Poet Hart Crane was an alcoholic, depressive and gay — in an era when that could wreck a life. He committed suicide at age 32. That’s a story that could have prompted a biopic before now, save one factor: Crane’s poems are some of the most forbiddingly abstruse in the American canon.
James Franco, who wrote, directed and stars as the poet, copes by chopping Crane’s life into abstract “voyages,” or episodes. The technique — and this movie is about nothing if not technique, both Crane’s and the filmmaker’s — isn’t particularly successful.
The hand-held camera bobs, heads linger at the corner of the frame, blackout screens drop in at inconvenient moments and there are so many close-ups of Franco’s neck that his hairline stubble becomes as familiar as his famous face.
The poetic irony is that as a director, Franco has little aptitude for the enigmatic, nor even for layering poetry and letter-reading over scenes. When Crane is talking to, arguing with or having sex with other people, the movie sometimes lurches to life. Despite Franco’s laudable desire to shake up a stodgy genre, his film could have done with more life, and less art.