Kill Your Darlings (2013) Movie Script
Some things,
once you've loved them,
become yours forever.
And if you try to let them go
they only circle back and return to you.
They become part of who you are.
"Or they destroy you. "
You can't show this to anyone.
- Then tell the truth, Lu.
- You weren't even there.
It's your truth. It's fiction.
You wanted him gone,
too. You sent him to me.
Please. You'll kill me with that.
Allen!
No. Allen!
Don't. No!
Don't!
World News Today.
American daylight bombers
were busy again today.
Our Liberators with fighter escort
have continued the air offensive
with another sock at German
coastal installations in France.
Mud and slush are
hampering the Russian armies
from Estonia to the Black Sea,
bu! the Germans report a big
new Red Army push toward Romania.
A dispatch from Turkey says the Germans
have begun another general offensive
against the Yugoslav partisans,
and, in the Pacific, American
troops on Los Negros fought a...
Any mail come for me?
Why? Are you expecting something?
No. No.
I told you it wouldn't work.
Mom?
You gotta get me outta here.
He nailed the window shut
while I was in the bath.
Dad didn't do that, Mom.
I nailed the windows
because you're not right.
He can hear you. He
got wires in the walls.
You have to rest, clear your head.
- Do you want to go back to Greystone'?
- You wouldn't dare put me back there.
Mom, Mom. Then listen to me.
He can hear you.
- Can he still hear me'?
- What did I just say?
It's all right.
Quiet down.
Don't ever leave me.
Were you gonna tell me that you applied?
I didn't want her to know.
"Love that is hoarded moulds at last
"Until we know, the only thing we have"
"Is what we give away"
"Is what we hand away"
Have, hand. It's consonance.
Give, is. Assonance.
Hey, I wrote the goddamn poem.
All right?
Why don't you go write your own?
Open it.
- I got in.
- You got in?
- To Columbia University.
- You got into Columbia.
Yes!
You don't wanna go down there.
It's the land of the fairies.
Head there, you never come back.
Luke Detweiler, Danville, Virginia.
Allen Ginsberg.
You're Jewish, right?
I'm getting good at telling.
The South Hall library is a church
and these are the sacraments,
original folios of the most
important texts in history.
Beowulf.
First Folio Hamlet.
The Gutenberg Bible.
These are among the
university's prized possessions.
Hands off the glass.
Let's hear a bit, shall we?
"On a Sunday afternoon,
"when the shutters are down
"and the proletariat
possesses the street
"there are certain thoroughfares
which remind one of nothing less
"than a big
"cancerous
"cock. "
- What is this nonsense?
- Henry Miller.
Get down immediately.
That book is restricted.
Which is why I committed it 10 memory.
Security.
What the hell are you doing?
Alert the press. Tell them
Lucien Carr is innocent.
That was highly unusual.
Campus is actually quite quiet.
Moving on.
The Victorian sonnet has
the balance of three tenets,
rhyme, metre, conceit.
Without this balance,
a poem becomes slack,
an untucked shirt.
Professor Steeves.
Then how do you explain Whitman?
Say more. Two more sentences.
Well, he hated rhyme and metre.
The whole point was
untucking your shirt.
What's your name?
- Allen Ginsberg. Ginsberg?
Your father, perhaps, is
the poet Louis Ginsberg?
He writes with rhyming metred verse.
Why do you think he chose that form?
Because it's easier.
This university exists
because of tradition and form.
Would you rather this
building be built by engineers
or Whitman and his boys at play?
There can be no creation
before imitation.
Reports from the front say the Nazis
are wheeling up fresh
materiel and reserves.
Shut the books.
We're taking my brother
with us to the social.
He ships out tomorrow.
I can't. You see how much I have to do.
He's Navy. It's catnip for the skins.
You hymies are really
all about work, huh?
Brahms?
Finally.
An oasis in this wasteland.
So how come you're not at the social?
Only the most antisocial have to
go to an event actually called one.
- Libation?
- What, you drink in your room?
How does a horrible
bottle of Chianti sound?
I don't drink.
Freshman?
- Yes.
- Excellent. I love first times.
I want my entire life
to be composed of them.
Life is only interesting
if life is wide.
To Walt Whitman.
You dirty bastard.
How's your Yeats?
Have you read A Vision?
Never heard of it.
It's completely brilliant.
And impossible.
He says that life is round.
That we're stuck on this
wheel of living and dying.
An endless circle.
Until
someone breaks it.
You walked in here. You
ruptured the pattern.
- Bang. The whole world gets wider.
- Gets wider.
- How did you...
- it's consonance.
A reiteration of themes.
Are you a writer?
'Cause I've got a job for a writer.
No, I'm not.
Well, you're not anything yet.
Ginsberg.
Isn't that you?
- Ginsberg! What?
Phone call.
I'll be back.
Thank you.
- Hello.
- I found the wires.
He's trying to get inside my head.
Dad is not trying to get
inside your head, okay?
Put him on.
He's not here. He left.
Where'd he go?
Honey, I need you to come home now.
Mom, I can't come home.
Listen to me.
You have to look after yourself
I don't feel good.
- Are you going to the dance?
- Downtown.
- Now?
- Who are you talking to?
- No one.
- Is he there with you?
No, Mom, he's not here.
Look, I will be there as soon as I can.
I need you tonight.
I need you to promise me.
I promise. I love you.
Bye.
Coming?
Welcome to the edge of the world.
Allen in Wonderland.
- Do you know her?
- No, and I don't plan on it.
She tasted like imported
sophistication and domestic cigarettes.
Dave, where's the liquor'?
I'll be right back.
You are pinching.
- You are pinching.
- I'm sorry.
You okay?
What's that?
Nitrous oxide for narco analysis.
Know thyself and beshit thyself.
You ever done that?
No thanks. I don't do the cannabis.
Show me the man who is
both sober and happy,
and I will show you the crinkled anus
of a lying asshole.
Allen, Willy. Willy, Allen.
Lucien, reefer.
Nice meeting you.
- Is he a criminal?
- He wishes he were a criminal.
The Burroughs family is richer than God.
- Well, he looks like a criminal.
- He's a Harvard man.
He's going to be an amazing artist.
His current medium is himself.
- What's that?
- It's bunk for school.
Come on. I want you to meet our host.
What we have, darlings and
demoiselles, is a circle.
Life is round.
Patterns, routines,
a wheel of self-abuse.
Margaret, don't even deny it.
- He sounds like you.
- Because it was me first.
Until the disruption
we long for comes along
and the circle is broken.
He used to be my guardian angel,
but he said I was too much work.
Take this unbloomed stalwart.
And you are?
Allen.
Allen.
Play nice, David.
- Who comes uninvited to my apartment.
- Actually, I invited him.
No one notices him.
Look at him. Why would we bother'?
So the pattern of our lives holds.
But who knows?
Under the right circumstances,
even he might change the world.
In the distance I heard a sound
The sound of marching men
So you met Lucien in the lunch line,
and now he's all that you can see.
Why don't you like me?
Because David was in the
same godforsaken line.
And then
Some ear job at the
bar just called me kid,
so I stole his drink.
That's Ogden Nash.
Who's Ogden Nash? - The
best-selling poet in the country.
Perhaps you've heard this one.
"The girl who is bespectacled
she may not get her nectacled
"But safety pins and bassinets... "
"Await the girl who fassinets. "
And that's what he's
selling? I'll kill him.
Aim for the throat.
No. We're not going to kill him.
Even better, we're going to
make sure nobody remembers him.
How many men started the Renaissance?
- Two.
- And the Romantics?
More, I suspect, than
this theory accommodates.
We're sending millions to Europe to
fight the fascists, but they're here.
- Metre and rhyme...
- And Professor Steeves.
Yes!
They're all guards in some prison.
Let's make the prisoners
come out and play.
Let's come up with
new words, new rhythms.
We need a name.
How did they come up with "Dada"?
Tristan Tzara jabbed a
knife into a dictionary.
Shit. So that's been done.
A literary revolution
without writing a word.
- Neat trick, Lu.
- Well, I'm listening.
What about Yeats?
The New Vision.
Harlem soldiers on the ground
Ginsy.
You're hired.
On parade
Keep it moving, gentlemen.
Stay in line.
Fucking perverts.
"In the dawn, armed
with a burning patience
"we shall enter the splendid city. "
- Shit.
- It's Rimbaud.
It's overwritten, I know. He's allowed.
No. My mother.
This is bad. This is very bad.
What is?
She's gonna be furious.
- Don't go then.
- You don't understand. I have to.
- Why?
- It's complicated.
Perfect.
I love complicated.
- Dad?
- Sign here. Greystone will alert you...
What's going on?
Your mother needs her rest.
Ma.
You can't do this.
Where were you?
I was outwith a friend.
- I called you.
- I know.
- It's time to go, Mrs Ginsberg.
- No, you're not leaving.
- He's already signed the papers.
- Dad, don't.
- It's for the best, son.
- Your best.
You know... it's for her best.
It's not for my best. It's
for her best. Look at her.
- No.
- Listen to her.
- He's not gonna...
- I know it's not. Don't...
Mom. Mom. Mom. Get off.
This is your fault.
Complicated enough?
At least you have her.
My father left me when I was four.
I've been thinking
about what Yeats said.
To be reborn, you have to die first.
What do you suggest?
I spent my entire life
making other people happy.
It's time I find happiness
the only way I see possible.
Oh, please.
Die already.
Where's the verve? The brio?
If it be that I am indulging
my self-consciousness
in justifying myself or if it be...
- That's a run-on.
- Don't edit me.
- The New Vision declares...
- "Proclaims. " It's better.
Proclaims the death of morality.
The expression of self.
The true, uninhibited,
uncensored expression of the self.
Words, boys. Empty words.
- Well, what do you suggest?
- The derangement of the senses.
What do you hate from
the pit of your gut?
- Institutions. Paterson, New Jersey.
- My father.
- Bingo.
And the Shakespeare...
All right.
Extraordinary men
propel society forward.
It is our duty to break the law.
- Really?
- It's how we make the world wider.
- You are an extraordinary man.
- Well, thank you.
Return of the Native.
Leviathan.
Tear 'em up, boys. Destroy
the old and build the new.
Chaucer. Gibbon.
Watch this.
Go.
What the hell is this?
Time slows down
as you drift deeper and
deeper into your cave.
We are exploring the
avenues of Allen's mind.
Dimly lit, I'm sure. What
have you done to my apartment?
Don't touch anything. We
need to write it all down.
Grab a pair of scissors. Get
this man a pair of scissors.
This is not your
revolution. This is my life.
What kind of life is it, David?
It's mine.
Not everyone gets an allowance.
Leave.
Just get out.
I need to speak with you.
Alone.
It only has to be five pages.
You make me too smart, they're
gonna suspect somethings up.
And get you sent back
to your mother again?
That would just be the end of you.
Fuck you.
Kill your darlings,
your crushes, your juvenile metaphysics.
None of them belong on the page.
It is the first principle
of good creative work,
a work of fiction you will
deliver as your final exam.
Look.
Whitman Junior graced us
with his presence today.
"The New Vision.
"Extraordinary men propel us forward.
"It is our duty to break the law. "
Fantastic.
There's more life in those five pages
than in the dozens of bad
sonnets we've read in this class.
You want life?
You want the world on fire?
The war awaits.
What will it be?
"The rose that scents the summer air
"grows from my beloveds hair. "
Keep going. That's
my sonnet for Steeves.
We have the map.
We have the manifesto.
We need the work.
I was wrong.
Maybe you're not up for this after all.
- Show me your fucking map.
- Stop.
No, there's nothing here because
Davids not hereto write it for you.
- It's complicated.
- I love complicated.
He is a professor working as a janitor
so he can be near his precious Lu-Lu.
He is a goddamn fruit
who won't let me go.
A fruit?
A queer.
Then...
You know, let's get rid of him.
Right now' I just need you to
write us something beautiful.
First thought, best thought.
Allen in Wonderland.
Pervitin.
The Germans called it
the "Wunderdroge. "
Prescribed for superhuman feats.
But beware of the side effects
which include sudden bouts of blindness,
diarrhea, heart palpitations
and a severe decline in moral standards.
Unbloomed stalwart.
Come out and play.
What the hell are you doing?
Writing.
But the words...
Oh, the words.
Yeah.
Lu, it's very rough.
The vision at last.
Can I see'?
- Where's Lu?
- He's out.
With a senior football player.
A writer.
And handsome, too.
James?
Jack. There it is.
Jack.
You're not allowed to be here.
That's odd since I'm the
only thing keeping him here.
Not any more.
Piece of advice.
You don't know Lu.
As soon as you think you
do, he'll find someone else.
Maybe he already has.
What, are you moving in?
Where have you been?
I found a real writer.
Already a million words under
his belt before Columbia.
You mean Jack?
Why didn't you tell me?
What, am I supposed to do newsreels?
What's that?
Oh, nothing.
If you're going to stay,
don't hog the blanket.
Why is Jack a real writer?
Once you meet him,
you'll see what I mean.
- Hey, Al.
- No.
- Come on.
- No.
No.
Fumble.
- Jack, what was that?
- The damn cat.
She painted it. Say nothing.
- Hey, when did this come?
- Today.
It's from Sammy. Where is he now'?
I don't know. Some battleship.
What do you think?
It's brilliant, no?
It's missing some periods and commas.
It's better than anything
you've ever written.
- I use periods and commas.
- Both of you, quiet.
Kerouac. How are you, chum?
Sammy, you bastard.
Who's Sammy?
My best friend since I
was 12. Off in the Navy.
We've just been through
20 days of German shelling
every three hours, night and day.
This will be my last one for a while.
Tomorrow we're headed our to the
front, some beach near Rome. Anzio?
Go sit at the table.
It's supposed to be beautiful...
I didn't know we were having guests.
What's this?
I was aiming for stew.
Yeah? You missed.
Come on, guys.
- Where are you going?
- Out.
Out'? I have been
cooking all day for you.
What? What do you want?
Want me to eat shoe leather?
I'm hungry, and what you
do in the kitchen's unholy.
That's funny. You talk like a Catholic,
but you fuck me and won't marry me.
- How does that work?
- Shut your mouth, Edie.
I thought you liked it wide open.
Scram.
Allen.
So, Al. Thought my novel was shit?
- Not exactly. It's not what I
would choose... - it's all true.
Jack sewed in the merchant marines.
I left school twice already.
Columbia's full of squares.
Not even sure why I
bothered to come back.
Why don't you just ship out again?
Trust me, sometimes when I
fight with Edie, I want to.
Well, you two did just fight.
Carr, you're goddamn crazy.
"A new vision. " Yeah.
Sounds phoney.
Movements are cooked up by people who
can't write about the people who can.
I don't think he gets
what we're trying to do.
Listen to me.
This whole town's full of finks on
the 30th floor writing pure chintz.
