Review: “Gang of Souls: A Generation of Beat Poets” (1989)

An interesting film—though maybe not particularly for the right reasons.  Possibly first shown on television (non-commercial?), this DVD runs almost exactly one hour—a bit short to show in a theater.  Perhaps it was made for some sort of film festival?

The point of the film is to show how the original Beat writers influenced following generations.  Made twenty years after the death of Jack Kerouac, he obviously isn’t interviewed.  We do, however, hear from Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs, the other two Beat Writers extraordinaire, as well as from Gregory Corse and Diane Di Prima.  We do not hear from Lawrence Ferlinghetti (who didn’t consider himself a “beat” anyway, but who was friends with the others and famously published Ginsberg’s seminal (!?) poem “Howl.”).  Nor do we hear from John Clellon Holmes, whose novel Go is widely considered the first Beat novel.  Either he died before he could be interviewed (the film appeared the year after his death) or he was consciously excluded.

But we hear from many poets who followed in these writers’ footsteps.  I’d heard of some of them; others were completely new to me.  I recognized Ed Sanders (who appeared on the William F. Buckley show Firing Line along with Jack Kerouac)—I’d thought of him as an activist, not a poet.  I’d heard of Anne Waldman, though wasn’t familiar with her poems.  I knew Marianne Faithfull as a singer but not her connection with the Naropa Institute (and Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics) in Colorado.  John Giorno looked familiar, though I suspect he reminds me of someone with a similar face.  The others were a complete surprise:  Richard Hell, Lydia Lunch, Henry Rollins, and Jim Carroll.

  I’ve watched this DVD three times now.  That surprises me, because the first time through I found I didn’t know quite what to make of it.  In fact, after the first viewing, I said to my daughter, “I feel a lot more normal and well-adjusted now, after watching these people.”  That was true.  But less true after three viewings.  I do read less extravagantly than the people in this video—but still more extravagantly than most people I know.

And—quotes from this video stick with me now.  “You want to be a writer, shut up and write” (Rollins).  “The opposite of poetry is hypocrisy” (Corso).  “I’m a filling man; I fill in empty space” (Rolliins).  “Everything I have to say, I say in my books” (Burroughs).

Most of all, this DVD is experiential.  I remember the way Corso talks, the way Lunch talks, Giorno’s musical delivery.  I remember Waldman’s spirited delivery.  And I remember the presence; the way Corso speaks and then looks right at you; the way Lydia Lunch smiles and smirks and spits out her truth and then stops and just looks right at you.  

Sanders says that performers have to believe in every word they speak, everything they do.  I’ll remember that now, at open mics (though I think I’ve always known that).  So Corso and Lunch hurl their visions at you then give you this “look” that seems to say:  “Yep, I said that; that’s how I see it.  Don’t like it?  Then take it or leave it.  Yeah.”