Review of Howl (2010) by Melvin W — 23 Apr 2012

Jake Ehrlich: The battle of censorship will not be finally settled by your honor's decision, but you will either add to liberal-educated thinking, or by your decision you will add fuel to the fire of ignorance.

"The Obscenity Trial That Started a Revolution. The Poem That Rocked a Generation.".

At the end of Howl while I saw the usual words flash onto the screen explaining what happened to the people after the events we saw in the film; I was struck by how little I truly learned about Ginsberg. Now if I was a huge Ginsberg fan or if I knew much about him at all, this wouldn't be a big deal; but I know practically nothing and yet I was still blown away by how little this film did to change that. Especially coming from documentary filmmakers. So from this first little statement about the film, it may appear as though I didn't enjoy it. While I definitely wasn't blown(haha) away by anything I saw; there was enough there to make the hour and twenty minute running time worth it. I'm a James Franco fan and despite there being very little to his performance here, it is still a good one. I also really liked Jon Hamm as the defense attorney and Jeff Daniels as a pretentious witness. But what really changed my view no this film was the reading of the poem "Howl" by James Franco brought to life by some wonderful animation. That really just stood out as the coolest element to the film hands down.

There were moments in the trial scenes where I was drawn into the legal battle, but at no point did I feel like the filmmakers really tried to make it seem that important. To me, it seemed like they like Ginsberg, they like "Howl", so they wanted to make a film about it. That would explain why the reading and animation storyline is done with such care, while the court case is given little time at all. I'm not saying any of it is done terribly, but a lot of it seems skimmed over. Overall it isn't as interesting as it should be, but with enough redeeming qualities to merit at least one watch. To be honest, I'd probably watch again in the future, purely for the animated poem. .