A few months ago we got a few set pics of Daniel Radcliffe playing gay poet Allen Ginsberg in Kill Your Darlings. Now we’ve got the first official pic, showing Radcliffe along Dane DeHaan, Jack Huston and Ben Foster (at least we think that’s who is on the left).
The movies charts how a murder helped shape the lives of a group of young men who went on to become the beat generation. Chronicle star DeHaan plays Lucien Carr, the man who introduced Howl writer Allen Ginsberg to the likes of William S. Burroughs (Foster) and Jack Kerouac (Huston). Indeed, Ginsberg said that “Lou was the glue” that brought the beat poets and writers together.
During these early, hedonistic days, a man called David Kammerer (Michael C. Hall) fell for Carr, with his infatuation becoming increasingly obsessive and unhinged – Ginsberg once discovered Kammerer trying to murder Jack Kerouac’s cat. It eventually resulted in Carr stabbing Kammerer to death him and going to prison for his murder. The violent event is said to have indelibly changed all the people involved and etched its way into the published works of the Beat writers.
Although Carr said the killing took place after he rejected Kammerer’s sexual advances and was assaulted as a result, many have suggested that Lucien wasn’t as heterosexual as he made out, and that he and Ginsberg had been lovers (something the earlier set pics suggest will also include). The full truth of what happened may never be known. Whatever happened, it was a pivotal moment for Ginsberg, who had been exceptionally close to Carr whether they’d been lovers or not.
The film premieres in January at Sundance and should hit cinemas in 2013.
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