Jack Kerouac’s America

Director: John Antonelli
Screenwriters: John Antonelli, Frank Cervarich, John Tytell

Institute History

  • 1985 Sundance Film Festival

Description

Carefully blended bits and pieces create a probing look at Beat Generation writer Jack Kerouac. The film combines dramatizations of key portions of Kerouac’s life with footage of the author himself and the people who knew him. The mythic proportions of the “Kerouac legend: have never before been explored with such depth and sensitivity. The film is more than worth your while even if you’re only vaguely aware of Kerouac; if you’re a Kerouac fan, it’s a must.

As a cultural phenomenon, the Beats came and went in the 50’s well before the hippies grabbed the media spotlight. When asked what word might describe the Beats, Kerouac thoughtfully replied “Sympathetic.” Their influence on an entire generation lives on, as do many of the survivors of that era who knew Kerouac, who died from drink in 1969 at the age of 47.

Kerouac’s most famous book, On The Road (said to have been written in three weeks while he was on Benzedrine), became the Bible of the Beat Generation and is often compared with “Huckleberry Finn” in the pantheon of American literature. This docu-drama revives those days on the road, enabling us to catch the vibes, the energy, the almost naive exultation of all that is American.

Screening Details

Credits

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