Allen Ginsberg on Film: SCREEN TEST, COUCH, WHOLLY COMMUNION, PULL MY DAISY

Allen Ginsberg on Film: SCREEN TEST, COUCH, WHOLLY COMMUNION, PULL MY DAISY

Thursday, September 17, 7:00 PM
All screenings are at the Millennium Film Workshop,
66 East 4th Street, NY NY 10003.
Programs are subject to change.
Advance Tickets: www.brownpapertickets.com/event/79647
Admission: $10 to benefit the HOWL ! HELP Fund
Cash only tickets available at the door two hours before showtime.
Curated by Jon Gartenberg.

HOWL ! ARTS PROJECT 2009: FILM SERIES presents
Allen Ginsberg on Film

Introduction by Callie Angell, Adjunct Curator, The Andy Warhol Film Project, Whitney Museum of American Art:
SCREEN TEST, 1966, directed by Andy Warhol. Cast: Allen Ginsberg. B/W, silent, 4 min. 16mm print courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art Circulating Film Library.
A portrait of Allen Ginsberg filmed by Andy Warhol on December 4, 1966. This was one of the very last of the hundreds of screen tests that Warhol shot of well-known personalities from the poetry, music, fashion, film, and other creative worlds that visited his famous Factory.

COUCH, 1964, directed by Andy Warhol.
Cast: Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Gregory Corso, Peter Orlovsky, and others. B/W, silent, 52 min. 16mm print courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art Circulating Film Library.
“Warhol had filmed Ginsberg once before in 1964 when he shot several rolls of a historic gathering of Ginsberg and his fellow Beats Jack Kerouac, Gregory Corso, and Peter Orlovsky hanging out in and around the Factory couch.” (Callie Angell)

Introduction by Paul Cronin, author, filmmaker and historian:
WHOLLY COMMUNION, 1965, Peter Whitehead. Cast: Gregory Corso, Harry Fanlight, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, Michael Horovitz, Ernst Jandl, Christopher Logue, Adrian Mitchell, Alexander Trocchi. B/W, sound, 35 min. 16mm print courtesy of the Reserve Film and Video Collection of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, with the permission of Contemporary Films, London.
“Peter Whitehead captures the unexpected, the intensity and the excitement of a Happening, as 7000 people jam into London’s Albert Hall on June 11, 1965 for four hours of poetry reading by many Beat poets.” (New York Public Library Catalogue)
Excerpts from IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE IMAGE: CONVERSATIONS WITH PETER WHITEHEAD, 2006, directed by Paul Cronin. Cast: Peter Whitehead. B/W and color, sound. DVD courtesy of Paul Cronin.
Historian/filmmaker Paul Cronin interviews Peter Whitehead, the filmmaker of WHOLLY COMMUNION, about the significance of this unique Beat poetry event.

PULL MY DAISY, 1959, directed by Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie. Cast: Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Larry Rivers, Peter Orlovsky, David Amram, Richard Bellamy, Alice Neel, Sally Gross, Pablo Frank, Denise Parker, Delphine Seyrig, Jack Kerouac (narrator), Music by David Amram. B/W, sound, 29 min. 16mm print courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
“PULL MY DAISY is a classic look at the soul of the beat generation, made with writers Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, and painters Alfred Lesllie, Larry Rivers, and Alice Neel. It was written and narrated by Kerouac, based on his unproduced play ‘The Beat Generation.’ It tells the story of a bishop (Richard Bellamy) and his mother (Alice Neel) who pay a visit to Milo, a railroad worker. At the same time his poet friends, Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, and Gregory Corso, hang around quizzing the bishop about the meaning of life and its everyday relationship to art and poetry.” (Museum of Fine Arts catalogue)

Photo credits: top to bottom: Allen Ginsberg in Wholly Communion by Peter Whitehead,
used with permission, all rights reserved, copyright Peter Whitehead. Pull My Daisy film still by Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie, used with permission, all rights reserved, copyright Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie.