Allen Ginsberg

A documentary that tells the story of the artists, rebels, and bohemians who came to New York's Greenwich Village over many decades, and changed the face of American culture through their art and politics.

An allegory that explores human needs and desires amid the rituals of daily life in New York City. The film is a collage composed from a variety of film genres, intercutting portraits of important avant-garde figures, New York City landmarks, and Smith's visionary animation.

Portrait of the artist as a young man. In spring, 1965, Bob Dylan, 23, a pixyish troubador, spends three weeks in England. Pennebaker's camera follows him from airport to hall, from hotel room to public house, from conversation to concert... (imdb)

Milo is a railroad brakeman, his wife a painter. They have some poet friends who spend a good bit of time hanging out at their apartment. When Milo and his wife are visited by their bishop, they naturally would like their friends to be on their best behavior. But poets will be poets. (imdb)

Semi-autobiographical story of Conrad Rooks, who travels to France to undergo a drug-withdrawal cure. Flashbacks to the beginings of psychedelia in San Fran. (imdb)

The couch at Andy Warhol's Factory was as famous in its own right as any of his Superstars. In Couch, visitors to the Factory were invited to "perform" on camera, seated on the old couch. Their many acts-both lascivious and mundane-are documented in a film that has come to be regarded as one of the most notorious of Warhol's early works. (imdb)

This film describes a psychological state 'kin to "moon-struck," its images emblems (not quite symbols) of suspension-of-self within consciousness and then that feeling of "falling away" from conscious thought. The film can only be said to "describe" or be emblematic of this state because it's impossible symbolizing or otherwise representing an equivalent of thoughtlessness (musicafilm.it)

Director Matt Wolf's visually absorbing portrait of the seminal avant-garde composer, singer-songwriter, cellist, and disco producer Arthur Russell. Before his untimely death from AIDS in 1992, Arthur prolifically created music that spanned both pop and the transcendent possibilities of abstract art. Now, over fifteen years since his passing, Arthur's work is finally finding its audience. (arthurrussellmovie.com)

More than 20 contemporary North American poets recite, sing, and perform their work. Several also comment. Early in the film, Charles Bukowski talks about the energy of poets and of a poem. These poets are energetic performers, and their poems are meant to be heard. These poets are the children of Walt Whitman and of Charles Olson, incantatory and oratorical, radical, sometimes incorporating contemporary political imagery. (imdb)

Members of the controversial group NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Love Association) discuss why their organization supports "boys and men who have or desire engagements in sexual or emotional relationships." (imdb)

Documentary about the founding of the Naropa Institute of Poetics in Boulder, Colorado by 60s psychedelic sexual revolution and beat poet heavy-hitters.

A fashionable filmmaker on a trip to New York looks for meaning in life, while dramatic events occur around him. (Rouge)

Julius Orlovsky, after spending years in a New York mental hospital, emerges catatonic and must rely on his brother Peter, who lives with poet Allen Ginsberg. When Julius wanders off in the middle of filming, Frank hires and actor (Joseph Chaikin) to play the character and begins a fictional version of his psychological portrait. Then, as suddenly as he vanished, Julius turns up in an institution where he and Peter must face their relationship. (imdb)

Biographical portrait of writer/composer Paul Bowles, best known for writing THE SHELTERING SKY.

Crazy Wisdom is a documentary that explores the life, teachings, and "crazy wisdom" of Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche, a pivotal figure in bringing Tibetan Buddhism to the West. Called a genius, rascal, and social visionary; 'one of the greatest spiritual teachers of the 20th century,' and 'the bad boy of Buddhism,' Trungpa defied categorization. (imdb)

Celebrity confessions about their first sexual experiences. (imdb)

This is a video record of the Allen Ginsberg's death and funeral in his apartment in New York. (imdb)

Andrei Cordescu, NPR journalist, Romanian immigrant, naturalized American citizen, and newly-licensed driver, sets out on a cross- country road trip. He travels from-sea-to-shining-sea in a red 1968 Cadillac ragtop, exploring the meaning of freedom to a variety of Americans in this gently comic, yet poignant, documentary. (imdb)

Interviews with people involved with and leading the Madison, Wisconsin area resistance to the Vietnam war. (imdb)

An irreverent portrait of America of the 60s seen through the experiences of artists of the Beat Generation and Pop Art. The America of the Vietnam war, ploughed by contradictions and explosive social tensions but potentially saturated with expectations for the future. With: Andy Warhol, Allen Ginsberg, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, Gregory Corso, Marie Benois and Leon Kraushar.

