Lights, Neal Casady's rant made more sense than anything Ginsberg was spewing. Watch Casady's face as Ginsberg reads his latest poem. Hilarious. Then you have imbeciles like Ed Sanders (who didn't seem to get along with Kerouac on that Buckley show. What a dated persona he had. I think he's a bit wiser today).
Neal Cassady -- not a real writer -- but some of his posted wacky letters to Kerouac & Joan Anderson have a unique style & word usage -- a chain of thought style -- that makes it a shame he didn't funnel his wild lifestyle & personality into a typewriter. Casady was the only real Beat among them.
I was once excited about this stuff but over the years I've had to get selective. That movement could've been so cool instead it became so diluted. There are other more professional writers attributed to the Beats but they never achieved the fame these guys did. Many were tragic -- Richard Brautigan for one. Later, Jim Carroll. It's all too bad it was reduced almost to a tragic comedy.
Believing Capotes view of Kerouac being a 'typer' rather than a 'Writer' shows that you have missed the whole point, unfortunately. Capote himself was just a glorified journalist with a bad relationship with the truth and a bitter ego as he knew deep down that he was far from being a true writer like Kerouac. He was a parasitic fraud who doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as people like Kerouac and Brautigan etc. And what does it matter what these people look like when they aged? what does that have anything to do with writing?. Have you seen what Capote looked like?.
@@TheBoxingGlove - I met Truman Capote twice when I worked at ABC-TV in the 70s.
I liked Kerouac -- but, if you read the majority of Jack's works & compare them to Capote's -- Truman was far better a master of literature & storytelling than Jack ever was.
I wouldn't have said this when I was 21 but after all these years of reading more Kerouac & more Capote, I see who the better writer is...easily.
Jack could never have researched & written something like "In Cold Blood." Or even a well-written creative tale like "Breakfast at Tiffany's." Truman's stories were far more bankable than Jack's as far as motion picture properties that became classic stories.
I understand what you mean Peter -- but Truman was a quirky individual, drank a lot, but when he was writing -- he was quite an artist. Jack was just a good writer ("On the Road"). Jack's other stories were a bit of a stretch. Lots of rambling, his stream of consciousness style.
Both were boozers, both were intelligent & both were creative. But there are reasons few of Jack's books ever translated to a viable story on screen or are talked about seriously today.
And of all the Beat writers -- Jack's probably the only one worth reading. But his writing style doesn't compare to Truman Capote's, Steinbeck, Faulkner, or even F. Scott Fitzgerald.
I also wonder if Jack would've even had a story with "On the Road," if it weren't for the strong inspirational character (based on Neal Cassady) he created as Dean Moriarity. He didn't duplicate that ever after "On the Road." He came close, but never duplicated it.
I'm not suggesting I'm right. I'm just saying there may have been some truth in what Truman said all those years ago.
At first, when I heard that statement I was angry at him. I thought he was insulting. But he was just making an observation as a far more accomplished writer would -- who always sought controversy.
@@lastrada52 Well, thats your opinion, which you are entitled to, but having read both I class Kerouac as far and away the better writer, while Capote was basically a journalist. I find Capote a very cold and remote writer while Kerouac wrote from the heart, even in his decline. I also disagree with those who say that Kerouac's best work was on the road, as though that was a great book for sure, some of his later work pushed the boundaries further and were far more experimental. Tristessa for instance and Book of Blues. The whole point with these works is that the idea of having a rigid structure of a beginning middle and end becomes something much more fluid and open. Again, each to his own, I dont believe one person can tell another who he should be reading as it is all due to interpretation. However I have always found something distasteful about Capote, and find it rather ironic that he should be accusing Kerouac of being a Typer rather than a writer. This really was Kerouac's tragedy, that people used the Beat thing to denigrate his work and make him out to be some kind of act or hack when really he was a great writer who deserved to be taken more seriously than just being dismissed as one of the 'Beats'. To write like Kerouac did, ie the stream of consciousness, actually takes a lot of technical ability in addition to the imagination and ability to recall events etc. Capote may have been able to research but many of his 'facts' which he put forward in 'In cold blood' were disputed by those who had firsty hand knowledge of the case. This is one of the reasons why he was far from welcome there after his book came out. That said Capote would never have had the imagination or creative skill to write the novels that Kerouac produced. Again, its all a matter of taste, but I appreciate the stream of consciousness while Capote's writing for me comes over as very cold and souless.
@@TheBoxingGlove - I was not disputing who was the better writer peter. You're right, it's up to your own interpretation. Everyone has their favorites. But the mere fact that Jack says his writing is spontaneous prose is the tip-off.
Capote criticized him, but he wasn't alone. So did Aldous Huxley who found "On the Road," boring and slow.
Hunter S. Thompson -- like me started out appreciating Jack but later found much of it silly, stupid. Inconsistent. No structure -- which you need if you expect average people to follow the story.
John Updike, Norman Mailer, James Baldwin, and Charles Bukowski to name a few. When some of your other author-heroes criticize there must be something to it.
I still like Jack Kerouac -- but he isn't the great author many people believe him to be. His subsequent books were never as interesting as "On the Road." Because as you know, much of what he wrote was based on things that actually happened to him.
But how many interesting things happen to a person in their life that warrants an entire book?
I'm reading one of Jack's earliest books -- "Town & the City" now & it was dismissed as Jack's writing like Thomas Wolfe (who was a great writer). But I think that book is one of Jack's best.
Did you think so as well?
@@lastrada52 I think there is a lot of snobbery amongst writers/artists, certainly with people like Capote, if you are not in their particular 'club' then you get denigrated especially when a lot of people are saying what a great writer you are. I believe Kerouac was sniped at alot through jealousy. Him and the rest of the 'beats' were a threat to these more conservative, standard writers like Capote and Mailer. Mailer like Capote was an egoist who was really a glorified journalist whose work simply does not measure up with Jacks. Bukowski didnt really like any writers after he passed a certain age except for John Fante, Dostoevsky and Kerouac, whom if I remember correctly he said wrote some good stuff but was often too sentimental. Coming from Charles that was really a compliment. I like Hunter Thompson but imo his work becomes a little boring and tedious after Fear and Loathing. Again he became more a journalist than a novelist. The Curse of Lono starts off very good but kind of runs out of steam near the end. I've read Town and the City and while its a good book, I think its the weakest of Jacks career, before he took off the shackles of the literary rules and structure. Again its all down to personal preference. I like Beckett, Flann O brien, Kafka and Celine so structure is not what I really go for in novels, though having said that all these writers and Kerouac too knew exactly what they were doing and used a lot of technique in their work. They just used it in a different way, simular to how Jimi Hendrix played guitar. The structure is there but it is just presented in a different way.
wrightpedros? If you're discussing Cassady and Ginsberg change it to rightpedos. 🤫
Id be more interested in a programme about the Black Mountain poets, who very much paved the way for the Beats.
These days i only really read Burroughs, Hunke and maybe Corso.