Movie Review: Kill Your Darlings (2013)
Ref: Kill Your Darlings (2013)
I really enjoyed this movie and thought it was beautifully executed, noting that it was a biographical film based off of a snippet of Allen Ginsberg’s life. I also very much loved the cast and thought that the shifting concepts and themes of the film helped to give it more structure and more dynamics within its writing. My question is: what would you do for love?
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Quotes, shall we?
“Life is only interesting if life is wide”
“Know thyself and beshit thyself”
“Souvenir history. To make people think they left some mark on the world. Because otherwise, nobody would ever know”
“And like all lovers and sad people, I am a poet”
------------------
Context:
This film very much reminded me of another one of my favorites: Dead Poet’s Society featuring Robbin Williams due to its excessive (but not negative) referencing to several famous writers: Whitman and Yeats, to name a few. It also plays around with the concept of boyhood and manhood and how the social interactions within this part of a man’s life shapes his growth and improvement in life. I personally thought it was very nicely done and put together as a story and how it played out because it allowed the audience to see it as such, the realism and surrealism of its story made it “filmworthy” (if I want to put it that way, I’ll elaborate more on this later).
Technicalities and Functioning:
There is a good use of realist techniques within this film, nothing too CGI and or SFX about it all, which I liked. There was a good pureness to it, noting that the movie was set in 1947, the feel of it was right, the attire, the language, the film techniques, it all made sense and it allowed the audience to feel just at home with what was going on. It felt real and we knew it to be real. What I really enjoyed, though, about the film was it’s surrealist techniques of rewinding in order to “playback” a flashback and or a previous moment, that stylistic effect brought a more dreamlike, sort-of fantasy to the story. It made it a bit more spontaneous and magical in a sense. My favorite scene, or at least one of my favorite scenes, was the one where they are at a bar and time freezes but the only people that are moving are Lucien, Allen, and William. They are able to shape the content of the frame, move people to where they’d like, pause and play whenever they’d like. I took this scene to be a metaphor for their writing, they are able to shape the world with their knowledge, adjusting it and making it their own. I thought that to be very beautiful. The editing itself really added to it’s atmosphere of mystery and the unknown, I loved the twists that were brought into the story through the use of editing. What you put it, where you put it, when you put it, all of these things played out consciously throughout the film, every position of each shot has a meaning and helped give more dynamic feel to the plot.
[SPOILER ALERT]
The film opens up with Lucien locked up in his cell and near-basically shows the audience the entire context of the plot, what we’re looking at seems to be “the ending” of the film, but as the movie progresses and more information is being given to us, we realize that it is not as we had expected. This technique really helped to give more structure to the film and I thought that that was amazing and very well done.
I’d also love to give props to it’s success at “showing” and not so much of “telling” because as the audience, we are able to decipher things on our own just by seeing images flash in our eyes and I think that that’s the pure beauty of film. No dialogue, no narration needed, just images.
Content:
The film focuses heavily on the social interaction and really the social status of both the male leads: Allen Ginsberg and Lucien Carr, best friends, near-polar opposites. They become friends and soon, they create this almost intimate relationship with each other, I would say very near-intimate at least. They become the best of friends and help to influence and change one another. As the plot grows and more information is given, we realize that it is not just a typical boy friendship, it is an increasing love (that has personally touched my heart).
The element of homosexuality really makes it entrance near the middle of the film and sticks with it for the rest of the time, I thought that it really helped to draw attention on one end of the plot and not the other, allowing us as the audience to continue to keep guessing and try to draw from earlier moments to make sense of what is going on.
As the film goes on, more and more information is being revealed about the past events and more and more new events are being drawn alongside them.
