Mad Men’s Jon Hamm is Don Draper is On the Road’s Jack Kerouac. Now make the movie, dammit!
One of the last times I saw Allen Ginsberg must been in about 1997; it was at the BU Bookstore on Com Ave in Boston. He was giving a reading. Someone asked his thoughts on the nearly-mythical nearly always nearly-in-production casting of Jack Kerouac in the movie version of ON THE ROAD—which Francis Ford Coppola was rumored to be involved in, at the time. Ginsberg said, “I think Jonny Depp would make a great Kerouac.”
Now, it’s 10 years later and still no ON THE ROAD movie’s been made. It’s a Great American Novel, and it’s gotta be one of the more easily translatable books of mad prose, it fairly leaps of the page and into technicolor with it’s dope, broads and existential wonderings and wanderings.
Well, folks, I’m crashing after a long short week—watching AMC’s MAD MEN—and I found our Kerouac. So get set, producers and directors and Hollywood types—the next time you find a jawbone with blue eyes and jet black hair on it that looks any more Kerouac-esque’ll be…never. Jon Hamm, better known perhaps as Don Draper, is your man.
Hollywood, you can’t Beat him with a stick, and you shouldn’t try: now go make my gaddamned movie, and don’t come back ’til you do.
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Amen!
YES!
(though Depp would be amazing, of course)
Sorry, I don't care who they get to play Kerouac, this movie should *not* be made. I've seen far too many excellent books turned into horrendous movies. How does one even try to capture the essence of this American masterpiece with a modern Hollywood film? No, thank you.
Javier Bardem, I'm thinking, if he can pull off the American accent. Hamm is a little too pretty. Both are taller than Kerouac, but the camera can work wonders. Maybe Mel Gibson as the older Kerouac just before he died.
My favourite 'Kerouac' appears here (with girl) at 1:25: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzHpwNemysQ
Kerouac inspired Magazine – http://www.kerouacsdogmag.com
As a huge Kerouac and Mad Men/Jon Hamm fan I agree wholeheartedly. Let's do this thing already!