Director Michael Polish (Twin Falls Idaho) is filming a scene from a forthcoming film about Jack Kerouac today at Fulton and 7th Avenue, at a historic train terminal where Kerouac gets off a 1950s bus.
A big screen adaptation of memoirish novel Big Sur, starring Jean-Marc Barr (Dogville) as Kerouac, Josh Lucas (The Lincoln Lawyer) is taking on best friend Neal Cassady, and Kate Bosworth (Superman Returns) is playing Billie, as well as Anthony Edwards, Rahda Mitchell, Balthazar Getty and Henry Thomas are playing supporting roles.
Along with sudden fame and media publicity came his unraveling, and, by 1960, Kerouac was an exhausted cynic, disaffected from the Beat culture he helped create and tortured by self-doubt, addiction and depression.
He secretly retreats to Lawrence Ferlinghetti's rustic cabin in the Big Sur woods. But his plan is foiled by his own inner demons, and what ensues that summer becomes the basis for Kerouac's gritty, yet lyrically told, semi-autobiographical novel, Big Sur.
In 2008, One Fast Move or I'm Gone: Jack Kerouac and Big Sur, a documentary about the experiences the book was based, on was released, by the interpretations and reflections of writers, actors, poets and musicians who have been deeply influenced by Kerouac's exceptional gifts like Tom Waits, Sam Shepard, Patti Smith, Aram Saroyan and Donal Logue.
It's the second Kerouac to be recently adapted, as Walter Salles shot a featured version of On the Road with Sam Riley, Garrett Hedlund, Kristen Stewart, Kristen Dunst and Viggo Mortensen.
So, first scenes being shot in, predictably, Richmond, San Francisco and there's no mention of release date, or Michael's sibling, Mark Polish, either, but I can't imagine he won't be involved in some capacity.
However, fifty years later, the Beat Generation is finally making its mark in film.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOer13WNPfk[/youtube]
One Fast Move or I'm Gone: Kerouac's Big Sur – Trailer