Writers. A real writers
gotta be in the beds,
down in the trenches and
all the broken places.
Where were your trenches, Al?
- Allen.
- Right.
First thought, best thought.
Fuck you. What does that even mean?
That's good. That's one. What else?
- Fuck your one million words.
- Yes, even better.
You don't know me.
You're right.
Who is "you"?
"Be careful.
"You are not in Wonderland.
"I've heard the strange madness
long growing in your soul.
"But you are fortunate
in your ignorance,
"in your isolation.
"You who have suffered
"find where love hides.
"Give, share, lose,
"lest we die unbloomed. "
Al?
That was beautiful, kid.
You wrote that?
You asked me to.
Forget Columbia.
Forget Ogden Nash.
Here's the plan, boys. We
join the merchant marines,
sail the world until the war ends,
then jump ship and make it
to Paris for the liberation.
And you don't speak French.
Jack does.
It'll be us together at the beginning.
It'll be the perfect day.
- Jesus Christ.
- Get your hands in the air.
You have managed to
matriculate and drop out
of Tulane, Bowdoin and
the University of Chicago.
Your attendance record
here is abominable.
You've ignored curfew.
Your papers, when you
bother to turn them in,
exceed the assigned page limit.
Can you explain why you're at Columbia?
- Well, the same reason you are.
- What is that?
Loose Barnard girls.
I know about your difficulties,
about what happened in Chicago.
- You told him?
- He's not the enemy.
You see, the university
acts in loco parentis.
You are our responsibility.
We're trying to find some way
to make this all work for you.
Who said anybody could know
anything about anything?
Lucien, your temper.
Things were going fine
and you're just spreading rumours
to get me kicked out of here.
Allen. What the hell's going on?
Who's she?
Hi. I'm Edith Cohen.
What's she doing here?
I've been divorced for some time.
I'll go wait outside.
This is the kind of childish outburst...
So that's why you locked Mom up.
Get back here immediately.
Lucien. Lucien.
- Lucien!
- Did he put you up to this?
No.
I stole the boat.
And it was tremendous.
Where are you going?
You know me now.
I'm only good at beginnings.
What, you're dropping out?
Best of luck.
Okay-
My father showed up
today with some new woman
and in the middle of all the
"Allen's a screw-up" monologue,
all of a sudden, I
realised I don't care.
I've never not cared.
So, I told them it was my idea
to steal the boat.
Why?
Because I don't want to be
the person they think I am.
I am on academic probation
and I could get kicked out.
You can't leave.
You started something and I have no
idea what I'm supposed to do next.
It's our turn.
Let's show them what we can do.
You in?
You mustn't drink while you're
handling it, and no writing in it.
It comes back exactly as you've got it.
Next.
Once you get the book,
treat it very, very well.
And you don't break the
binding. Now follow me.
All right.
Hey, no telling Edie.
Maybe you can help me with something.
You're checking out all these books.
I'm asking myself, do
you ever get checked out?
Twenty-five seconds.
Masterful.
- Hi.
- Hi.
Damn it. Shift's over.
See you tomorrow.
I'll go.
Hi.
I wondered if you could help me.
Sure.
I'm looking for a book.
Okay-
- Does this book have a title?
- Yes. Yes.
It's called The Day Amanda Came.
Well, you'll have lo wait.
I can't leave the desk.
I really need it.
Okay-
Only for you.
Shit.
So working here must be a drag.
I like it. It's the
only way I meet boys.
They're very, very strict at Barnard.
Oh, really? How strict?
Well, for example, they
would never let me do this.
Right. No.
Go.
Did you know I've never done it
with someone who was Jewish before?
I'm really excited to
see what it looks like.
Well...
I'm sorry.
I thought you were saying
something, but not saying it.
Should we find your book?
The key.
There is no book.
- Take it off.
- Really?
- You. You take it off.
- Oh, okay.
I'm not a virgin. I have done
it with four guys already.
You're kind of a virgin though, huh?
- No.
- Liar.
See, if you have done it before,
you'll last for 30 seconds.
Stan counting.
One,
two...
Three...
Four...
Five...
Six,
seven,
eight...
Nine...
I knew it.
I bet you don't even read.
I do.
This is it, guys. This is our Bastille.
No chickening out.
Excuse me.
I think I saw some light
or movement in the library.
What just happened?
We know you're here!
Come on.
Lu?
Bill, what the hell? It's locked!
This way.
I think they're this way.
We know you're here.
Come out!
Hey!
Lu, that's enough! What's
wrong with you? Come on.
Not yet. We have to finish.
Enough now! It's over!
Let me go! Allen!
Let go! Let...
Allen! Get off of me.
- One prick.
- Allen.
Allen!
Let's go!
You guys open this
goddamn door right now.
Open this fucking door right now.
Open the fuck up. Open the...
The South Hall library is a church
and these are the sacraments...
Oh, m)'
God.
- To literacy.
- To literacy indeed.
- Jack, that's you, isn't it?
- Yup. Last year.
They still won.
Look at them.
Souvenir history.
To make people think they
left some mark on the world.
Because otherwise,
nobody would ever know.
I never want to end up on that wall.
Have no fear. You never will.
What's he doing here?
Since you didn't stop by earlier,
I just hoped to give you this.
Maybe he didn't want to see you.
I think he can speak for himself.
Yup. He says that we should
all have another round.
You've had plenty of time to celebrate.
Your library high jinks
made the morning paper.
I'm sure you're all very proud.
How do you know it was us?
Did he use that Bastille
line? 'Cause I gave it to him.
I haven't seen you for days.
You left this at my place.
You told the guards we were
there. Nobody else knew.
You wanted me to get kicked
out. You ratted on me.
Stop, Lu. You're losing control.
You know what comes next.
- I know what comes next.
- Yeah.
Cut him off.
Best of luck, Janitor.
- Excuse me?
- We are over.
Leave.
Look at me, Lu.
You said I was everything to you.
You are everything to me.
Everything to me, do you hear me?
Let's go.
Please, Lu. Please?
David, time and place.
Shut up, traitor.
You'd be dead if it weren't for me.
You'd be boring if it weren't for me.
And go!
Oh. my God!
- Jack!
- Jack!
Jack!
He broke his fucking neck.
The warrior poet has passed on.
No!
- He lives!
- Excellent!
Judges award a...
Nine!
- Oh, my God.
- Jack.
All right, Ginsy, your turn.
No, no, no, no.
This is just the beginning, you know.
Your fault, Ginsy.
It's all your fault.
First thought, best thought.
I think I just puked on the inside.
Let's go, Jack.
- What?
- Wait. Al, are you coming?
No, Allen's got work to do.
Ten pages on Spengler's Decline
of the West. Due tomorrow.
Excuse me?
I'd be lost without you, Ginsy.
Come on, lion.
Fuck!
Allied fumes in Anzio...
Edie bird!
My Edie bird.
I'm just gonna use the loo.
Say hi to Gram.
...burrow and cover in a
honeycomb of trenches and foxholes.
We invited her over for her
birthday. We made her a cake.
Well, then we should have a drink.
How about a drink, Grandma Frankie?
You want some red wine?
- Where the hell have you been?
- I was out.
I packed all your stuff. It's in your
bag. I'm gonna be at Gram's tonight.
Hey, hey. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
- No, you just say that.
- I'm sorry.
It's one of your million words,
and they don't mean anything.
Just don't be here when I
come back in the morning.
I know this is crazy.
I don't even know what I'm
doing here, but I just had to
tell you I'm sorry.
Let me make it up to you.
Lu, where are you?
