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Kill Your Darlings
A murder in 1944 draws together the great poets of the beat generation: Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs.
2013 · Directed by John Krokidas · 103 min · Drama · Romance · Thriller · Screenplay in the scene database · 10 frames
Tagline
A true story of obsession and murder.
Plot
In 1944, poet Allen Ginsberg wins a place at Columbia University in New York City. He arrives as a very inexperienced freshman, but soon runs into Lucien Carr, an unruly character who holds strong anti-establishment beliefs.
Ginsberg discovers that Carr only manages to stay at Columbia because of a professor who works as a janitor, David Kammerer; the latter writes all of Carr's term papers for him. Kammerer has a predatory relationship with Carr and is in love with him. Carr describes Kammerer as "a Queer", while Kammerer pressures Carr for sexual favors in exchange for assuring that he cannot be expelled.
As Ginsberg spends more time with Carr, he soon meets William S. Burroughs, who is far into drug experimentation, and the writer Jack Kerouac, who is a sailor at that time and has been expelled from Columbia (and now living with Edie Parker). These ambitious people decide to start a new literary movement named The New Vision as a rebellion toward laws, institutions, and Ginsberg and Carr's law professor Steeves. As Ginsberg spirals into the lifestyle of drugs, alcohol and cigarettes with his newfound friends, he slowly develops romantic feelings for Carr.
Plot summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
Crew
- Screenplay: John Krokidas, Austin Bunn
- Cinematography: Reed Morano
- Edited by: Brian A. Kates
- Music: Nico Muhly
- Production design: Stephen H. Carter
- Produced by: John Krokidas, Christine Vachon, Rose Ganguzza, Michael Benaroya
Cast
- Daniel Radcliffe as Allen Ginsberg
- Dane DeHaan as Lucien Carr
- Michael C. Hall as David Kammerer
- Jack Huston as Jack Kerouac
- Ben Foster as William Burroughs
- David Cross as Louis Ginsberg
- Jennifer Jason Leigh as Naomi Ginsberg
- Elizabeth Olsen as Edie Parker
- John Cullum as Professor Steeves
- Brenda Wehle as Permissions Librarian
Production
- Country: United States of America
- Language: English
- Studios: Killer Films, Sunny Field Entertainment
- Budget: $5,600,000
- Box office: $1,600,000
- Themes: confession, mistaken identity, poet, postcard, fascist, murder, drinking, mental illness, lgbt, record player
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