It's San Francisco in 1957, and an American masterpiece is put on trial. Howl, the film, recounts this dark moment using three interwoven threads: the tumultuous life events that led a young Allen Ginsberg to find his true voice as an artist, society's reaction (the obscenity trial), and mind-expanding animation that echoes the startling originality of the poem itself. All three coalesce in a genre-bending hybrid that brilliantly captures a pivotal moment-the birth of a counterculture.
as Allen Ginsberg
as Jack Kerouac
as Neal Cassady
as Peter Orlovsky
as Ralph McIntosh
as Jake Ehrlich
as Lawrence Ferlinghetti
as Judge Clayton Horn
as Gail Potter
as Mark Schorer
as Professor David Kirk
as Luther Nichols
as Himself
as Six Gallery
as Six Gallery
as Beatnik Poet