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Janet Foreman's contribution to the resurgence of interest in the Beat Generation premiered in the market place at this year's Berlin Film Festival. It contains rare archival film and present day interviews with Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady, Jack Kerouac, Le Roi Jones, William Burroughs, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Thelonius Monk, Carolyn Cassady, Timothy Leary and Abbie Hoffman. The musical score is by David Amram with additional material from Thelonius Monk and Otis Spann. Steve Allen narrates.
The economic boom of the 1950s produced a rush for cars, radios, refrigerators, tracts of new homes, 'New Look' fashions and TV dinners. The prosperity of this American Dream was set against 'The Bomb', the Cold War and the McCarthy hearings. Though many questioned America's post-war values, it was a small group of writers and painters who gathered in the Bohemian quarters of New York and San Francisco to voice their concern. They became known as the Beat Generation. In this film, notable Beats reflect on some of their youthful excesses and self-righteousness and, at the same time, cast a rueful eye towards the future of American culture.