KILL YOUR DARLINGS IS A BIOPIC OF ALLEN GINSBURG AT COLUMBIA
Growing up as the son of poet Louis Ginsberg (played by David Cross), New Jersey-born Ginsberg (Daniel Radcliffe) attended straight-laced Columbia during the 1940s, but he was looking for something different. In a sense, the biopic is really about his dorm friend Lucien Carr (Dane DeHaar), who took him to racy Christopher Street and melodious Harlem and introduced him to Jack Kerouac (Jack Houston), booze, drugs, and bisexual libertinism. A fascinating exposé of their lives based on research by Austin Bunn and director John Krokidas before they set out for San Francisco, the film explains why Ginsberg “saw the best minds” of his generation “destroyed by madness.” Titles at the end explain what happened to the lead characters, but one fact is very surprising: Ginsberg originally dedicated Howl to Carr, who then forbade any mention of his name in subsequent editions. Old-fashioned Columbia poetry professor (John Collum), possibly Lionel Trilling, quotes William Faulkner’s line “Kill your darlings” on how to liberate oneself in order to write good poetry. Yet Ginsberg’s definition of “darlings” includes that very professor! MH