I'm going back to bed.
Another word and I call the police.
What the hell?
Jesus Christ!
What kind of sick son of a bitch
would do something like this?
It was David.
I'll wring his fucking neck.
It's okay. It's okay.
I have another idea.
Lu,
YOU!' paper.
Where are you going?
Sailing out.
To Paris.
We're gonna make a
ship as merchant seamen.
Jack knows the tricks.
You weren't gonna tell me?
We both know why you can't come.
Fuck you!
You're a phoney.
And you got me and Jack and
Bill making your vision come true
because you can't do it yourself.
No, Allen.
You got what you wanted.
You were ordinary, just
like every other freshman.
And I made your life extraordinary.
Go be you now, all by
yourself. Leave me alone.
You don't mean that.
- Allen!
- Please.
Leave.
Allen, have you seen him?
- He's not in his room.
- He left.
I did something wrong.
Really wrong.
You have no reason to help me. But...
But?
I know who you are.
We're the ones he needs but never wants.
It hurts, doesn't it?
All I'm asking is that
you tell me where he is.
Please.
Let me see your papers.
Two seamen reporting for duty.
What's your name?
Arthur Rimbaud.
Go upstairs to get on the docket.
Let's go get on the docket.
Goddamn son of a bitch!
Let me handle this.
How did you know that I would be here?
Listen, I spoke to a guy
upstairs. I got us two passes.
I packed for both of us.
We can leave.
The reason I am leaving is you.
Then you and Jack take
them. I'll catch up.
Come with me.
We're taking a walk.
Can I have a whisky, please?
I'm sorry.
Lu?
This came for you today.
Sam.
Jack, old chum.
I'm on a hospital ship
now. My gut's all tore up.
Anzio's gonna be the last
place I ever see with my eyes.
A mortar round came
and found me in my tent.
I can feel metal under
my skin some places.
Some wen! clean through.
They're not even trying
to take it out no more.
The nurses gave me the same morphine
I gave to dying boys when I
didn't know what else to do.
"Wake, melancholy Mother,
"wake and weep!
"Quench within
"their burning bed, Thy fiery tears,
"and let thou loud heart keep... "
What was that?
Shelley's elegy for Keats.
What does that mean?
It means he's dead.
He didn't come back here afterward.
Nobody on the floor saw.
We have two in custody. Were
still gathering evidence.
So what else do we know about this guy?
Edie. Is Jack there?
You don't know?
Know what?
The police came and took
him down to the Tombs
as an accessory.
Bill, too.
What happened?
Allen.
Thank God.
He wanted to hurt me.
I had no choice.
You could've run, called the police.
Listen.
Somehow he found me at the Marine Hall.
He said that no matter where
I went, he would follow.
When I confronted him, he exploded.
I had to defend myself.
He wouldn't stop.
How did Jack and Bill
get roped into this?
I went to them after.
First, I went to Jack.
He told me to get rid of the knife
and to forget the whole thing.
But then I went to Bill.
He told me to get a lawyer.
To confess.
To say that it was an
act of self-defence.
The DA is asking for my deposition
in writing.
I can! do it.
I don't know what I'm going to do.
I'm gonna be stuck in here
for the rest of my life.
Please don't leave me here.
I'll do it.
We're going to say that
it was an honour slaying.
"Relating to a lethal attack committed
"when the accused is defending
himself against a known homosexual,
"If the accused is heterosexual,
"he shall be pardoned.
"But if the accused is homosexual,
"the charge of murder
in the first degree... "
Dad?
It's $5,000 bail.
I know. I know it's a lot.
No Kerouac was ever
wrapped up in a murder.
Go to hell!
Would you all just shut the hell up!
You must understand that David
has been following him for years.
When Lu went to Bowdoin,
David appeared out of thin air.
So I sent him to Chicago.
Surprise.
David turned up there, too.
Then when Lucien wanted to go to Mexico,
guess who had a car
idling in the driveway?
But he didn't have to go with him.
He spun a web to ensnare my son.
That's why I brought him here.
Lot of good that did.
What happened in Chicago?
Thank God Lu has you in his life.
You know what, Allen?
He calls you his guardian angel.
That's what he called David.
That man ruined my son.
You're gonna help me
keep what's left of him.
Contrary to reports,
prison is not a tonic for the spirit.
All the district attorney cared
about was that David was queer.
And what did you tell him?
I said yes.
Did David do something to Lu in Chicago?
Christ, Allen, please
don't get involved.
I have to be.
I'm helping him write his defence.
David was my friend.
And he's dead.
And did Lucien tell you how he died?
He might not have wanted
you to know, Allen.
He tied David up.
Put stones in his
pockets to weigh him down,
and then dragged him into the Hudson.
What?
He was alive, Allen,
until Lucien made him drown.
Who are you? Is he
part of this business?
Leave him alone, Dad.
I paid your bail.
Don't talk to me like that.
YES, sir.
The car leaves in five minutes.
The libertine circle has come to an end.
Go back to the beginning.
"Cook's County Hospital of Chicago. "
"David Kammerer. "
He would leave me alone in the house.
- I was gonna die there.
- No, you weren't.
- Yeah, I know it.
- No, Mom. Stop.
Hey. I'm okay now.
I'm your mother and I'm okay.
But you're not.
I'm in over my head.
Someone I know killed a man.
And...
I don't know what to do.
He wants my help and I don't
know if I should give it to him.
I don't know if ifs right.
It's just a mess.
You let him go.
- What?
- Don't help him.
- I can't, Mom. He's my best friend.
- Listen to me.
The most important thing your
father ever did was fail me.
You understand?
He loved you.
And the truth is, once,
you loved him back.
- What about what I need?
- But the secret ate away at you.
I was a kid, and you dragged
me into your perverted mess.
So in Chicago, you
tried to kill yourself
How can you say that?
You know that's not true.
He rescued you.
I will never give up on us.
He saved your life.
You're pathetic.
You needed him as much as he needed you.
Now I know how you felt.
When?
When you wanted to die.
Do it.
Do it.
Some things,
once you've loved them,
become yours forever.
And if you try to let them go
they only circle back and return to you.
They become part of who you are.
"Or they destroy you. "
You can't show this to anyone.
- Then tell the truth, Lu.
- You weren't even there.
It's your truth. It's fiction.
You wanted him gone,
too. You sent him to me.
Please. You'll kill me with that.
Allen. No.
Allen! Don't. No!
Don't!
Allen Ginsberg.
He'll be with you in a
minute. Please have a seat.
Mr Ginsberg, he's ready for you.
Mr Ginsberg?
How did you expect us to react to this?
No, please, tell me.
Professor Steeves says that
you submitted it as your final.
Well, then let me tell you.
It's smutty and it's absurd.
But you finished it.
You have taken incompletes in two
classes and you are on academic probation.
There are rules that you agreed to
upon acceptance into this university
and you managed to break and
you just keep breaking them.
You don't seem to have much
respect for this institution.
So, you may either
retract this fiction as your final
or you may choose to be expelled.
What will it be?
Fine.
Consider me expelled.
No, this remains with us.
World News Today, brought
to you by Hasbro Corporation.
This came for you.
"Exhibitors, dealers all over
America and in many foreign lands.
By shortwave broadcast direct
to important overseas stations
and leading newscasts
of our own country,
CBS reporters witnessing firsthand
news of the world's political and...
Survivors have assembled in
the streets in celebration.
This is the end of a long darkness.
France and Europe are finally free.
Another lover hits the universe.
The circle is broken.
But with death comes rebirth.
