This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

The greatest movie ever!

Good start, but then it gets ruined

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

This film tells the life of an American homosexual poet named Hart, who died of suicide by jumping off a sailing army ship."The Broken Tower" is shot in black and white. It is a tell tale sign that it is a very artsy movie that has no commercial elements at all. I tried very hard to enjoy it, trying to appreciate the slowness of the pace, and trying to enjoy the beauty of the literature reading. However, there is really very little plot in the film, and the story is told in a very scattered manner. For every 30 seconds of plot, there are five minutes of self indulgent filler scenes. I got quite tired of watching James Franco walking around or sitting around. We also see a lot of Hart's sexual liaisons, ranging from walking up the stairs with another man, to apparently non-simulated oral sex.After watching the whole film, I did not gain an insight into Hart's life, but rather it felt more like a project for James Franco to expose the exploration his sexuality.

Not a particularly great poet to begin with. I don't know why the film is in black and white, is that supposed to make it look more arty or something? I don't see why he was not happy with the advertising job. He could have still found time for his poems on the side. His poems are really heavy and monotonous and pedantic, I bet they don't necessarily mean anything most of the time. They just kind of sound like they do. But its just drunken delirium. Some nice shots under the bridge. The guy does have a nice smile. Poet was destructive. I bet Ginsberg liked this guy. Lucky guy got to travel a lot, not bad for a broke cliché of a suffering artist.

The Broken Tower is the type of movie one generally sees at minor film festivals and thence disappears into the darkness, never to be seen again. Having said that, one should never dismiss such honorable efforts simply because there is no vast audience for a film that has no special effects, extra terrestrials, car chases or gunplay (which would exclude most European movies.) Oh and yes, it's in black and white and concerns Hart Crane, a gay poet in the 1920's who killed himself at thirty two. James Franco wrote and directed this movie, which comes across as an experimental film from a student still with much to learn. (Not knocking it, merely an observation, which is open to argument.) What the movie lacks most of all is an introduction to the many people whom Crane came into contact with during his life (from literary and social critic Waldo Frank - HUGE in his observations on American Society, to writer Malcolm Cowley and his painter-wife Peggy (Crane's only heterosexual love affair), painter Georgia O'Keefe and her husband Alfred Stieglitz, introducing Crane to Literary New York in the shape of Eugene O'Neill.) And other major influences in his life, Caresse and Harry Crosby (publishers of the Black Sun Press in Paris, who first brought recognition to William Burroughs, James Joyce etc, whose works were considered too obscene to be published in America.) WHERE is the scene where Harry Crosby (nephew of J.P. Morgan) considered the model for the Great Gatsby and the acknowledged epitome of drug-fueled extravagance and irresponsible behaviour in the 1920's, murders his mistress and kills himself while Hart is obliviously having dinner with Caresse? And what about Emil Opffer, Crane's one great love, for whom he wrote the suite of poems VOYAGES, which drop into the movie with flat readings, completely unbolstered by imaginative visuals? Nothing about Opffer's background, his family's flight from assassination in Denmark or Opffer's own experiences during World War 1. And what about Crane's mother's mental instability, her rejection of him for his homosexuality and threats to expose his sexual preferences to his father? And the meeting between Crane and Federico Garcia Lorca in 1929? Two doomed poets, both homosexual, totally unalike but both critical of American Society in the 1920's, although Crane's love for his country was absolute and eternal.The Broken Tower does illustrate the difficulties of Crane's poetry, which in his own words is described as "A jazz roof garden method, evolved from a pseudo-symphonic construction, of an abstract beauty that has not been done before in the English language. A kind of metaphysical quotidian combination". (Wow!) At the time Crane's poetry was more appreciated outside of the United States than within. (The London Times: "Mr Crane reveals a profound originality in lines of arresting and luminous quality", whereas in the New York Saturday Review, "Mr. Crane rapes language under the impression he is paying it the highest compliment".) Poet Marianne Moore, who printed some of Crane's earliest poems, found them so impenetrable that she rewrote them without Crane's permission, an act of betrayal that devastated him.What Crane was aiming for with his poetry was an Elizabethan accent on the American scene, drawn from the example of T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, but rejecting Eliot's whole-hearted pessimism. Crane believed in America as the bridge to the future through mechanisation and he tried to infuse this in his poetry. What he ended up with was a mass of images that were so dense in their construction that the uninitiated reader would find them impossible to navigate. Crane believed in starting the journey for the reader, but forcing them to complete it on their own, which inevitably led to a great deal of frustration.The Broken Tower is divided into various "Voyages", supposedly designed to illustrate the major events in Crane's life, drawing ever closer to his suicide. These are introduced by cue cards. For example "Hart Crane goes to Cuba" -- and we see him taking a long, long walk down a street somewhere. Or "Hart Crane goes to Mexico" -- and we see him singing in a bar with a Mexican guitarist. The pivotal moments in his life simply fail to materialize. While his alcoholism and poverty are well documented, and figure in the movie, so many other incidents are missing. The fact that he left America when the Great Depression hit, the fact that he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship that enabled him to live in Mexico during this period, but was threatened with withdrawal due to his erratic behaviour and public intoxication, is nowhere to be seen.Another screenplay, entitled HART CRANE, written in 2008, can be found on www.simplyscripts.com and covers all the main incidents in Crane's life. Unfortunately, while it might be of interest to anyone seeking a fuller and more coherent version of Crane's life, it is unlikely ever to see the light of day due to the release of The Broken Tower.Summing up, James Franco deserves kudos for having tackled such a difficult and uncommercial subject. Certainly an original interpretation of a problematical character, the chasms that exist between each "Voyage" and the lack of depth in the main character (due to the absence of any interaction with the main movers and shakers in his life) make it highly unlikely that this movie will have any lasting effect or figure in any revival. However, if this movie interests anyone enough to seek out Crane's poetry, then that is everything one can wish for -- and grateful thanks to James Franco for that.

***Alert: some spoilers contained herein - but if one knows the life of Crane then these are not so revealing).*** Such is a healthy attitude for a despondent artist. It is one of the few bright spot seen shimmering from Crane in this biopic. James Franco takes Hart Crane's words - poetry and letters - and uses them as a backdrop for the evolution of a writer of promise cut down by his own wretched soul. At least that is how Crane comes off.Before I watched this flick I re-acquainted myself with Crane's verse; then I kept his book at hand during the film - which helped me keep interested in the movie. Franco manages to take the best of Crane - his poetry - and make it as bland as boiled chicken. There is one scene with Crane reading his work - rather than infuse the passion seen elsewhere in the film emanating from Crane - Franco chooses to recite the poems with no heart. The crowd's reaction to the second of the poems ('For the Marriage of Faustus and Helen') is understandable given the content and how Franco drones as Crane. The man's poetry needs to be read and sifted through several times before it feel accessible in some small way and Francdo blew a great opportunity to get his fans - who might not otherwise read any verse - interested in poetry. Granted, the rest of the film has me wanting to delve deeper into Crane's bio and his work. But I am most likely an anomaly in this respect, as I, too, am a poet and a teacher of literature. Still, with a positive attitude toward what is shown and read of Crane someone could become entranced with his work and also want to read more of it.As for the filmmaking aspect, there are many issues there: hand-held cameras make for unsteady viewing, seemingly random pick-up shots are meant to set scenes, and a windscreen was sorely needed for the microphone used to collect audio in several shots. An interesting approach is used to show the leap from younger Crane to the (slightly) older Crane played by Franco - using the aforementioned sporadic shots. It is filmed almost entirely in black and white (which is what one might expect from this sort of film, artsy and so-forth). Colour does work its way in during a trip to the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris - but it had me screaming for the return to B&W since the cameras employed could not handle the natural interior lighting of the church, therefore showing the limitations of the production. Perhaps Franco thought this approach would show the beauty of the place and highlight the impact it had on Crane; however, the camera's constant trying to adjust its 'eye' to the setting took me out of the film.The story is unfolded through a series of "Voyages" (fitting, as the film ends with an excerpt from Crane's so-named poem and that it is on a sea-vessel that the poet chose to end his life). Title cards offer the subject in each 'Voyage' and the section reflects this accordingly: which helps one follow Crane's overall voyage.Franco manages to show the tortured artist trying to support himself and create poetry - but is ultimately unable to do both. Grants and fellowships are the godsend for any artist to contribute his verse to the world and that Crane enjoys both and is able to write is evident. Malaise works its way into his psyche and builds along the way to show the viewer what led to Crane's demise.The much-hyped oral pleasure scene seems unnecessary - yes, Crane was gay. There were better ways to make this known (as Franco shows in other parts of the movie) without having to resort to such a cheap ploy for shock value.There is a scene where Crane - frustrated by finding out his financial situation is hopeless, vents his feelings in his room; while I get the emotion, Franco falls short in expressing the way Crane would have felt. This stems, perhaps, in Franco himself never feeling denied anything he truly wanted so he is unable to display the rage a truly tormented artist would vent when going from simmering anger to a boiling cauldron of virulence in an instant.Michael Shannon appears in a minor, yet major role, but his character hardly speaks and comes, then goes, and comes then goes again so quickly that such a power of talent (he alone propelled 'The Runaways' forward and made that flick worth watching) never gets a chance to make an impact.Overall, the movie is ambitious and Franco does a righteous job of adapting the source material employed (Crane's poetry and Paul Mariani's 'The Broken Tower: The Life of Hart Crane') into a watchable slice of celluloid. The build-up of a creative genius torn apart by knowing his own abilities are wrecked by external factors is shown rather well.(Full Disclosure: the above is the exact same review I posted on iTunes for this film)