KILL YOUR DARLINGS

 

DIRECTED BY : John Krokidas

PRODUCED BY : Michael Benaroya, Christine Vachon, Rose Gauguzza, John Krokidas

SCREENPLAY BY : John Krokidas, Austin Bunn

STORY BY : Austin Bunn

STARRING : Daniel Radcliffe, Dane DeHaan, Ben Foster, Michael C.Hall, Jack Justin, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Elizaboth Olsen

MUSIC BY : Nico Muhly

CLINEMATOGRAPHY : Reed Morano

EDITED BY : Brian A.Kates

PRODUCTION COMPANY : Killer Films, Benaroya Pictures, Future Film

DISTRIBUTED BY : Sony Pictures Classics

RELEASE DATES : January 18,2013 (Sundance), October 16, 2013 (US)

 

This is a film about the university days of icons of Beat Generation (Lucien Carr, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac).

However it focused more on their relationships, interactions and the murder of David Kammerer.

This film is based on the true story.

Allen Ginsberg gets in to Columbia University, and he meets Lucien Carr there. Lucien introduces William S.Burroughs and Jack Kerouac to Allen Ginsberg. After a while, Ginsberg finds that David Kammerer, a professor writes all of the term papers for Carr and he has been requiring Carr for some sexual favours, as he had been infatuated with Carr since Carr was only 12.

Carr developed the ‘New Vision’, which helped undergrad the Beats’ creative rebellion. Those five, including David Kammerer, were the core members.

 

 

 

The film shows their relationships in a variety of ways, through their adventure in the library, mimicking the suicide, having drugs together, dreaming about each other and so on.

 

As Ginsberg said, Lu was the glue. Lucien Carr was the muse. Allen was fascinated by Lucien Carr. Allen Ginsberg wrote many poems after meeting Lucien Carr. In this scene, Allen reads out the poem for Lucien :

“Be careful, you are not in wonderland

I’ve heard the strange madness long growing in your soul

but you’re fortunate in your ignorance

in your isolation

you who have suffered

find where love hides

give, share, lose

lest we die, unbloomed”

-Allen Ginsberg

and I think this scene worked so well to show how much Allen Ginsberg was into Lucien Carr.

 

 

 

David Kammerer’s courtship was getting worse and worse. He tried to bake Kerouac’s cat on the oven. He also crawled into Carr’s room through the fire escape to see Carr sleeping and was caught by the guard for several times. One day, Lucien Carr stabs Kammerer, as he made another sexual favour and he assaulted him physically when Lucien rejected. Lucien Carr then ties his hands and feet then throws him with rocks in Hudson River.

Lucien gets arrested of this and asks Ginsberg to write his deposition for him. However, Ginsberg rejects it. Carr is charged with second-degree murder, because it has been regarded as ‘honour slaying’.

Unlike other films about Beats Generations, it focused more on the murder, not Beat Generation itself.

Those actors acted perfectly their characters. I was surprised to see the real photos of the members, because they looked so similar. Especially Dane DeHaan, he acted a magnetic, charming and impulsive character unbelievably nicely.

Although there were lots of facts deleted and edited in the film, and it looks like the director doesn’t like Lucien Carr, he portrayed Lucien as a quite cunning but incompetent man, I think this is interesting enough to make audiences be fascinated by those characters and want to know more about them, like me.