Fifty-plus years later, the Beat Generation is finally making its mark in film.
A big screen adaptation of Jack Kerouac's "Big Sur," about the famed author's detox period on a California mountain following his whirlwind time traveling to and from his New York City home, has set its main cast. Deadline reports that in director Michael Polish's film, "Dogville" star Jean-Marc Barr is playing Kerouac, Josh Lucas is taking on inspiration/maniac/best friend Neal Cassady, and Kate Bosworth is playing Billie. In addition, playing smaller roles are Anthony Edwards, Rahda Mitchell, Balthazar Getty and Henry Thomas.
In 2008, "One Fast Move or I'm Gone: Jack Kerouac and Big Sur," a documentary about the experiences the book was based, on was released.
Kerouac's great classic, "On the Road," is also being made into a movie; in that film, Sam Riley ("Control") will play Sal Paradise, Kerouac's fictionalized self. Joining him in the adventure will be Garrett Hedlund as Dean Moriarty (a fictionalized Cassady) and Kristen Stewart, who takes on Cassady's on-again, off-again wife, Marylou.
In 2010, another Beat Generation writer got his big screen turn. James Franco portrayed Allen Ginsberg in "Howl," a hybrid film involving readings from the titular poem, interviews with Franco as Ginsberg and reenactments from his obscenity trial, starring Jon Hamm as his lawyer.
For more, click over to Deadline.