The Third Mind
Released: 2006
Director: William Tyler Smith
Studio: Oglio Records
Genre: Documentary
Format: DVD
Rating: Not Rated
Run Time: 56 minutes
From Amazon.com: William Burroughs said that when two minds collaborate, a third mind is created. This is the third mind between the psychedelic and beat sensibilities of Manzarek and McClure. . . . With appearances by Alan Ginsberg, Jim Carroll, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Diane di Prima, Ed Sanders, Lee Ranaldo,and Ann Waldman, “The Third Mind” DVD is a compelling primer on the impact of music on the Beat Generation.
Links:
Get this film on Amazon.com
The Basketball Diaries
Released: 1995
Director: Scott Kalvert
Studio: Island Pictures
Genre: Drama
Format: VHS, DVD, Laserdisc
Rating: R (Restricted)
Run Time: 102 Minutes
Leonardo DiCaprio stars as “Jim” in this controversial, very loose
adaptation of Carroll’s autobiography. Also features Mark Wahlberg
as “Mickey,” James Madio as Pedro,” Bruno Kirby as
“Swifty,” Lorraine Bracco as Jim’s mother, Ernie Hudson
as “Reggie,” and Patrick McGaw as “Neutron.”
Carroll makes a cameo appearance as “Frankie Pinewater.”
Links:
Get this film on Amazon.com
Special feature on the film
The Basketball Diaries feature section
The Source
Released: 1999
Director: Chuck Workman
Studio: Calliope Films
Genre: Documentary
Format: DVD
Rating: Not Rated
Run Time: 88 minutes
This documentary of the Beat Generation, focusing on Ginsberg, Kerouac, and Burroughs, features
a brief clip of Carroll reading “Times Square’s Cage” from Forced Entries.
Links:
Get this film on Amazon.com
Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart
Released: 1998
Director: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders
Studio: Winstar
Genre:Documentary
Format: DVD
Rating: Not Rated
Run Time: 73 minutes
This outstanding PBS documentary explores the life, work, and influence of Lou Reed, with interviews from David Bowie, Patti Smith, John Cale, Thurston Moore, and many others. Jim Carroll features prominently among the interviewees — he even gets the last laugh.
Links:
Get this film on Amazon.com
Curtis’s Charm
Released: 1995
Director: John L’Ecuyer
Studio: East Side Films
Genre: Drama
Format: VHS
Rating: Not Rated
Run Time: 74 minutes
A brilliant adaptation of Carroll’s story by Canadian director John L’Ecuyer, starring Callum Keith Rennie as “Jim” and Maurice Dean Wint as “Curtis.”
Carroll’s story, “Curtis’s Charm,” appears in Fear of Dreaming. The Xfilm’s soundtrack album features a full-length reading of the story by Carroll.
See Also:
More information about Curtis’s Charm
Fear of Dreaming
XCurtis’s Charm Soundtrack
Poetry in Motion II
Released: 1995
Director: Ron Mann
Studio: Sphinx Productions
Genre: Documentary
Format: CD-ROM
Rating: Not Rated
This sequel to Poetry in Motion is actually a CD-ROM (rather than a “video” or DVD). It offers performances by 24 artists. Those not included in the original film are Tom Clark, Spalding Gray, Bob Holman, Peter Orlovsky, and Alice Notley, among others. Carroll reads “Work, Not Play” and talks
about following his idol Frank O’Hara through the streets of Manhattan.
Links:
Sphinx Productions website
Tuff Turf
Released: 1985
Director: Fritz Kiersch
Studio: New World Video / Starz / Anchor Bay
Genre: Drama
Format: DVD, VHS
Rating: R (Restricted)
Run Time: 111 minutes
A typical 1980s high-school adventure-love story, the film stars James Spader, Kim Richards,
and Paul Mones. Carroll appears briefly, as himself, in a dance club scene in
which he performs (lip-syncing and playing air guitar–upside-down) “Voices”
and “It’s Too Late.” He has one speaking part between songs. “People
Who Died” serves as background music during a car scene.
Links:
Get this film on Amazon.com
Listen to the City – make a page for this
Released: 1984
Director: Ron Mann
Studio: Sphinx Productions
Genre: Drama
Format: VHS
Rating: Not Rated
In this “political fable” dealing with unemployment in Canada, Carroll appears in almost every
scene as a hospital inmate wandering the streets of Toronto while hooked up to an IV.
Links:
Sphinx Productions website
Poetry in Motion
Released: 1982
Director: Ron Mann
Studio: Sphinx Productions / Home Vision
Genre: Documentary
Format: DVD, VHS
Rating: Not Rated
Run Time: 91 minutes
A brilliant documentary
featuring performances and commentary by Charles Bukowski, Amiri Baraka, Anne
Waldman, Ted Berrigan, Tom Waits, William S. Burroughs, Michael McClure, John
Giorno, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Creeley, and others. Carroll reads “Just Visiting,”
from The Book of Nods. The performances are also available on the album XLife Is a Killer.
Links:
Get this film on Amazon.com or iTunes
Sphinx Productions website
Gang of Souls
Released: 1989
Director: Maria Beatty
Studio: Bleu Production
Genre:Documentary
Format: DVD, VHS
Rating: Not Rated
Run Time: 60 minutes
This documentary
provides insight into how and why these poets have chosen to be poets and how
they write their poetry. Contains interviews
with William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Marianne Faithfull, Jim Carroll, John
Giorno, Gregory Corso, Diane Diprima, Ed Sanders, Anne Waldman, Henry Rollins,
Richard Hell and Lydia Lunch.
Links:
Get this film on Amazon.com
Jim Carroll at San Francisco State University
American Poetry Archives, 1974
Recorded live at San
Francisco State University
10 October 1974
This 30-minute
video features a 24-year-old, long-haired Jim Carroll reading his earliest work.
It’s a treasure. According to the catalogue, the reading includes “The Calypso
of Eucalypti,” “A man is struggling…,” “Sun heightens itself across my face…,”
“Coal sweep…,” “For John Wieners,” “Poem for Man,” “Some Fears,” “Andy’s Daughters,”
“Home,” “Working,” “Kitten – Self Pity,” “Poem for Edmund Joseph Berrigan,” “A
Piano Solo at Carnegie Hall,” “Living at the Movies,” “Crossed Wires,” “Leaving
New York City,” “To a Poetess,” “California Poem,” “Midnight,” “Prell,” “Back
Home,” “Love Story,” “It doesn’t matter…,” “Chelsea May,” “Savage Bubbles,”
“Paregoric Babies,” “Highway Report,” and “An Apple at Dawn.”
More Information:
THE POETRY CENTER & AMERICAN POETRY ARCHIVES
San Francisco State Univ.
1600 Holloway Ave.
San Francisco, CA 94132
Ph: 415-338-2227
FAX: 415-338-0966
http://www.sfsu.edu/~newlit/newcatalog/200.htm
See also:
1978 Rimbaud Lectures