The Broken Tower

Film: The Broken Tower (Biopic)

Director:  James Franco

Writers:  James Franco (Screenplay), Paul L. Mariani (Biography)

Stars:  James Franco, Michael Shannon, Stacey Miller

Despite my initial apprehensions, I really enjoyed this film.

At first, I was a bit wary because, like everyone, I went into viewing the film with biases and expectations.  And if a movie already breaches your expectations during its opening scene, it’s often difficult to give it an opportunity to prove its value.  However, I am certainly glad I did. As I previously alluded to, I found the film a bit uneasy to settle into…one, because I have read only briefly about Hart Crane before viewing The Broken Tower, and two, it was a black and white film with stark transitions and enduring scenes.  But I came to realize that perhaps that was the part of the beauty of the picture.  

This film consisted of fragments of a life of a troubled, brilliant, man. Hart Crane was a prominent American poet during the early 1900s who committed suicide at the age of thirty-two. The majority of the shots are overlapped by Franco narrarating with Crane’s poetry.

 Once you are able to accept its long silences and appreciate the beauty of nature and humanity and art, you can start to appreciate the film for its true, raw, quality.  Life is not always fast-paced and loud.  It was interesting just to watch the character (Franco as Crane) live in real time and respond to his world in ways we all do, but usually in privacy.  Alone, we often do things that do not make sense or we merely spend quiet hours exploring our world. 

I also learned that this was, in fact, a film that James Franco completed for his directing class at NYU.  Because it was a student film and it was completed on a modest budget, it was even easier to understand its shortcomings and embrace it for its literary and aesthetic merits. 

The film is fragile and no one should view it immediately with a critical eye.  In fact, it would certainly take several viewings to reach total comprehension…and even then, Crane’s poetry makes this nearly impossible.  Poets often write for themselves and they are the only real audience that they care about.  And rightly so. It is quite rare for people to be willing to expose themselves to such a degree. I find it astounded when individuals can translate their most intimate thoughts and emotions into art.  They don’t owe us an explanation and we should not expect one.  

The Broken Tower was in the very least, thought provoking. Personally, I found it to be beautiful and quite brave for a director’s first endeavor.  This is certainly not film for everyone but definitely for those with an open mind, patience, and an affinity for poetry.