‘Kill Your Darlings’ director undaunted by decade-long challenges

TORONTO – New York filmmaker John Krokidas says it took him over 10 years to get his feature directorial debut, the Beat Generation drama “Kill Your Darlings” starring Daniel Radcliffe as a teenage Allen Ginsberg, on the big screen.

During that time he went through “a roller coaster” ride in which the project almost got to production twice, with different casts, then fell apart partly due to funding issues.

“If it didn’t come together in this current incarnation, to be blunt and honest, I probably would’ve given up,” the 40-year-old said in an interview at the recent Toronto International Film Festival.

What kept him committed was something that also kept him up at night — a disturbing element in the true-life love triangle of sorts between Ginsberg, Beat muse Lucien Carr and elder friend David Kammerer, whom Carr stabbed to death in 1944.

“What it was in this movie, it’s the fact that in 1944, that you could literally get away with murder by portraying your victim as a homosexual,” said Krokidas. “And while that’s a stain on American history for sure, the fact is, it’s still pretty culturally relevant if you look at what’s going on in the Soviet Union right now.

“Being a gay man, this being my first film, this is not a political film by any means of the imagination, but it was something to keep the fire in my belly going — that even when this movie looked like it was never going to happen, it was something that caused me to wake up the next day and get back on the phone and just start making more phone calls and to try to get it made.”

Krokidas was referring to Carr’s so-called “honour slaying” defence, which involved portraying Kammerer as a homosexual stalker at trial. Carr ended up serving two years in a correctional facility.

As the film shows, the two were lovers for several years before the murder. They also influenced what would become the Beat Generation of writers.

Dane DeHaan deftly plays Carr in the film opposite Michael C. Hall as Kammerer.

The story begins with Ginsberg leaving his New Jersey childhood home to attend Columbia University, where he meets and becomes infatuated with the charismatic and confident Carr.

Carr introduces him to a group of budding writers who frequent wild parties and smoky jazz bars as they try to start a “literary revolution.” Among them are Jack Kerouac, played by Jack Huston, and William S. Burroughs, played by Ben Foster.

The group’s reckless behaviour rubs off on Ginsberg, who clashes with Kammerer as they vie for Carr’s attention.

Co-stars include Jennifer Jason Leigh as Ginsberg’s emotionally ill mother, David Cross as his poet father, and Elizabeth Olsen as Kerouac’s girlfriend, Edie.

Krokidas directed the film and co-wrote it with playwright Austin Bunn, his former college roommate from Yale University.

Krokidas said the two first discussed the project over a decade ago and decided to hone in Ginsberg’s journey from directionless teen to self-proclaimed artist inspired by Carr.

Radcliffe signed on to the film over four years ago, before it was financed, and participated in chemistry reads to help Krokidas cast the role of Carr.

DeHaan, who bears a striking resemblance to a young Leonardo DiCaprio and starred in the 2012 film “The Place Beyond the Pines,” “came in and set the room on fire,” said Krokidas.

“They always tell you, ‘Never cast an actor in the room, wait and have a conversation about it afterwards,’ and so I just turned to Dane and gave him the line that all directors give when you’re kind of considering someone, which is, ‘So what’s your life like in the next six months?’

“He kind of pulled this James Dean pose and was like, ‘I don’t know, you tell me,’ and Dan (Radcliffe) and I looked at each other like, ‘Yes!’

“Because he had that inherent cockiness, and we knew he was playing that moment for us, but at that point we were a grateful audience.”

DeHaan said Carr is “the least documented historical person in the movie,” so he read correspondence between Kerouac and Ginsberg, as well as Ginsberg’s diaries, to find clues on his personality.

He discovered that Carr, who died in 2005, liked to push boundaries as a way to inspire others and gain the attention he craved back then.

“I remember coming across stories of him going onto a boat and sinking the ship just so he could feel what it was like to stand on the dock of a boat that was sinking, and going to restaurants and ordering the most expensive steak just so he could like throw it on the floor and jump on the table and cause a scene, or like chew a martini glass and chew the glass.”

Last year saw the release of another Beat Generation drama, the film adaptation of Kerouac’s “On the Road,” and Dane DeHaan said it’s clear the Beat Generation is resonating with today’s audiences.

“The Beat poets were the original hipsters, you know, and the hipster culture is back in a big way. I mean, where I live in Brooklyn, I can’t walk down the street without seeing like 10 people dressed like Jack Kerouac.

“It’s really amazing the effect that they had on a lot of culture, but especially today’s hipster culture.”

“Kill Your Darlings” opens Friday in Toronto and Montreal. It hits Edmonton and Vancouver on Nov. 15, and Ottawa on Nov. 22.