I have to be honest; the book of ‘On the Road’
means more to me than any other book around (other than the Bible, obviously).
It shook my world up when I was travelling the states in 2008, and its message
and meditations have stayed with me to this day, and I'm confident they'll
resonate with me until the time old age steals the memory of it from me!
So bearing this in mind, it's only fair I
mention that I might be a touch over-sensitive when it comes to reviewing the
long-awaited film adaptation. But that's what I'm here to do, so on we press...
Let me start by acknowledging that Walter
Salles is an accomplished director and has tackled weighty projects with skill,
precision and success before now. Motorcycle Diaries, for instance, was another
book to film adaptation and provided a captivating film in which the considered
narrative, the complex emotions and the journey of Ernesto and Alberto were all
handled with delicacy and dexterity. But when it came to wrestling and
wrangling the long and winding Road, I can't help but feel the enormity of the
project proved too much.
But this isn't an indictment on Salles’
abilities – it’s arguably impossible to transform the frenetic impulsiveness
implicit in every page of On the Road into a single cinematic portrayal. But
that doesn't mean that the film's short-fallings were any less crushing, and it
saddens me to say there were multiple of these. Let me start with the most
identifiable feature of Kerouac (Sal Paradise)'s novel; the language and
dialogue.
In On The Road (1957), Kerouac recounts his
adventures and escapades with the sort of wild, raw, unkempt energy that
ismatched only by the eloquence of the text and the sumptuous sensation the
words creates while rolling off of your tongue...
"All
the magic names of the valley unrolled - Manteca,
Madera,
all the rest. Soon it got dusk, a grapey dusk,
a
purple dusk over tangerine groves and long melon fields;
the
sun the colour of love and Spanish mysteries."
Beautiful, no?
And while he depicts his journey so
delicately, he is careful to describe with real love and dedication even the
smallest of meetings he made along the way, because after all, these are the
people who interested and fascinated Kerouac and among whom he found shelter
and solace when the American night drew around him. These are as much the focus
and stars of the journey as Cassady or Kerouac himself.
But these gems, these wonderful insights into
life on the road are all but entirely absent from the film. Why? I can
onlysuggest the ‘restrictions of time' but even then, the mind boggles.
Instead, we rush through scenes with the same
haste that lead Kerouac to dash out of his house and up to Bear Mountain in the
hope of jumping on Route 6 straight into Nevada, where in actual fact he wound
up trying to hitch a ride West in the "rain that came down in buckets
and with thunderclaps that put the fear of God" into him (a scenario
also omitted from the film). But just like Kerouac wasleft crying and swearing
and socking himself for his foolish haste, the film's impatience leaves us
ruing the missing gems of the author's scroll as we stand there in the
cinematic rain without any time to take the road in; to savour what is passing
and who is coming up on the roadside.
Interestingly – albeit unfortunately – the
loneliness Kerouac felt on that ‘damn mountain’ is arguably a more acute sense
of the distance felt between Sal and Dean et al and the cinema's audience. Why?
Because we're simply not given any chance to dive into the people we're
watching. Something’s missing. Intimacy.
The intimacy between characters in the book is
infinitely more intense and vivid and tangible, whereas in the film we're
offered mere snippets of the depth of understanding that ebbs and flows between
Kerouac and Cassady and Ginsberg and any of the countless Beats they meet along
the way...
By my count, there are maybe three scenes of
real understanding and intimacy – one with Kerouac and his meme (mother); one
with Cassady and his young wife Carolyn as they lose themselves in dance; and
one between Kerouac and Cassady themselves which is saved until the very end,
but goes at least some way to capturing the intricacies of their intimacy,
because after all, these weren't just ‘buddies’ – they were brothers! In
Cassady Kerouac found the answer to the lost soul of his deceased brother, and
yet it is only at the end of the film do we see any real emotion between them.
That being said, when the intimacy is evident on screen, it is handled
wonderfully and you see beyond the sex, drugs and jazz, and you see hopeful
boys excited about going on an adventure – not the road, but life!
Finally, it would be remiss of me to not touch
upon the matter of 'speed' – a theme inherent within the book in all forms...in
Kerouac’s text, Cassady is a strung out ball of natural (and unnatural) energy
– people gravitated to him and the world orbited around him, such was his
eye-popping, sweat-beading energy...here was a man who was "mad to
live, mad to talk, desirous of everything at the same time!"; a man
who yelled "Ah! God! Life! Yes! Whee!" while beating his hands
on the steering wheel in un-caged excitement and exuberance!!! And yet in
Garrett Hedlund’s portrayal, he's wound down to a slow-drawling cat who looks
too polished, too ‘Hollywood’ for a man with the lust for life that saw him
held up as the singular most vivid embodiment of the entire Beat generation!
But my bitching aside, the performances (out
of the context of the original text) are excellent – Kristen Stewart
surprises in her role as 'Marylou' and the ever excellent Viggo Mortensen is
coolly assured as Kerouac's confidante and sage, Old Bull Lee (William
Burroughs).
And besides, the most important thing is that
through this film, yet more people will be encouraged to read Kerouac's
inspirational prose, and to take to their own roads in the search of life, love
(or lust, depending on what you're after) and understanding of the world that
lies out there – so, ultimately, it's hard – and perhaps a tad unfair - to call
the 2012 film a '(total) disappointment'.
So for now let me just say; if you've read and
loved the book, you're gonna have some axes to grind afterwards. On theother
hand, if you're a Kerouac/Beat novice, then dive right in, drive right on and
enjoy the ride...
And here's the man himself...
