A biography of American poet Hart Crane who committed suicide at the age of 32 by jumping off the steamship SS Orizaba.A biography of American poet Hart Crane who committed suicide at the age of 32 by jumping off the steamship SS Orizaba.A biography of American poet Hart Crane who committed suicide at the age of 32 by jumping off the steamship SS Orizaba.
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Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaShot in three countries and 30 locations in 15 days.
- GoofsThe dress, hair, and make-up of the Peggy character are all wrong for 1931.
- Quotes
Gorham Munson: Hart, forgive me for saying this. But you want to speak for America.
Hart Crane: Yeah.
Gorham Munson: Does it matter that you're queer?
Hart Crane: [Annoyed, rolls eyes] Whitman was queer. That's why he could love *all* of America. The roustabouts. The slaves. The, the soldiers he nursed in the Civil War.
Gorham Munson: So you will expose yourself?
Hart Crane: It's funny, considering my truckdriver left me. No. People can know everything about us when we're dead. But for now, it's better to keep quiet. For father's sake.
Gorham Munson: [sarcastically] Right. You wouldn't want to lose that tremendous job for the sake of some queer affirmation.
- ConnectionsReferenced in Hart Crane: An Exegesis (2012)
Franco wrote, directed, and stars in the project, apparently a film to fulfill a university thesis. Crane's poetry can be complex and difficult, I don't pretend to understand a lot of what I have read by him, but Franco makes the mistake of writing and directing an equally difficult film. In the film's case, I "got" what Franco was trying to do, I am saying it was the wrong approach to Crane's life. Franco casts his younger brother Dave as a younger Hart, or Harold as he was born, and their mother as Hart's mother. Michael Shannon is Emile, the love of Hart's life and subject of some of his poetry. The problem is that Shannon's scenes number about four, as do his lines of dialogue, and the viewer doesn't discover his name until the end credits. Crane's parents also get shorted, for being such big influences in his life. Crane's relationship with Malcolm Cowley's ex-wife (Stacey Miller) is also touched upon but not explored.
The film's running time is listed as ninety-nine minutes, but other sources and my old notes put this at one hundred and ten minutes; so what do we get in that running time? Franco does do a brave thing- exhibiting an eleven minute poetry reading just before the midpoint of the film. The black and white photography, with the exception of a color sequence in a cathedral, is nice. The muted sad jazz of the time provides an excellent soundtrack to Crane's moods, even in the lighter moments when he is with friends, and drunk. It is hard to make a compelling film about someone sitting at a desk and typing, but Franco tries. The film is chaptered by title cards enumerating Crane's life "voyages", and this does help follow what was going on in his life to a certain extent. However, Franco as Crane walks. A lot. Too much. There is so much footage of Franco walking around, I began to make morbid jokes about Crane's leg strength when he took his final plunge into the big drink. This padding technique went beyond experimental or difficult and into tedium. Franco plays Crane as a spoiled genius, but he throws one too many fits and I didn't like Crane as Franco saw him. He looks nothing like Crane, either, and a scene where Crane performs a sex act on a lover seems out of place and exploitative- it's obvious Franco wanted to do something shocking to get the film talked about. I was relieved when it was over, and disappointed that Franco couldn't get his admiration for the writer on film without alienating the same audience that finds Crane's writing unfathomable. Next time, I hope Franco's desire to make an arty film about an artist is tempered by a desire to make that artist accessible to the viewer. Not knowing anything about Crane, and watching this, would make me dislike Crane. "The Broken Tower" turns into a broken film.
- NoDakTatum
- Oct 9, 2023
- How long is The Broken Tower?Powered by Alexa
Details
- Runtime1 hour 39 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1