Return to 1957 Paris, where a rundown hotel attracted American Beat expats such as Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Gregory Corso and Brion Gysin. Photos, animation and personal reflections bring this unique time and place to life. (Netflix)

This important ideological comment on the radical American youth culture embodies its values even in structure and style. A most creatively edited montage of the "struggle between life and death culture in America", it mingles Allen Ginsberg, Buckminster Fuller, Abbie Hoffman, and John Lennon with newsreels, subliminal effects, doctored TV images, the A-bomb, the Chicago Trial, the matrix of the new generation's sensibility -- to create a "psychedelic" equation of fact and metaphysics. (Amos Vogel)

In Hare Krishna, the people and the glimpses of the streets are somehow familiar. Mekas anchors the viewers' experience in reality by having these visually familiar, quotidian images, which become disorienting with the fragmented visual language. The chanting that holds the visuals together becomes destabilizing, as it does not belong to what the viewer is seeing on the screen; actually, nothing can be the diegetic to the moving images. (ubu.com)

The poet and painter, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, is among the world's living monuments to arts and letters. For well over a half century, Ferlinghetti helped shape the currents of poetry and literature with his forceful engagement with society and an ideological position that often found him at odds with the political currents of his day.

The title is derived from William Blake - records Allen Ginsberg's trip to London in the summer of 1967 (film.thedigitalfix.com)

This extraordinary diary by Jonas Mekas chronicles Warhol's everyday life and work, and the social and cultural milieu that swirled around him. The film includes footage from the first public performance of the Velvet Underground at Delmonico's Hotel on January 13, 1966. Tracing an arc that veers from frenetic to reflective, the film opens with a segment taped at the Dom with Nico, and concludes with the Mass for Warhol at St. Patrick's Cathedral. (SM)

On October 9th, 1972 an exhibition of John Lennon/Yoko Ono's art, designed by the Master of the Fluxus movement, George Maciunas, opened at the Syracuse Museum of Art, curated by David Ross, presently Director of Whitney Museum, in New York. On the same day an unusual group of John's and Yoko's friends, including Ringo, Allen Ginsberg, Paul Krasner, and many others, gathered to celebrate John's birthday. This film is an visual and audio record of that event. (Kurzfilmtage - international short film festival Oberhausen)

Following Beat Poet Gregory Corso - literary compatriot of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs -- throughout Europe, discovering his past, and facing his death. (imdb)

LSD Guru Tim Leary teaches us all to die by dying himself in what he calls his "custom death". This documentary deals with Mr. Leary's last days, all captured on camera by his own request. (imdb)

Global Groove is a jumping-off point from which to explore current trends in international video art. A characteristically fast-paced barrage of images and sounds, Global Groove was Paik's prophetic statement about the future ubiquity of video. "This is a glimpse of a video landscape of tomorrow, when you will be able to switch to any TV station on the earth and TV Guides will be as fat as the Manhattan telephone book," he said. (Broad Art Museum)

Allen Ginsberg recites his title poem to music by Paul McCartney, Philip Glass, and Patti Smith guitarist Lenny Kaye.

Burroughs: The Movie is the first and only feature length documentary to be made with and about Burroughs. The film was directed by the late Howard Brookner. It was begun in 1978 as Brookner's senior thesis at NYU film school and then expanded into a feature which was completed 5 years later in 1983. Sound was recorded by Jim Jarmusch and the film was shot by Tom DiCillo, fellow NYU classmates and both very close friends of Brookner's (imdb)

Lifelong friend Jonas Mekas saved all of Barabara’s letters, creating a rich archive that filmmaker Chuck Smith carefully sculpts into this fascinating portrait of a nearly forgotten artist... (mubi.com)