Day 61/64 - Neal Cassady (2007)

I’ve been reading the original unexpurgated version of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. I’ve become a fan of Kerouac’s lust for adventure and experience and his often poetic style of writing. For that reason, I wanted to like the film Neal Cassady which attempts to explain the Cassady after the On the Road years.

The indie film was written and directed by Noah Buschel. The script gives unfortunately gives only wikipedic highlights of Cassady’s life—his endless search for his vagabond father, his romantic escapades, his wife Carolyn raising their two children with Neal off somewhere, his 1964 driving of the psychedelic bus Further as Ken Kesey’s mentor, and his ultimate overdose in 1968 along a Mexican railway track. Somehow, few of the scenes really delve deeply into what makes the character who he is--the most famous Beat Generation writer who never wrote anything. Unfortunately the film makes the ideas of the Beats seem shallow and pretty boring. 

Tate Donovan, starring as Cassady, is passable, but he doesn’t seem to project the charisma needed for the part. Glenn Fitzgerald’s Jack Kerouac has a little more emotional variety, but watching “drunk” on film loses its attraction quickly. I usually like the work of Amy Ryan (better known as Holly Flax, the character who lures Michael Scott away from The Office), but ultimately her only scenes tend to be of her scowling and chastising either Neal or Jack. The outstanding actor in the film for me was Chris Bauer (known for his role of Andy Bellefleur in True Blood) as Ken Kesey. He gave a finely nuanced role and generally steals most of his scenes.

For a deeper view of Kerouac and Cassady, check out these You Tube videos. 

Kerouac on Steve Allen's show reading from On the Road.

This video works on the assumption that Cassady was the center of the Beat Generation and offers perspectives from Carolyn Cassady and her two children. 

To get a real feeling of the energy of the Beats, watch James Franco as Allen Ginsberg in Howl, where Franco reads much of the poem and shows us real depth and passion.

Neal Cassady (2007) **