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Let me just admit this and get it out of the way first and foremost: I am not a big
Kerouac fan. I admire his dedication to his craft, the way he swirled up the common
denominator of literature and turned the literary world on its head. That's all cool. But
when it comes to talking about my most pleasured reading experiences, ON THE ROAD won't be one of them.
I gained greater respect for this book when I saw a clip from the old Steve Allen show in
which Allen, seated at a piano, twinkled the keys in a beatnik-y fashion while the
alcohol-bloated Kerouac read expressively from his book. For a moment, the layers of fat
and exhaustion melted and the once-handsome face announced itself, a haunting spectre of
what had come before and what could be no more. And when I attended the Whitney Museum's
Beat retrospective several years ago and got a look at the long roll of typewriter paper,
which held every single word that made up the beat-up paperback edition of ON THE ROAD I
inherited from my dad's book collection, I have to say I was aghast. A revolution on what
looked to be a length of Bounty towels. Inspiration certainly comes in strange packages
sometimes.
Nonetheless, I don't love the book. Okay. I did, however, always think that it would make
a great film. After all, if you handled the voice-over the way someone like Billy Wilder
would, you might have a noirish little flick that put the beatnik thing in the proper
perspective. Aside from The Wild One and Rebel Without A Cause, there are
few films that capture that period without mocking it --- how many
teens-dancing-in-a-hole-in-the-wall C movies have you seen where suddenly Fabian shows up
and starts singing and this is supposed to be about the Beats? Of course, there was that
movie in the '70s about Kerouac, Neil Cassady, and his wife that you can rent on video,
but it wasn't all that great --- basically, it's only nod to provocative truth was shots
of the three of them in bed together. Whatever. If ON THE ROAD is about anything, it
strives to transcend mere titillating sex to show what a true free spirit is.
And it seemed like every under-30 actor in the country thought he or she knew how to
embody that free spirit. I learned this on one winter day six years ago when I found
myself, coerced by my sister, standing outside an abandoned Manhattan warehouse with
thousands (literally) of unemployed actors who were hoping to hand their headshots to
Francis Ford Coppola. THE GODFATHER saga director had publicly announced his intentions of
making ON THE ROAD into a film. The night before, the temperature had dropped to arctic
levels and the ground was covered in huge, dirt-streaked mounds of snow. Within the first
hour, most of us could no longer feel our feet. It was miserable. Now, I'm not an actor.
So why was I there?
I had recently finished a screenplay about violence on an all-girls' college campus and
knew that Coppola's daughter was looking for screenplays with which to make her film
directing debut (ultimately, she chose Jeffrey Eugenides' The Virgin Suicides). I
figured I would just rough it with the real actors, pretend to be one and, when asked for
my head shot, I would hand them my script. I earned equal ire and respect from the ardent
actors standing in my part of the line.
After six hours in 10 degree weather (with a nice whipping wind to further exacerbate our
discomforts), my sister and four other people finally found refuge inside the gloomy,
puddle-ridden auditorium. At the head of the room was a long table, at which were seated,
among assistants and casting people, both Francis Ford Coppola himself and an actual Beat,
the real thing, Mr. Allen Ginsburg. It was toward the end of his life and he sat
motionless, taking in the scene, occasionally reanimating to gesture to Coppola, pointing
out a particularly good-looking boy here and there. We stood in line, got Polaroids of
ourselves, filled out a form (I was apparently very good at playing Wendy Wasserstein
characters --- I lied) and moved toward the table. As a casting person motioned me over, I
split from the line and headed straight for Coppola himself.
Suffice it to say that the man was freaked. He jumped back and two body-guard-types came
over and grabbed me by the arms. I wrestled myself free and grabbed his hand, pumping as
if I expected him to spew water out of his mouth. Explaining my situation, he took me
aside, reprimanded me for interrupting his work and gave me the Zoetrope address in San
Francisco, saying he would make sure the script got to Sofia. I thanked him and took off,
but not before Allen Ginsburg raised his right hand in some sort of salute to me --- he
was smiling and I felt like he had admired my pluck, the writerly intention to do whatever
I could to get my work into the right hands.
I was escorted immediately from the auditorium while my sister was being interviewed by
several people. When all was said and done, I left with an inflated sense of hope that the
universe would reward my bravery (or stupidity, depending on how you look at it) with
something good, a script sale, a meeting, a telephone call at least, some interest.
Nothing came of it, and I doubt that Coppola even allowed the script to be read by
anybody. I never heard from Zoetrope (is this why I can't get any stories published in his
literary magazine?).
Like Kerouac, I had made a jump at taking control of my writing life, putting my work in
what I had deemed capable hands that would treat it with respect. But the nod I got from
Ginsburg was nothing more than an acknowledgment of what all writers know: the struggle to
write is nothing in the face of the struggle to connect with a reading public. But like
Kerouac, I move on, pen in hand, ready to slay more dragons on clean, white paper.
--- Jana Siciliano
(c)
Copyright 2001, Bookreporter.com. All rights reserved.
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