May '68: When Culture was Radicalised
Ginsberg and 60s Counterculture 1
Selection of films including: Wholly Communion, Pull My Daisy and Anatomy of Violence
3 May 08
Watershed Media Centre, Bristol

Poet, performer, social critic and cultural phenomenon, Allen Ginsberg is undoubtedly the quintessential figure of the Beat Generation and the countercultural revolution of the 1960s. This selection of films features footage of him and his contemporaries in action.

Mark Cosgrove, Watershed Head of Cultural Programme, said of this film season: “Before the political revolutionaries of May 68, there were the counterculture beats of the 50s. People such as Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs did the original turning on, tuning in and dropping out. Where Kerouac renounced the beats and Burroughs withdrew into his own world, Ginsberg gave literary shape and an alternative voice to the counterculture of the 60s. This season reflects on his influence and is a rare opportunity to see and hear more from this influential poet.”

Wholly Communion Cert 15
Directed by: Peter Whitehead, UK 1965, 33mins
The documentary that effectively launched Whitehead’s career, Wholly Communion captures the historic event at the Royal Albert Hall on 11 June 1965 where an audience of 7,000 witnessed the first meeting of American and English Beat poets. Among the performers featured are Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Alexander Trocchi, Gregory Corso and Adrian Mitchell.

Pull My Daisy Cert 15
Directed by: Robert Frank / Alfred Lesley, USA 1959, 28mins
Perhaps the most famous Beat film, Pull My Daisy was created by two young artists who began to collaborate with Jack Kerouac on a film adaptation of his play The Beat Generation. Cast with leading members of the Beat scene alongside actress Delphine Seyrig, jazz musician David Amram and artist Larry Rivers, the film was hailed by Jonas Mekas - the leading exponent of the emerging New York underground film scene - as "the first truly Beat film" and a "free improvisation", whilst J. Hoberman described the inaugural screening - on a bill with Cassavetes' Shadows (1959) - as the moment at which "the underground announced itself".

Anatomy of Violence Cert 15
Directed by Peter Davis, USA 1967, 30mins
This important record of the spectrum of leftwing politics and personalities during the turbulent Sixties focuses on the meeting in London of the Symposium on the Dialectics of Liberation and the Demystification of Violence. Featuring Allen Ginsberg, Paul Sweezey, Paul Goodman, Herbert Marcuse, Stokely Carmichael and Malcolm X.

This event will be followed on 10 May by Ginsberg and 60s Counterculture 2, which will take place at Watershed Media Centre. Click here to find out more.