Naked Lens: Beat Cinema

Library Journal

The highly influential writings of the original circle of Beat generation authors have been widely studied, but motion pictures emerging from the Beat movement have been largely neglected. Film journalist Sargeant (Lost Highways: Road Movies), an authority on underground movies, fills that void with this articulate and entertaining cinema history. Starting with a detailed synopsis and analysis of Pull My Daisy (1958), a film written and narrated by Jack Kerouac, and ranging through subsequent underground efforts, Sargeant shows that the nonconformist Beat attitudes of social disillusion and rebellion against convention are especially conducive to visual expression in alternative film. Also, several lively interviews, most notably with Allen Ginsberg and Jonas Mekas, brim with vivid digressions and flashes of insight about cinema and American culture. The original 1997 British edition, upon which this expands, was largely overlooked, likely owing to the lurid nature of other titles in the publisher's cinema series, such as Eros in Hell: Sex, Blood, and Madness in Japanese Cinema. However, for admirably examining the emerging genre of a Beat-related underground cinema, the present work is essential for cinema collections. Recommended for academic libraries. Richard W. Grefrath, Univ. of Nevada Lib., Reno Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.