I would love to draw back into my love for the characters and specifically for Lucien’s character. He was a very “unlikeable character” (I’m basing the definition of this on Roxanne Gay’s book: Bad Feminist), he had a sort of unique charm to him; he was snarky, sarcastic, rebellious but very very witty, clever and sly like a fox and I really liked that about him. Dane Dehaan does an excellent job at playing characters like this, I’m pretty sure that he does roles like this because he’s absolutely perfect for the job, it was so natural all the way up to the point where it draws you in, he’s this very typical badass guy, there are no rules too restricting for him. Radcliffe on the other hand does a very excellent job at playing the very straight-edged-turned-rebel kid. His character is a very charming and heartwarming character, compassionate and full of love and emotion, he was very genuine and his love was very strong. I very much loved the concept of pure passion and dedication to your work; writing, in this case, was taken as a holy thing. They believed in writing and transcendental thought and artwork. The film illustrated the beauty in writing, for us to see it as a true form of art and not just words on a paper. It spoke to them, it touched their hearts, it brought them together in boyhood.
Now I hate to make this turn but there’s definitely a relevance in the position and role of women in this film (and really what it says about society). In this film, the women are portrayed as more sex-dolls, waiting to be fucked and then thrown away, there are no feelings attached, they are just used as a distraction, a pasttime, a plaything: take the Gwendolyn (the library assistant), Edie (Jack’s girlfriend), and the lady Lucien first kissed near the beginning of the film. This exclusion of women in their boyhood, their circle, allowed them to become more and more close (this concept of homoeroticism) that had eventually took a more a serious turn for them all. Lucien is in fact playing the part as both the victim and the offender where he has feelings and emotions but does not want to show them, he is too manly and too masculine and too absorbed in himself that he is not able to show who he truly is, the pure him. He denies himself feelings because that is what keeps him from ridicule, from the look of disgust, from his position of being the victim of “perverted homosexuality” and not just pure love. Allen on the other hand very much accepts his love for Lucien, he has more genuine feelings and is able to express himself although being in a very “toxic relationship” with Lucien (which I have shed many tears for).
To wrap up, I really enjoyed this movie and thought that it’s relation to the concept used in Dead Poet’s Society but with more twists and turns and more excitement and intimacy helped me to love it even more. I would recommend everyone to watch this film as it is a good pot of mixed-emotions.
Rating: 10/10
I really enjoyed this movie and thought it was beautifully executed, noting that it was a biographical film based off of a snippet of Allen Ginsberg’s life. I also very much loved the cast and thought that the shifting concepts and themes of the film helped to give it more structure and more dynamics within its writing. My question is: what would you do for love?
------------------
Quotes, shall we?
“Life is only interesting if life is wide”
“Know thyself and beshit thyself”
“Souvenir history. To make people think they left some mark on the world. Because otherwise, nobody would ever know”
“And like all lovers and sad people, I am a poet”
------------------
Context:
This film very much reminded me of another one of my favorites: Dead Poet’s Society featuring Robbin Williams due to its excessive (but not negative) referencing to several famous writers: Whitman and Yeats, to name a few. It also plays around with the concept of boyhood and manhood and how the social interactions within this part of a man’s life shapes his growth and improvement in life. I personally thought it was very nicely done and put together as a story and how it played out because it allowed the audience to see it as such, the realism and surrealism of its story made it “filmworthy” (if I want to put it that way, I’ll elaborate more on this later).
Technicalities and Functioning:
There is a good use of realist techniques within this film, nothing too CGI and or SFX about it all, which I liked. There was a good pureness to it, noting that the movie was set in 1947, the feel of it was right, the attire, the language, the film techniques, it all made sense and it allowed the audience to feel just at home with what was going on. It felt real and we knew it to be real. What I really enjoyed, though, about the film was it’s surrealist techniques of rewinding in order to “playback” a flashback and or a previous moment, that stylistic effect brought a more dreamlike, sort-of fantasy to the story. It made it a bit more spontaneous and magical in a sense. My favorite scene, or at least one of my favorite scenes, was the one where they are at a bar and time freezes but the only people that are moving are Lucien, Allen, and William. They are able to shape the content of the frame, move people to where they’d like, pause and play whenever they’d like. I took this scene to be a metaphor for their writing, they are able to shape the world with their knowledge, adjusting it and making it their own. I thought that to be very beautiful. The editing itself really added to it’s atmosphere of mystery and the unknown, I loved the twists that were brought into the story through the use of editing. What you put it, where you put it, when you put it, all of these things played out consciously throughout the film, every position of each shot has a meaning and helped give more dynamic feel to the plot.
