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Thierrybazzanella.com - Heart Beat
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List Price: $19.98
Our Price: $19.72
Your Save: $ 0.26 ( 1% )
Availability: N/A
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Starring: Nick Nolte, Sissy Spacek, John Heard, Ray Sharkey, Ann Dusenberry
Directed By: John Byrum
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9786300271739
Format: Color
ISBN: 6300271730
Label: Warner Home Video
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Release Date: 1993-01-27
Running Time: 110
Studio: Warner Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: 1980
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Editorial Reviews:
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For a man who affected two generations of the counterculture--the beatniks and the hippies that followed them--there's been surprisingly little written by Neal Cassady, despite the fact that he served as muse to both Jack Kerouac and Ken Kesey. In this fictionalized film, Nick Nolte plays Cassady, a man with huge appetites for all that life has to offer. He befriends the confused, questing Kerouac (John Heard), imparts wisdom, and helps Kerouac take on the world on his own terms--and write On the Road. But their friendship is tested by the relationship they share with the woman who would eventually become Cassady's wife, Caroline (played by Sissy Spacek). For a film about two such freewheeling characters, there's surprisingly little real life to this film, though Nolte attacks the role with vigor. Director John Byrum would go on to butcher The Razor's Edge with Bill Murray a few years later. --Marshall Fine
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: angina
Comment: If there is a great movie to be made about Jack Kerouac, and Neal and Carolyn Cassidy, this aint it. "Suggested" by Carolyn's memoirs, writer/director John Byrum's film degenerates into yet another adulterous husband saga. The idea that Carolyn has is that Neal is the muse for Kerouac's writing but since Jack knew Neal and had written On The Road before they met her, Carolyn's insight appears to be limited to the time Neal married her and they lived miserably in suburbia until Jack joined them for a menage a trois. Byrum's stabs at the stifling conservatism of America in the 50's is represented by neighbours of the Cassidy's who come for dinners. Their embarassment over Neal's deliberate rudeness is funnier than their apparent shock at the later threesome. The film proposes that it was Allen Ginsberg's notoriety which propelled publishers who had previously rejected his novel, to suddenly change their mind. The fact that Ginsberg is named Ira here (played by Ray Sharkey, giving the best performance of the cast) and that none of On The Road is heard seems to suggest that Byrum seems to be avoiding copyright problems. The film begins well and Laszlo Kovacs' yellow tint lighting gives it a dated look which is very appealing. An image of Neal sitting in a cafe recalls Edward Hopper. As Carolyn, Sissy Spacek is given a romantic entrance supported by a lovely Jack Nitzsche theme, and it's great to see her with a Veronica Lake hairdo and glamourised. But as soon as Jack and the Cassidy's separate, the energy drops and we get stuck in suburbia, while Jack toils the soil in Mexico, waiting. The notion that Neal has stolen Carolyn away from Jack seems unmotivated since we've hardly seen them together, but clearly this is needed to explain Jack's re-appearance. And the later scenes of Jack handly his fame badly seem surprising considering what a best seller the book is said to be. The interviews we see show hostile hosts. Where was Steve Allen, who was a mad On the Road fan? It is interesting to see how Carolyn believes that the Beat generation, with the berets and beards, is thought of as a bastardisation of Kerouac's ideology based on Neal's freedom, since Neal never presented such artifice. As Neal, Nick Nolte suggests a restless spirit though hardly a bisexual one, as is implied. We don't believe him when he keeps telling us how much he loves Spacek. She narrates and spars well though ultimately she remains an enigma. Perhaps the reason Byrum has used the word "suggested" and not adapted from the memoirs means that information which may have made her more interesting has been lost. John Heard makes Jack dull and ineffectual, and when he does show some life, Heard uses the yelling he would continue with in Cutter's Way before experience provided him with more subtlety. Carolyn tells us that Neal's weakness was his lack of committment and Jack's was his longing for it. At one point Neal tells Jack to get his own life to write about, and one questions whether a writer could complete a book as long as On the Road appears to be if there is nothing of himself in it. Since I haven't read the work, I cannot comment, but the Jack this film portrays sure doesn't make me want to.
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