The Broken Tower [HD]

A Filmmaking Experiment That Employs Interesting Techniques, But Leaves Its Central Subject Largely Unexplored
I am confident that many people who will review James Franco's "The Broken Tower" will declare it a cinematic marvel. I am equally sure that its detractors will call it an incomprehensible mess. This self-consciously arty exploration of the life and work of poet Hart Crane seems destined to divide its audience, and I suspect reactions will be intense and passionate. I guess I'll straddle the middle ground somewhat and call "The Broken Tower" an interesting experiment. Of course, if you are a fervent Franco fan--you will undoubtedly seek out this project as he is its star, director and writer. Its appeal to others, however, may be considerably more limited. On the one hand, the film's visual aesthetic is undeniably arresting. Franco borrows techniques from many of the masters in developing the film's beautiful black-and-white palette and sets up interesting and unconventional shots. From a technical standpoint, the film has a lot going for it. On the other hand, the film is notably...

A Brave Little Film that Finds a New Way of Communicating
THE BROKEN TOWER will likely never be on the list of best films made, so why award it five stars? Because this very fine art piece is the result of the devotion of James Franco to his craft. He worked directly with Boston College professor Paul Mariani, the author of a half dozen volumes of poetry, as well as several biographies of 20th-century American poets, including William Carlos Williams, John Berryman, and Robert Lowell: Franco based THE BROKEN TOWER on Mariani's similarly titled 2000 biography of Crane.

The subject of the film is the life and creative genius of Hart Crane, (July 21, 1899 - April 27, 1932) an American poet who found both inspiration and provocation in the poetry of T. S. Eliot, Crane wrote modernist poetry that is difficult, highly stylized, and very ambitious in its scope. In his most ambitious work, The Bridge, Crane sought to write an epic poem in the vein of The Waste Land that expressed something more sincere and optimistic than the ironic...

James Franco's impression of what Hart Crane was like
I must confess that I ordered The Broken Tower for the wrong reason, because I read that James Franco did something in it that gay men do all the time but non-porn actors NEVER do on film, even openly gay actors in flagrantly gay movies. That bit was kind of a bust, but I ended up liking the movie anyway, for less sleazy reasons.

I know next to nothing about Hart Crane, and I don't know a lot more after having watched this movie. It's not a biography by any means. My best guess would be that it's James Franco's impression of what Crane was like, and that's what makes it interesting.

It's oddly directed, with very many long, handheld, extreme closeups, filmed from about chest-level, of Franco (as Crane) walking the streets of various cities, usually looking up from just under his chin, but sometimes looking at the back of his head. That motif repeats often.

At least 70% of the spoken lines in the movie are Franco (always as Crane) reading Crane's...

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