Go Moan for Man, Part One is the first film in the biographical documentary The Literary Odyssey of Jack Kerouac. This movie covers author and poet Jack Kerouac’s life and writings to 1952. Bill Mabon portrays Jack in silent recreated scenes, while Peter Lownds serves as Jack’s literary voice. Using vignettes to dramatize Jack’s life, as well as interviews with scholars, biographers, and other knowledgeable individuals associated with Kerouac, narrator Don Lane unfolds Jack Kerouac’s personal story as he becomes a great American writer. Kerouac is considered part of the Beat Generation; he is known for his “spontaneous prose” and his understanding of what it means to be an immigrant in America, especially with his “depictions of the immigrant experience”.
Born in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1922, Jack (John) Kerouac is a French-Canadian immigrant. Speaking French until he attends elementary school, Jack remains bi-lingual and engages in the common practice of incorporating words from one language while speaking another into some of his stories. Kerouac is the youngest of three children; the death of his older brother Gerard at age nine affects young Kerouac deeply. By age seventeen, Kerouac is an ardent reader, an excellent athlete, and is writing short stories. Winning a football scholarship to Columbia University, Kerouac embraces New York City life and is influenced by Thomas Wolf’s writing style.
However, college life is short. Kerouac drops out to spend a short time in Connecticut and finally returns to Lowell, where he obtains a job writing for the Lowell Sun newspaper. World War II approaches, and in 1942, Kerouac joins the Merchant Marine, followed by a failing stint with the Navy, and another period spent with the Merchant Marine. Taking a break from writing The Town and the City, Kerouac decides he wants to see and know all of America; he travels by bus and by thumb from New York to San Francisco, eating apple pie and ice cream and taking notes along the way.
In 1950, Kerouac takes another adventurous trip with Neal Cassidy—this time by car. Cassidy is the driver and the two men head for Mexico. They follow the Pan-American Highway to the Sierra Madre Mountains to arrive in Mexico City. In 1951, in a three-week nonstop writing spree, Kerouac writes a story based on his travels which becomes the popular novel On the Road. In 2012, the movie On the Road was produced based on the book. Part one ends in 1951.
Completed in black and white by director Doug Sharples, The Literary Odyssey of Jack Kerouac is an authoritative biographical documentary suitable for academic classes studying 21st-century American authors, particularly, the Beat Generation, and Kerouac’s style of writing and influence on other contemporary writers. This academic version by Cottonwood Productions is split into three parts, suitable for classroom viewing. (Turner Classic Movies released the full-length biographical film in 2000 with a running time of 2 hours 2 min). Recommended.
What library shelves would this film be suitable for?
Go Moan for Man Part One is suitable for educational documentary film collections in academic libraries, specifically those college majors studying literature, biography, art, and pop culture (Beat Generation). It would be particularly useful for English professors and students interested in Kerouac’s generation of writers, poets, and jazz musicians.