Event

The Beat Hotel

JUNE 29 JULY 1, FRIDAY SUNDAY AT 7, 9PM
The Beat Hotel
(Alan Govenar, USA, 2011, blu-ray, 88 min)
This new film by Alan Govenar goes deep into the legacy of the American Beats in Paris during the heady years between 1957 and 1963, when Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky and Gregory Corso fled the obscenity trials in the United States surrounding the publication of Ginsberg's poem "Howl." They took refuge in a cheap no-name hotel they had heard about at 9, Rue Git le Coeur and were soon joined by William Burroughs, Ian Somerville, Brion Gysin, and others from England and elsewhere in Europe, seeking out the "freedom" that the Latin Quarter of Paris might provide. In the film, British photographer Harold Chapman's photos and stylized dramatic recreations of his stories meld with the recollections of Elliot Rudie, a Scottish artist, whose drawings of his time in the hotel offer a poignant and sometimes humorous counterpoint.