Road rules

Books and movies are two very different entities and those who love to read are frequently let down by the film versions of their favorite titles. That Jack Kerouac’s name is on the poster of Walter Salles’ adaptation of On the Road could be a mere marketing ploy — the author was, after all, a literary rock star and the figurehead of the media-manufactured Beat Generation. On the other hand, it could be a genuine indication that this big-screen interpretation, widely expected to make its debut at Cannes in May, is indeed as true to the source material as it gets. Whatever the motivation is, I can’t wait to see it.  

I first read On The Road as a wide-eyed 19-year-old travelling to Seoul on a student trip. While the sex, drugs and dropouts leitmotif initially grabbed my attention, it was the novel’s overarching themes — freedom, full engagement with the world, the quest for meaning — that eventually stuck. Since then I’ve reread it a handful of times: on a bus from Santa Marta, Colombia to Maracaibo, Venezuela; at a sandwich shop in Brighton, England; in the shadow of high-rise apartment towers in my neighborhood. Whenever and wherever I felt like reconnecting with my teenage self, I’d double back to this sentence: “The air was soft, the stars so fine, the promise of every cobbled alley so great, that I thought I was in a dream.” 

Familiar Territory

Into the great wide open: Sam Riley as Sal Paradise, Jack Kerouac’s alter ego, and Garrett Hedlund as Dean Moriarty in Walter Salles’ to-be-released adaptation of On The Road.

The idealist in me believes that Brazilian director Walter Salles is the right man for the job: 2004’s The Motorcycle Diaries, an absorbing look at the early years of Cuban revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara, was a fine introduction. As Paul Webster, the biopic’s executive producer, put it then: “The Che of The Motorcycle Diaries is more akin to Jack Kerouac or Neal Cassady than Marx or Lenin.” On The Road, which chronicles Kerouac’s North American odyssey, should be familiar territory.

In a letter penned by the American novelist in 1957, the year Viking Press published On The Road, Jack Kerouac requested the movie actor Marlon Brando to star as Dean Moriarty in his very own production, one that would have seen the author himself take on the role of Sal Paradise. Meanwhile, Salles’ rendering, which began principal photography in August 2010 in Montreal, Canada and was edited and mixed in Paris this January, counts among its cast Sam Riley (Control; Brighton Rock) as Sal Paradise, Jack Kerouac’s alter ego; Garrett Hedlund (Tron: Legacy; Country Strong) as Dean Moriarty; Tom Sturridge (The Boat That Rocked) as Carlo Marx; and Kristen Stewart (Twilight) as Marylou. The Guardian’s Film Blog, however, questions the young actress’s attempts to avoid typecasting: “So can Stewart break free of Twilight’s shackles and prove that she’s an actor worth noticing, or will she be Bella forever?” I’m willing to give her another shot, but I’m keeping my expectations really low.

Workwear And Nonconformity

Lore and legend: Jack Kerouac was a figurehead of the media-manufactured Beat Generation and riotously drank himself into an early grave. CORBIS

Even though the April 2012 issue of GQ favored another Beat icon, Naked Lunch author William S. Burroughs, over Jack Kerouac when it came to style, Esquire tipped its hat to the latter. “Because during the decade that brought the world The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, Kerouac embraced workwear as both a functional uniform and a nod to nonconformity,” according to the publication’s “75 Best-Dressed Men of All Time.”

Another magazine summed up the renegade literary idol’s anti-fashion wardrobe thus: “The Beats’ look had an academic intelligence and genuinely rebellious attitude: crumpled tees, casual trousers like jeans and khaki work pants, thrifted leathers or blazers, topped off with thick-rimmed spectacles became synonymous with contemporary alt culture at its very conception.” So it appears that On The Road inspired not only writers, artists and musicians. Brands such as Gap and Hogan cashed in on Kerouac’s brand of mid-century cool in 1993 and 2007, respectively, demonstrating that his book has somehow encouraged more posing than any other work of fiction.

“Since his death in 1969 at 47, from alcoholism, things have swung back in black the other way — hard — and show no signs of letting up,” notes Canada’s The Globe and Mail. “On the contrary, Kerouac is now almost as culturally mythic as such other icons of his era as Elvis, Marilyn and JFK.” Proof: hot on the heels of Salles’ yet-to-be-released On The Road comes Big Sur, a translation of the 1962 novel to be helmed by writer-director Michael Polish. I’m certain that Jack Kerouac’s name will also be on the poster of that one.  

* * *

ginobambino.tumblr.com.

You don’t know Jack: In a move that incensed literary purists, Jack Kerouac’s estate allowed his image to be used in a 1993 Gap campaign.