January 11th, 2012 / 5:00 pm
 Film

James Franco + Hart Crane

Two posts in one day after not posting for a century, but then I saw this:

James Franco, Hart Crane, discuss.

Tags: ,

36 Comments

  1. January 11th, 2012 / 5:04 pm Daniel Bailey—

      seems like he’s trying to do 2 or 3 grad theses in one project. at least he’s doing his homework.

  2. January 11th, 2012 / 5:15 pm Nick Moran—

      If James Franco does some pretentious bullshit and nobody in the world of lit blogs talks about it, did it really happen?

      Self-edit: removed “blogosphere” b/c that’s an awful word.

  3. January 11th, 2012 / 5:34 pm Doug—

      Can’t wait for his Ezra Pound film.

  4. January 11th, 2012 / 5:42 pm joe—

      I see him as more of a Billy Collins.

  5. January 11th, 2012 / 6:42 pm NLY—

      I’m willing to give him the opportunity to disappoint me, but Ginsberg might have been more within his range. If he tries treating Crane like a Beat poet it’s going to get ridiculous.

  6. January 11th, 2012 / 6:45 pm Mason Johnson—

      Michael Shannon!

  7. January 11th, 2012 / 7:04 pm Brian Miles—

      The stache reminds me more of Stevens than Crane… Stevens would be a boring movie, haha. Hopefully it’s kind of fun…

  8. January 11th, 2012 / 7:32 pm Jonathan Safran Foer—

      I met him (Franco him) once at a party. He seemed tired and a bit greasy. I liked the guy, we took a whiz together and he walked away gracefully afterward when I chastised him for eating a hotdog roll. Turned out it was vegan one anyway.

  9. January 11th, 2012 / 8:02 pm Cvan—

      I love that someone who writes so terribly seems to be in the position of defining himself as “literary guy” by the means of playing authors in movies.  Hey Franco, next time how about you play an author actually at your writing level.  I’ll look forward to watching “The Dan Brown Story” in 3-D.

  10. January 11th, 2012 / 9:08 pm Chris Moran—

      i don’t have an opinion on that video but i just wanted to say that Paul Mariani’s The Broken Tower is brilliant and feverish and really probably my favorite biography of all time

  11. January 11th, 2012 / 10:11 pm Jackson Mace—

      agreed. And if Mariani had anything to do with the development of the film then I imagine it’s pretty good.

  12. January 11th, 2012 / 10:28 pm The Ghost of Richard James—

      Jack of all trades, master of none.

  13. January 11th, 2012 / 11:10 pm Matthew Salesses—

      I don’t get all the hate. Do we want Hollywood to care less about literature? I’m glad to see a movie about Hart Crane, who led a ridiculously fascinating life.

  14. January 11th, 2012 / 11:35 pm Cvan—

      I want Hollywood to care more about better films but also for James Franco to care less about literature which is his own. 

  15. January 11th, 2012 / 11:36 pm lily hoang—

      He’s so great.

  16. January 11th, 2012 / 11:43 pm joe—

      I would like to see Franco care less about literature that is NOT his own. Then we’d have less movies where he pretends to be some poet who already did his own thing and maybe he’d have more time to write better whatever it is he’s writing.

      Also Hollywood loves literature, didn’t y’all see The Help?

  17. January 11th, 2012 / 11:50 pm Matt Runkle—

      Ugh. I know it’s to be expected, but this shit looks SO HETERO.

  18. January 12th, 2012 / 12:36 am For Real—

      Get yr hands off my homo heros. Please. Really. It’s torturous to watch this. I cannot look at James Franco and see anyone but James Franco. Not Ginsburg. Not Crane. Please just stop now. Can’t he make some movie about some straight male poet for once? Please?

  19. January 12th, 2012 / 12:50 am Anonymous—

      “Goodbye, everybody!” 
      — James Franco

  20. January 12th, 2012 / 2:21 am Bob—

      Pretty sure there’s some pretty graphic gay shit in this anyway

  21. January 12th, 2012 / 2:31 am William VanDenBerg—

      He was in the god damn Wicker Man. That is the only thing that should be on his resume.

      God damnit.

  22. January 12th, 2012 / 9:47 am marshall—

      shots fired

  23. January 12th, 2012 / 12:00 pm Osmon Steele—

      That is ice cold and I like it.

  24. January 12th, 2012 / 12:33 pm GuestGuest—

      It strikes me as terribly amusing that so many people are frustrated about the existence of Franco within the realm of literary cinema. For one, it’s clear that you won’t see the film because of a bias toward him; two, talking about him doing something more “his own” and “at his writing level” is a form of advocating more banality (as you’ve seen it as such already) or backing away from explaining what it is, exactly, about him that constitutes an incapability to bring the lives of many relatively unknown (or under-known, as this seems to be at the backbone of the half-arguments, that these are great artists who can’t be portrayed…) artists to a populated surface in which those outside the field of literature can then learn more about them. Here is a young actor/artist enthralled by what he reads and sees so he helps bring it to light. Even as a self-proclaiming literary elitist myself, I have no problem with the life of Crane coming into light. Those who actually read will know that Franco is not Crane and those who think that Franco’s Crane is Crane will hopefully then go to the work and say, this stuff is phenomenal but a different man indeed.

  25. January 12th, 2012 / 12:44 pm Jonathan Safran Foer—

      You released the ban!

  26. January 12th, 2012 / 1:18 pm Anonymous—

      nice.

  27. January 12th, 2012 / 2:56 pm Matt Tyler—

      woah even the kids with glasses are territorial

  28. January 12th, 2012 / 8:04 pm Jonathan Safran Foer—

      Huh… Maybe it was a temporary ban. Tell me if I’m too much

  29. January 12th, 2012 / 11:27 pm Cvan—

      Yes, it happened because Eugenides gave it an automatic A.

  30. January 12th, 2012 / 11:30 pm Cvan—

      Hey I could have said, “Gotcha: The Story Of Mattie Stepanek and ‘Heartsongs'”

  31. January 13th, 2012 / 11:03 pm Jonathan Safran Foer—

      If I were in Franco’s position, I would do the same thing, at least with the writing MFAs. He has enough money to workshop his shit with the writers he really likes. No doubt he used the same stories for each of his classes that semester and simply polished them with four profs instead of one the way other MFAs do. The PhD is just coursework until it’s time for his orals, an MFA in film can basically be done on set (he has the human resources and equipment literally sitting around him while he’s on set) and the art MFA is basically the same as his film one. The dark secret is that his assistant probably wrote his critiques and briefed him on each story.

  32. January 13th, 2012 / 11:51 pm Matt Tyler—

      take a breath.  go outside.  it’s okay.

  33. January 13th, 2012 / 11:54 pm Matt Tyler—

      that ending was really good, actually.  FLIPPED it up there, did ya?

  34. January 14th, 2012 / 1:13 am Jonathan Safran Foer—

      You know it’s true

  35. January 15th, 2012 / 12:33 am Cvan—

      Wow, savvy.  And here I thought you were just a Isaac Bashevis Singer wannabe with a better writing spouse.

  36. January 15th, 2012 / 3:57 pm Anonymous—

      I’m like whatever about James Franco. I think Keanu Reeves would have nailed Hart Crane’s personage and diction much more to a T.