And like all lovers and sad people,
I am a poet.
once you've loved them,
become yours forever.
And if you try to let them go
they only circle back and return to you.
They become part of who you are.
"Or they destroy you. "
You can't show this to anyone.
- Then tell the truth, Lu.
- You weren't even there.
It's your truth. It's fiction.
You wanted him gone,
too. You sent him to me.
Please. You'll kill me with that.
Allen!
No. Allen!
Don't. No!
Don't!
World News Today.
American daylight bombers
were busy again today.
Our Liberators with fighter escort
have continued the air offensive
with another sock at German
coastal installations in France.
Mud and slush are
hampering the Russian armies
from Estonia to the Black Sea,
bu! the Germans report a big
new Red Army push toward Romania.
A dispatch from Turkey says the Germans
have begun another general offensive
against the Yugoslav partisans,
and, in the Pacific, American
troops on Los Negros fought a...
Any mail come for me?
Why? Are you expecting something?
No. No.
I told you it wouldn't work.
Mom?
You gotta get me outta here.
He nailed the window shut
while I was in the bath.
Dad didn't do that, Mom.
I nailed the windows
because you're not right.
He can hear you. He
got wires in the walls.
You have to rest, clear your head.
- Do you want to go back to Greystone'?
- You wouldn't dare put me back there.
Mom, Mom. Then listen to me.
He can hear you.
- Can he still hear me'?
- What did I just say?
It's all right.
Quiet down.
Don't ever leave me.
Were you gonna tell me that you applied?
I didn't want her to know.
"Love that is hoarded moulds at last
"Until we know, the only thing we have"
"Is what we give away"
"Is what we hand away"
Have, hand. It's consonance.
Give, is. Assonance.
Hey, I wrote the goddamn poem.
All right?
Why don't you go write your own?
Open it.
- I got in.
- You got in?
- To Columbia University.
- You got into Columbia.
Yes!
You don't wanna go down there.
It's the land of the fairies.
Head there, you never come back.
Luke Detweiler, Danville, Virginia.
Allen Ginsberg.
You're Jewish, right?
I'm getting good at telling.
The South Hall library is a church
and these are the sacraments,
original folios of the most
important texts in history.
Beowulf.
First Folio Hamlet.
The Gutenberg Bible.
These are among the
university's prized possessions.
Hands off the glass.
Let's hear a bit, shall we?
"On a Sunday afternoon,
"when the shutters are down
"and the proletariat
possesses the street
"there are certain thoroughfares
which remind one of nothing less
"than a big
"cancerous
"cock. "
- What is this nonsense?
- Henry Miller.
Get down immediately.
That book is restricted.
Which is why I committed it 10 memory.
Security.
What the hell are you doing?
Alert the press. Tell them
Lucien Carr is innocent.
That was highly unusual.
Campus is actually quite quiet.
Moving on.
The Victorian sonnet has
the balance of three tenets,
rhyme, metre, conceit.
Without this balance,
a poem becomes slack,
an untucked shirt.
Professor Steeves.
Then how do you explain Whitman?
Say more. Two more sentences.
Well, he hated rhyme and metre.
The whole point was
untucking your shirt.
What's your name?
- Allen Ginsberg. Ginsberg?
Your father, perhaps, is
the poet Louis Ginsberg?
He writes with rhyming metred verse.
Why do you think he chose that form?
Because it's easier.
This university exists
because of tradition and form.
Would you rather this
building be built by engineers
or Whitman and his boys at play?
There can be no creation
before imitation.
Reports from the front say the Nazis
are wheeling up fresh
materiel and reserves.
Shut the books.
We're taking my brother
with us to the social.
He ships out tomorrow.
I can't. You see how much I have to do.
He's Navy. It's catnip for the skins.
You hymies are really
all about work, huh?
Brahms?
Finally.
An oasis in this wasteland.
So how come you're not at the social?
Only the most antisocial have to
go to an event actually called one.
- Libation?
- What, you drink in your room?
How does a horrible
bottle of Chianti sound?
I don't drink.
Freshman?
- Yes.
- Excellent. I love first times.
I want my entire life
to be composed of them.
Life is only interesting
if life is wide.
To Walt Whitman.
You dirty bastard.
How's your Yeats?
Have you read A Vision?
Never heard of it.
It's completely brilliant.
And impossible.
He says that life is round.
That we're stuck on this
wheel of living and dying.
An endless circle.
Until
someone breaks it.
You walked in here. You
ruptured the pattern.
- Bang. The whole world gets wider.
- Gets wider.
- How did you...
- it's consonance.
A reiteration of themes.
Are you a writer?
'Cause I've got a job for a writer.
No, I'm not.
Well, you're not anything yet.
Ginsberg.
Isn't that you?
- Ginsberg! What?
Phone call.
I'll be back.
Thank you.
- Hello.
- I found the wires.
He's trying to get inside my head.
Dad is not trying to get
inside your head, okay?
Put him on.
He's not here. He left.
Where'd he go?
Honey, I need you to come home now.
Mom, I can't come home.
Listen to me.
You have to look after yourself
I don't feel good.
- Are you going to the dance?
- Downtown.
- Now?
- Who are you talking to?
- No one.
- Is he there with you?
No, Mom, he's not here.
Look, I will be there as soon as I can.
I need you tonight.
I need you to promise me.
I promise. I love you.
Bye.
Coming?
Welcome to the edge of the world.
Allen in Wonderland.
- Do you know her?
- No, and I don't plan on it.
She tasted like imported
sophistication and domestic cigarettes.
Dave, where's the liquor'?
I'll be right back.
You are pinching.
- You are pinching.
- I'm sorry.
You okay?
What's that?
Nitrous oxide for narco analysis.
Know thyself and beshit thyself.
You ever done that?
No thanks. I don't do the cannabis.
Show me the man who is
both sober and happy,
and I will show you the crinkled anus
of a lying asshole.
Allen, Willy. Willy, Allen.
Lucien, reefer.
Nice meeting you.
- Is he a criminal?
- He wishes he were a criminal.
The Burroughs family is richer than God.
- Well, he looks like a criminal.
- He's a Harvard man.
He's going to be an amazing artist.
His current medium is himself.
- What's that?
- It's bunk for school.
Come on. I want you to meet our host.
What we have, darlings and
demoiselles, is a circle.
Life is round.
Patterns, routines,
a wheel of self-abuse.
Margaret, don't even deny it.
- He sounds like you.
- Because it was me first.
Until the disruption
we long for comes along
and the circle is broken.
He used to be my guardian angel,
but he said I was too much work.
Take this unbloomed stalwart.
And you are?
Allen.
Allen.
Play nice, David.
- Who comes uninvited to my apartment.
- Actually, I invited him.
No one notices him.
Look at him. Why would we bother'?
So the pattern of our lives holds.
But who knows?
Under the right circumstances,
even he might change the world.
In the distance I heard a sound
The sound of marching men
So you met Lucien in the lunch line,
and now he's all that you can see.
Why don't you like me?
Because David was in the
same godforsaken line.
And then
Some ear job at the
bar just called me kid,
so I stole his drink.
That's Ogden Nash.
Who's Ogden Nash? - The
best-selling poet in the country.
Perhaps you've heard this one.
"The girl who is bespectacled
she may not get her nectacled
"But safety pins and bassinets... "
"Await the girl who fassinets. "
And that's what he's
selling? I'll kill him.
Aim for the throat.
No. We're not going to kill him.
Even better, we're going to
make sure nobody remembers him.
How many men started the Renaissance?
- Two.
- And the Romantics?
