Some books are better left alone, and that certainly was the case with On the Road. After so many years in waiting, I expected something strong from Francis Ford Coppola and Walter Salles, but instead the movie is little more than a chronicle with way too many melodramatic scenes that capture neither the body nor the spirit of Kerouac's classic novel.
The long scroll version came out a few years ago, thanks to Jim Irsay, who bought the scroll and sent it on the road, starting with Boott Cotton Mills in Lowell, Massachusetts. I suppose he had to cover the hefty price tag that came with his purchase, but for most it was a rare glimpse of this magical scroll.
I was working on Boott Mills in the 80s, during my first stint with the National Park Service, and tried to save a late 19th century reinforced concrete storage building, which was part of the sprawling complex. Kerouac apparently liked to hang out in it as a kid. He mentions Boott Mills in The Town and the City. Unfortunately, the building was razed and a memorial park made in his honor.
The story too seemed flattened in this film, reduced to vignettes underscored by be-bop numbers, like a set of melancholy music videos for a generation raised on MTV. I supposed that's the way it goes in this day and age, but Walter Salles had given us so much more in Che Guevera's Motorcycle Diaries.
Thanks for the review. As you say, some very good novels just don't make good films. Lampedusa's Il Gattopardo (The Leopard) is a case in point. By the same token, some so-so novels have been turned into terrific films, like No Country for Old Men.
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