[SPOILER ALERT]
The film opens up with Lucien locked up in his cell and near-basically shows the audience the entire context of the plot, what we’re looking at seems to be “the ending” of the film, but as the movie progresses and more information is being given to us, we realize that it is not as we had expected. This technique really helped to give more structure to the film and I thought that that was amazing and very well done.
I’d also love to give props to it’s success at “showing” and not so much of “telling” because as the audience, we are able to decipher things on our own just by seeing images flash in our eyes and I think that that’s the pure beauty of film. No dialogue, no narration needed, just images.
Content:
The film focuses heavily on the social interaction and really the social status of both the male leads: Allen Ginsberg and Lucien Carr, best friends, near-polar opposites. They become friends and soon, they create this almost intimate relationship with each other, I would say very near-intimate at least. They become the best of friends and help to influence and change one another. As the plot grows and more information is given, we realize that it is not just a typical boy friendship, it is an increasing love (that has personally touched my heart).
The element of homosexuality really makes it entrance near the middle of the film and sticks with it for the rest of the time, I thought that it really helped to draw attention on one end of the plot and not the other, allowing us as the audience to continue to keep guessing and try to draw from earlier moments to make sense of what is going on.
As the film goes on, more and more information is being revealed about the past events and more and more new events are being drawn alongside them.
I would love to draw back into my love for the characters and specifically for Lucien’s character. He was a very “unlikeable character” (I’m basing the definition of this on Roxanne Gay’s book: Bad Feminist), he had a sort of unique charm to him; he was snarky, sarcastic, rebellious but very very witty, clever and sly like a fox and I really liked that about him. Dane Dehaan does an excellent job at playing characters like this, I’m pretty sure that he does roles like this because he’s absolutely perfect for the job, it was so natural all the way up to the point where it draws you in, he’s this very typical badass guy, there are no rules too restricting for him. Radcliffe on the other hand does a very excellent job at playing the very straight-edged-turned-rebel kid. His character is a very charming and heartwarming character, compassionate and full of love and emotion, he was very genuine and his love was very strong. I very much loved the concept of pure passion and dedication to your work; writing, in this case, was taken as a holy thing. They believed in writing and transcendental thought and artwork. The film illustrated the beauty in writing, for us to see it as a true form of art and not just words on a paper. It spoke to them, it touched their hearts, it brought them together in boyhood.
Now I hate to make this turn but there’s definitely a relevance in the position and role of women in this film (and really what it says about society). In this film, the women are portrayed as more sex-dolls, waiting to be fucked and then thrown away, there are no feelings attached, they are just used as a distraction, a pasttime, a plaything: take the Gwendolyn (the library assistant), Edie (Jack’s girlfriend), and the lady Lucien first kissed near the beginning of the film. This exclusion of women in their boyhood, their circle, allowed them to become more and more close (this concept of homoeroticism) that had eventually took a more a serious turn for them all. Lucien is in fact playing the part as both the victim and the offender where he has feelings and emotions but does not want to show them, he is too manly and too masculine and too absorbed in himself that he is not able to show who he truly is, the pure him. He denies himself feelings because that is what keeps him from ridicule, from the look of disgust, from his position of being the victim of “perverted homosexuality” and not just pure love. Allen on the other hand very much accepts his love for Lucien, he has more genuine feelings and is able to express himself although being in a very “toxic relationship” with Lucien (which I have shed many tears for).
To wrap up, I really enjoyed this movie and thought that it’s relation to the concept used in Dead Poet’s Society but with more twists and turns and more excitement and intimacy helped me to love it even more. I would recommend everyone to watch this film as it is a good pot of mixed-emotions.
Rating: 10/10
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