More, I suspect, than
this theory accommodates.
We're sending millions to Europe to
fight the fascists, but they're here.
- Metre and rhyme...
- And Professor Steeves.
Yes!
They're all guards in some prison.
Let's make the prisoners
come out and play.
Let's come up with
new words, new rhythms.
We need a name.
How did they come up with "Dada"?
Tristan Tzara jabbed a
knife into a dictionary.
Shit. So that's been done.
A literary revolution
without writing a word.
- Neat trick, Lu.
- Well, I'm listening.
What about Yeats?
The New Vision.
Harlem soldiers on the ground
Ginsy.
You're hired.
On parade
Keep it moving, gentlemen.
Stay in line.
Fucking perverts.
"In the dawn, armed
with a burning patience
"we shall enter the splendid city. "
- Shit.
- It's Rimbaud.
It's overwritten, I know. He's allowed.
No. My mother.
This is bad. This is very bad.
What is?
She's gonna be furious.
- Don't go then.
- You don't understand. I have to.
- Why?
- It's complicated.
Perfect.
I love complicated.
- Dad?
- Sign here. Greystone will alert you...
What's going on?
Your mother needs her rest.
Ma.
You can't do this.
Where were you?
I was outwith a friend.
- I called you.
- I know.
- It's time to go, Mrs Ginsberg.
- No, you're not leaving.
- He's already signed the papers.
- Dad, don't.
- It's for the best, son.
- Your best.
You know... it's for her best.
It's not for my best. It's
for her best. Look at her.
- No.
- Listen to her.
- He's not gonna...
- I know it's not. Don't...
Mom. Mom. Mom. Get off.
This is your fault.
Complicated enough?
At least you have her.
My father left me when I was four.
I've been thinking
about what Yeats said.
To be reborn, you have to die first.
What do you suggest?
I spent my entire life
making other people happy.
It's time I find happiness
the only way I see possible.
Oh, please.
Die already.
Where's the verve? The brio?
If it be that I am indulging
my self-consciousness
in justifying myself or if it be...
- That's a run-on.
- Don't edit me.
- The New Vision declares...
- "Proclaims. " It's better.
Proclaims the death of morality.
The expression of self.
The true, uninhibited,
uncensored expression of the self.
Words, boys. Empty words.
- Well, what do you suggest?
- The derangement of the senses.
What do you hate from
the pit of your gut?
- Institutions. Paterson, New Jersey.
- My father.
- Bingo.
And the Shakespeare...
All right.
Extraordinary men
propel society forward.
It is our duty to break the law.
- Really?
- It's how we make the world wider.
- You are an extraordinary man.
- Well, thank you.
Return of the Native.
Leviathan.
Tear 'em up, boys. Destroy
the old and build the new.
Chaucer. Gibbon.
Watch this.
Go.
What the hell is this?
Time slows down
as you drift deeper and
deeper into your cave.
We are exploring the
avenues of Allen's mind.
Dimly lit, I'm sure. What
have you done to my apartment?
Don't touch anything. We
need to write it all down.
Grab a pair of scissors. Get
this man a pair of scissors.
This is not your
revolution. This is my life.
What kind of life is it, David?
It's mine.
Not everyone gets an allowance.
Leave.
Just get out.
I need to speak with you.
Alone.
It only has to be five pages.
You make me too smart, they're
gonna suspect somethings up.
And get you sent back
to your mother again?
That would just be the end of you.
Fuck you.
Kill your darlings,
your crushes, your juvenile metaphysics.
None of them belong on the page.
It is the first principle
of good creative work,
a work of fiction you will
deliver as your final exam.
Look.
Whitman Junior graced us
with his presence today.
"The New Vision.
"Extraordinary men propel us forward.
"It is our duty to break the law. "
Fantastic.
There's more life in those five pages
than in the dozens of bad
sonnets we've read in this class.
You want life?
You want the world on fire?
The war awaits.
What will it be?
"The rose that scents the summer air
"grows from my beloveds hair. "
Keep going. That's
my sonnet for Steeves.
We have the map.
We have the manifesto.
We need the work.
I was wrong.
Maybe you're not up for this after all.
- Show me your fucking map.
- Stop.
No, there's nothing here because
Davids not hereto write it for you.
- It's complicated.
- I love complicated.
He is a professor working as a janitor
so he can be near his precious Lu-Lu.
He is a goddamn fruit
who won't let me go.
A fruit?
A queer.
Then...
You know, let's get rid of him.
Right now' I just need you to
write us something beautiful.
First thought, best thought.
Allen in Wonderland.
Pervitin.
The Germans called it
the "Wunderdroge. "
Prescribed for superhuman feats.
But beware of the side effects
which include sudden bouts of blindness,
diarrhea, heart palpitations
and a severe decline in moral standards.
Unbloomed stalwart.
Come out and play.
What the hell are you doing?
Writing.
But the words...
Oh, the words.
Yeah.
Lu, it's very rough.
The vision at last.
Can I see'?
- Where's Lu?
- He's out.
With a senior football player.
A writer.
And handsome, too.
James?
Jack. There it is.
Jack.
You're not allowed to be here.
That's odd since I'm the
only thing keeping him here.
Not any more.
Piece of advice.
You don't know Lu.
As soon as you think you
do, he'll find someone else.
Maybe he already has.
What, are you moving in?
Where have you been?
I found a real writer.
Already a million words under
his belt before Columbia.
You mean Jack?
Why didn't you tell me?
What, am I supposed to do newsreels?
What's that?
Oh, nothing.
If you're going to stay,
don't hog the blanket.
Why is Jack a real writer?
Once you meet him,
you'll see what I mean.
- Hey, Al.
- No.
- Come on.
- No.
No.
Fumble.
- Jack, what was that?
- The damn cat.
She painted it. Say nothing.
- Hey, when did this come?
- Today.
It's from Sammy. Where is he now'?
I don't know. Some battleship.
What do you think?
It's brilliant, no?
It's missing some periods and commas.
It's better than anything
you've ever written.
- I use periods and commas.
- Both of you, quiet.
Kerouac. How are you, chum?
Sammy, you bastard.
Who's Sammy?
My best friend since I
was 12. Off in the Navy.
We've just been through
20 days of German shelling
every three hours, night and day.
This will be my last one for a while.
Tomorrow we're headed our to the
front, some beach near Rome. Anzio?
Go sit at the table.
It's supposed to be beautiful...
I didn't know we were having guests.
What's this?
I was aiming for stew.
Yeah? You missed.
Come on, guys.
- Where are you going?
- Out.
Out'? I have been
cooking all day for you.
What? What do you want?
Want me to eat shoe leather?
I'm hungry, and what you
do in the kitchen's unholy.
That's funny. You talk like a Catholic,
but you fuck me and won't marry me.
- How does that work?
- Shut your mouth, Edie.
I thought you liked it wide open.
Scram.
Allen.
So, Al. Thought my novel was shit?
- Not exactly. It's not what I
would choose... - it's all true.
Jack sewed in the merchant marines.
I left school twice already.
Columbia's full of squares.
Not even sure why I
bothered to come back.
Why don't you just ship out again?
Trust me, sometimes when I
fight with Edie, I want to.
Well, you two did just fight.
Carr, you're goddamn crazy.
"A new vision. " Yeah.
Sounds phoney.
Movements are cooked up by people who
can't write about the people who can.
I don't think he gets
what we're trying to do.
Listen to me.
This whole town's full of finks on
the 30th floor writing pure chintz.
Writers. A real writers
gotta be in the beds,
down in the trenches and
all the broken places.
