by VERA VON KREUTZBRUCK
Howl, a biopic centered on beatnik Allen Ginsberg’s seminal poem and the resulting obscenity trial, was the most moving and intellectually engaging film presented at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival.
In the fall of 1955, in a shabby art gallery in San Francisco, 29-year-old Allen Ginsberg read his poem Howl for the first time to an avid audience who cheered him on verse after verse. This night marked the birth of a budding counter-culture which rebelled against America’s conservative mainstream values.
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night…
Women in Perspective for more
Read the entire poem at Poetry Foundation