Poem is where the heart is

From the haunting footage of Dianne Feinstein announcing that city supervisor Harvey Milk “has been shot and killed” (The Times of Harvey Milk) to a montage of canoodling same-sex couples on the silver screen (The Celluloid Closet), San Francisco–based filmmakers Jeffrey Friedman and Rob Epstein have been at the vanguard of chronicling the queer experience. In Howl, opening Friday 1 at the Music Box, the Academy Award–winning documentarians break with the doc format to narrate the obscenity trial surrounding the 1955 poem “Howl” and its queer author, Allen Ginsberg. The film interweaves trial scenes with Ginsberg’s reminiscing and a partially animated sequence of the poet reciting his work. In Chicago to promote the film, the duo discussed their filmmaking U-turn and finding Ginsberg in James Franco.

Why did you switch to a narrative feature with Howl?
Jeffrey Friedman We’ve never self-identified exclusively as documentarians, so it didn’t seem like that big of a leap. But with this project, there was already a documentary called The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg. We wanted the film to live in the present tense; we wanted it to be about this younger Allen Ginsberg.

Why focus on this narrow period in Ginsberg’s life?
JF We wanted it to be about this golden moment where these young, creative, sexy guys in their prime were finding their creative voices and were so inspired by each other and so turned on by each other intellectually, emotionally and sexually.
Rob Epstein My life has been shaped by all of the cultural movements that have grown in the ’60s and ’70s, the seeds of which were all planted by this group of rebellious writers in the ’50s, and that was a revelation to us—to discover that these things were being said at a time when we thought nobody was saying these things.
JF He was speaking with such candor about his homosexuality; the poem was such a queer manifesto. In 1955, all that was revelatory.

What was it like coaching James Franco to play Ginsberg?
JF We met James through Gus Van Sant when he was in San Francisco filming Milk. Gus read our screenplay and suggested showing it to James.
RE Gus said, “James is an artist, he’s a poet, this guy is serious.”
JF We said to Gus, “Can he really do Ginsberg?” And Gus said, “He can act Ginsberg.” [The] work we did with James for Ginsberg was to figure out what was going on for him emotionally in each of the scenes. The physicalization, the voice, the mannerisms—that was the last layer.

It’s amazing how similar he looks to a young Ginsberg once you add the black glasses and his ears pop.
JF James hosted SNL during that period and had a conversation with the makeup artist on the show and showed her some photos of the real Ginsberg, and the makeup artist suggested doing some prosthetic work with the ears, so we did that, which was a great call.

The film seems to have appeal beyond the LGBT community.
JF We’re gay filmmakers, but with a film that has Franco, Jon Hamm, Mary-Louise Parker and Jeff Daniels, in that sense we have ambitions for it to reach a large audience.
RE The queer threads in Howl are very strong and potent, but there are a lot of other threads in there, [including] a discussion of consumerism and militarism.

What’s in it for queer audiences?
RE The film is about Allen’s relationships with three men who he was in love with. With [Jack] Kerouac he had a meeting of the minds, with [Neal] Cassady he found a physical connection, and with Peter [Orlovsky] he found true love.
JF And they’re played by some really hot actors.

Howl opens Friday 1 at the Music Box.

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