Where were your trenches, Al?
- Allen.
- Right.
First thought, best thought.
Fuck you. What does that even mean?
That's good. That's one. What else?
- Fuck your one million words.
- Yes, even better.
You don't know me.
You're right.
Who is "you"?
"Be careful.
"You are not in Wonderland.
"I've heard the strange madness
long growing in your soul.
"But you are fortunate
in your ignorance,
"in your isolation.
"You who have suffered
"find where love hides.
"Give, share, lose,
"lest we die unbloomed. "
Al?
That was beautiful, kid.
You wrote that?
You asked me to.
Forget Columbia.
Forget Ogden Nash.
Here's the plan, boys. We
join the merchant marines,
sail the world until the war ends,
then jump ship and make it
to Paris for the liberation.
And you don't speak French.
Jack does.
It'll be us together at the beginning.
It'll be the perfect day.
- Jesus Christ.
- Get your hands in the air.
You have managed to
matriculate and drop out
of Tulane, Bowdoin and
the University of Chicago.
Your attendance record
here is abominable.
You've ignored curfew.
Your papers, when you
bother to turn them in,
exceed the assigned page limit.
Can you explain why you're at Columbia?
- Well, the same reason you are.
- What is that?
Loose Barnard girls.
I know about your difficulties,
about what happened in Chicago.
- You told him?
- He's not the enemy.
You see, the university
acts in loco parentis.
You are our responsibility.
We're trying to find some way
to make this all work for you.
Who said anybody could know
anything about anything?
Lucien, your temper.
Things were going fine
and you're just spreading rumours
to get me kicked out of here.
Allen. What the hell's going on?
Who's she?
Hi. I'm Edith Cohen.
What's she doing here?
I've been divorced for some time.
I'll go wait outside.
This is the kind of childish outburst...
So that's why you locked Mom up.
Get back here immediately.
Lucien. Lucien.
- Lucien!
- Did he put you up to this?
No.
I stole the boat.
And it was tremendous.
Where are you going?
You know me now.
I'm only good at beginnings.
What, you're dropping out?
Best of luck.
Okay-
My father showed up
today with some new woman
and in the middle of all the
"Allen's a screw-up" monologue,
all of a sudden, I
realised I don't care.
I've never not cared.
So, I told them it was my idea
to steal the boat.
Why?
Because I don't want to be
the person they think I am.
I am on academic probation
and I could get kicked out.
You can't leave.
You started something and I have no
idea what I'm supposed to do next.
It's our turn.
Let's show them what we can do.
You in?
You mustn't drink while you're
handling it, and no writing in it.
It comes back exactly as you've got it.
Next.
Once you get the book,
treat it very, very well.
And you don't break the
binding. Now follow me.
All right.
Hey, no telling Edie.
Maybe you can help me with something.
You're checking out all these books.
I'm asking myself, do
you ever get checked out?
Twenty-five seconds.
Masterful.
- Hi.
- Hi.
Damn it. Shift's over.
See you tomorrow.
I'll go.
Hi.
I wondered if you could help me.
Sure.
I'm looking for a book.
Okay-
- Does this book have a title?
- Yes. Yes.
It's called The Day Amanda Came.
Well, you'll have lo wait.
I can't leave the desk.
I really need it.
Okay-
Only for you.
Shit.
So working here must be a drag.
I like it. It's the
only way I meet boys.
They're very, very strict at Barnard.
Oh, really? How strict?
Well, for example, they
would never let me do this.
Right. No.
Go.
Did you know I've never done it
with someone who was Jewish before?
I'm really excited to
see what it looks like.
Well...
I'm sorry.
I thought you were saying
something, but not saying it.
Should we find your book?
The key.
There is no book.
- Take it off.
- Really?
- You. You take it off.
- Oh, okay.
I'm not a virgin. I have done
it with four guys already.
You're kind of a virgin though, huh?
- No.
- Liar.
See, if you have done it before,
you'll last for 30 seconds.
Stan counting.
One,
two...
Three...
Four...
Five...
Six,
seven,
eight...
Nine...
I knew it.
I bet you don't even read.
I do.
This is it, guys. This is our Bastille.
No chickening out.
Excuse me.
I think I saw some light
or movement in the library.
What just happened?
We know you're here!
Come on.
Lu?
Bill, what the hell? It's locked!
This way.
I think they're this way.
We know you're here.
Come out!
Hey!
Lu, that's enough! What's
wrong with you? Come on.
Not yet. We have to finish.
Enough now! It's over!
Let me go! Allen!
Let go! Let...
Allen! Get off of me.
- One prick.
- Allen.
Allen!
Let's go!
You guys open this
goddamn door right now.
Open this fucking door right now.
Open the fuck up. Open the...
The South Hall library is a church
and these are the sacraments...
Oh, m)'
God.
- To literacy.
- To literacy indeed.
- Jack, that's you, isn't it?
- Yup. Last year.
They still won.
Look at them.
Souvenir history.
To make people think they
left some mark on the world.
Because otherwise,
nobody would ever know.
I never want to end up on that wall.
Have no fear. You never will.
What's he doing here?
Since you didn't stop by earlier,
I just hoped to give you this.
Maybe he didn't want to see you.
I think he can speak for himself.
Yup. He says that we should
all have another round.
You've had plenty of time to celebrate.
Your library high jinks
made the morning paper.
I'm sure you're all very proud.
How do you know it was us?
Did he use that Bastille
line? 'Cause I gave it to him.
I haven't seen you for days.
You left this at my place.
You told the guards we were
there. Nobody else knew.
You wanted me to get kicked
out. You ratted on me.
Stop, Lu. You're losing control.
You know what comes next.
- I know what comes next.
- Yeah.
Cut him off.
Best of luck, Janitor.
- Excuse me?
- We are over.
Leave.
Look at me, Lu.
You said I was everything to you.
You are everything to me.
Everything to me, do you hear me?
Let's go.
Please, Lu. Please?
David, time and place.
Shut up, traitor.
You'd be dead if it weren't for me.
You'd be boring if it weren't for me.
And go!
Oh. my God!
- Jack!
- Jack!
Jack!
He broke his fucking neck.
The warrior poet has passed on.
No!
- He lives!
- Excellent!
Judges award a...
Nine!
- Oh, my God.
- Jack.
All right, Ginsy, your turn.
No, no, no, no.
This is just the beginning, you know.
Your fault, Ginsy.
It's all your fault.
First thought, best thought.
I think I just puked on the inside.
Let's go, Jack.
- What?
- Wait. Al, are you coming?
No, Allen's got work to do.
Ten pages on Spengler's Decline
of the West. Due tomorrow.
Excuse me?
I'd be lost without you, Ginsy.
Come on, lion.
Fuck!
Allied fumes in Anzio...
Edie bird!
My Edie bird.
I'm just gonna use the loo.
Say hi to Gram.
...burrow and cover in a
honeycomb of trenches and foxholes.
We invited her over for her
birthday. We made her a cake.
Well, then we should have a drink.
How about a drink, Grandma Frankie?
You want some red wine?
- Where the hell have you been?
- I was out.
I packed all your stuff. It's in your
bag. I'm gonna be at Gram's tonight.
Hey, hey. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
- No, you just say that.
- I'm sorry.
It's one of your million words,
and they don't mean anything.
Just don't be here when I
come back in the morning.
I know this is crazy.
I don't even know what I'm
doing here, but I just had to
tell you I'm sorry.
Let me make it up to you.
Lu, where are you?
I'm going back to bed.
