Big Sur (Film, and A Beat Poem)

From BBC News:

Big Sur

Jean-Marc Barr stars as Jack Kerouac in director Michael Polish's adaptation of the Beat Generation author's autobiographical novel, Big Sur, written as he was struggling with his newfound fame following the success of On the Road. Big Sur chronicles his three trips to a remote cabin, his affair with the mistress (Kate Bosworth) of poet Neal Cassady (Josh Lucas), and his subsequent nervous breakdown. Even after the recent Kill Your Darlings and the film adaptation of On the Road, the Beats go on.

Released 1 November in the US. (Ketchup Entertainment)

More, from The Wall Street Journal

and from The New York Times


And an old poem:

Big Sur, 1978

Big Sur to Bodega Bay (August 30, 1998)

(Jack Kerouac and Henry Miller haunt the Big Sur cabins.
For Jimmie, waiting in Sebastopol.) 


The road is blocked beyond Big Sur

We can't get through to Monterey.

A crane's collapsed

Across the bridge.

Have to head back

Down Highway One,

And then rejoin the 101.

Not tonight

The Santa Lucia Climb,

That Naciamento-Ferguson road!

Got to keep moving,

Got to keep moving.

So we're back in Big Sur

With Henry and Jack.

We queue for a cabin

And, boy, we're in luck,

We get the very last one.

We won't sleep in the car.

In the morning it's fresh,

I walk in the woods.

Think of Jack by the creek.

The road is still blocked.

So it's back to Nepenthe,

Then over the mountains,

Towards Soledad, Frisco,

Then finally on up to the Sebastopol woods,

To see our old friend,

The Monster and Saint,

The guitarist, the guru,

The talker, the writer.

We have a great walk along Bodega Bay...

Thirty years; still on the road.

Got to keep moving.

Got to keep moving.

Jimmie (Demetrius Toteras)

Jimmie and Bronwen, Bodega Bay

A long way from Lowell...