Another word and I call the police.
What the hell?
Jesus Christ!
What kind of sick son of a bitch
would do something like this?
It was David.
I'll wring his fucking neck.
It's okay. It's okay.
I have another idea.
Lu,
YOU!' paper.
Where are you going?
Sailing out.
To Paris.
We're gonna make a
ship as merchant seamen.
Jack knows the tricks.
You weren't gonna tell me?
We both know why you can't come.
Fuck you!
You're a phoney.
And you got me and Jack and
Bill making your vision come true
because you can't do it yourself.
No, Allen.
You got what you wanted.
You were ordinary, just
like every other freshman.
And I made your life extraordinary.
Go be you now, all by
yourself. Leave me alone.
You don't mean that.
- Allen!
- Please.
Leave.
Allen, have you seen him?
- He's not in his room.
- He left.
I did something wrong.
Really wrong.
You have no reason to help me. But...
But?
I know who you are.
We're the ones he needs but never wants.
It hurts, doesn't it?
All I'm asking is that
you tell me where he is.
Please.
Let me see your papers.
Two seamen reporting for duty.
What's your name?
Arthur Rimbaud.
Go upstairs to get on the docket.
Let's go get on the docket.
Goddamn son of a bitch!
Let me handle this.
How did you know that I would be here?
Listen, I spoke to a guy
upstairs. I got us two passes.
I packed for both of us.
We can leave.
The reason I am leaving is you.
Then you and Jack take
them. I'll catch up.
Come with me.
We're taking a walk.
Can I have a whisky, please?
I'm sorry.
Lu?
This came for you today.
Sam.
Jack, old chum.
I'm on a hospital ship
now. My gut's all tore up.
Anzio's gonna be the last
place I ever see with my eyes.
A mortar round came
and found me in my tent.
I can feel metal under
my skin some places.
Some wen! clean through.
They're not even trying
to take it out no more.
The nurses gave me the same morphine
I gave to dying boys when I
didn't know what else to do.
"Wake, melancholy Mother,
"wake and weep!
"Quench within
"their burning bed, Thy fiery tears,
"and let thou loud heart keep... "
What was that?
Shelley's elegy for Keats.
What does that mean?
It means he's dead.
He didn't come back here afterward.
Nobody on the floor saw.
We have two in custody. Were
still gathering evidence.
So what else do we know about this guy?
Edie. Is Jack there?
You don't know?
Know what?
The police came and took
him down to the Tombs
as an accessory.
Bill, too.
What happened?
Allen.
Thank God.
He wanted to hurt me.
I had no choice.
You could've run, called the police.
Listen.
Somehow he found me at the Marine Hall.
He said that no matter where
I went, he would follow.
When I confronted him, he exploded.
I had to defend myself.
He wouldn't stop.
How did Jack and Bill
get roped into this?
I went to them after.
First, I went to Jack.
He told me to get rid of the knife
and to forget the whole thing.
But then I went to Bill.
He told me to get a lawyer.
To confess.
To say that it was an
act of self-defence.
The DA is asking for my deposition
in writing.
I can! do it.
I don't know what I'm going to do.
I'm gonna be stuck in here
for the rest of my life.
Please don't leave me here.
I'll do it.
We're going to say that
it was an honour slaying.
"Relating to a lethal attack committed
"when the accused is defending
himself against a known homosexual,
"If the accused is heterosexual,
"he shall be pardoned.
"But if the accused is homosexual,
"the charge of murder
in the first degree... "
Dad?
It's $5,000 bail.
I know. I know it's a lot.
No Kerouac was ever
wrapped up in a murder.
Go to hell!
Would you all just shut the hell up!
You must understand that David
has been following him for years.
When Lu went to Bowdoin,
David appeared out of thin air.
So I sent him to Chicago.
Surprise.
David turned up there, too.
Then when Lucien wanted to go to Mexico,
guess who had a car
idling in the driveway?
But he didn't have to go with him.
He spun a web to ensnare my son.
That's why I brought him here.
Lot of good that did.
What happened in Chicago?
Thank God Lu has you in his life.
You know what, Allen?
He calls you his guardian angel.
That's what he called David.
That man ruined my son.
You're gonna help me
keep what's left of him.
Contrary to reports,
prison is not a tonic for the spirit.
All the district attorney cared
about was that David was queer.
And what did you tell him?
I said yes.
Did David do something to Lu in Chicago?
Christ, Allen, please
don't get involved.
I have to be.
I'm helping him write his defence.
David was my friend.
And he's dead.
And did Lucien tell you how he died?
He might not have wanted
you to know, Allen.
He tied David up.
Put stones in his
pockets to weigh him down,
and then dragged him into the Hudson.
What?
He was alive, Allen,
until Lucien made him drown.
Who are you? Is he
part of this business?
Leave him alone, Dad.
I paid your bail.
Don't talk to me like that.
YES, sir.
The car leaves in five minutes.
The libertine circle has come to an end.
Go back to the beginning.
"Cook's County Hospital of Chicago. "
"David Kammerer. "
He would leave me alone in the house.
- I was gonna die there.
- No, you weren't.
- Yeah, I know it.
- No, Mom. Stop.
Hey. I'm okay now.
I'm your mother and I'm okay.
But you're not.
I'm in over my head.
Someone I know killed a man.
And...
I don't know what to do.
He wants my help and I don't
know if I should give it to him.
I don't know if ifs right.
It's just a mess.
You let him go.
- What?
- Don't help him.
- I can't, Mom. He's my best friend.
- Listen to me.
The most important thing your
father ever did was fail me.
You understand?
He loved you.
And the truth is, once,
you loved him back.
- What about what I need?
- But the secret ate away at you.
I was a kid, and you dragged
me into your perverted mess.
So in Chicago, you
tried to kill yourself
How can you say that?
You know that's not true.
He rescued you.
I will never give up on us.
He saved your life.
You're pathetic.
You needed him as much as he needed you.
Now I know how you felt.
When?
When you wanted to die.
Do it.
Do it.
Some things,
once you've loved them,
become yours forever.
And if you try to let them go
they only circle back and return to you.
They become part of who you are.
"Or they destroy you. "
You can't show this to anyone.
- Then tell the truth, Lu.
- You weren't even there.
It's your truth. It's fiction.
You wanted him gone,
too. You sent him to me.
Please. You'll kill me with that.
Allen. No.
Allen! Don't. No!
Don't!
Allen Ginsberg.
He'll be with you in a
minute. Please have a seat.
Mr Ginsberg, he's ready for you.
Mr Ginsberg?
How did you expect us to react to this?
No, please, tell me.
Professor Steeves says that
you submitted it as your final.
Well, then let me tell you.
It's smutty and it's absurd.
But you finished it.
You have taken incompletes in two
classes and you are on academic probation.
There are rules that you agreed to
upon acceptance into this university
and you managed to break and
you just keep breaking them.
You don't seem to have much
respect for this institution.
So, you may either
retract this fiction as your final
or you may choose to be expelled.
What will it be?
Fine.
Consider me expelled.
No, this remains with us.
World News Today, brought
to you by Hasbro Corporation.
This came for you.
"Exhibitors, dealers all over
America and in many foreign lands.
By shortwave broadcast direct
to important overseas stations
and leading newscasts
of our own country,
CBS reporters witnessing firsthand
news of the world's political and...
Survivors have assembled in
the streets in celebration.
This is the end of a long darkness.
France and Europe are finally free.
Another lover hits the universe.
The circle is broken.
But with death comes rebirth.
And like all lovers and sad people,
I am a poet.