One thing is clear from the start of Chris Felver's Ferlinghetti – a documentary film shown at the recent San Francisco International Film Festival: The man himself, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, was one of the most powerful and influential poet, author, painter and political figure this city has seen since the mid-20th century.
Felver traces Ferlinghetti's humble beginnings back to Yonkers, New York, where he never knew his Italian father, as he died before Ferlinghetti was born. His French and Portuguese mother had a nervous breakdown after his birth and spent the rest of her life in a mental institution. His aunt Emily, who brought him to France for the first five years of his life, before she ran out of money and was forced to return to New York City, giving Lawrence up for adoption.
Ferlinghetti attended North Carolina University at Chapel Hill and later obtained a Ph.D. at the Sorbonne. Soon after completing his education, Ferlinghetti moved to San Francisco and bought a corner bookstore that grew into North Beach's landmark City Lights Booksellers and Publishers. Today, Ferlinghetti is one of the most important living figures in the Bay Area.
At age 90 and still vibrant, Ferlinghetti continues his active life in North Beach and also with quiet times at his cabin in Bixby Canyon near Big Sur, where he chops wood, while admiring the beautiful seaside, the surrounding Santa Lucia Mountains and the golden sunshine.
Ferlinghetti has often been described as a poet of the Beat Generation along with America's literary greats like Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Gary Snyder and Micheal McClure. However, Ferlinghetti would be the last person to call himself a Beat writer.
According to Felver's documentary, Ferlinghetti considers himself part of the World War II generation. He served in the Navy and was at D-Day where he witnessed some of the bloodiest atrocities of the war that changed him forever. During the Normandy invasion, Ferlinghetti was somewhat safe on a U.S. Navy boat in the back line of combat; however, horror unfolded before his eyes as American GIs were mowed down by the German fire. Ferlinghetti also went to Japan for what he was told would be a ground invasion. Instead the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki and one week later, he arrived and witnessed the devastation. Ferlinghetti became an instant pacifist after the experience.
In Ferlinghetti, Felver does a fantastic job interviewing the poet as an older man, integrating these clips with biographical footage that shows his transformation as a young Boy Scout type, into somebody who returned from World War II a disillusioned pacifist, ready to embark on an activist career that continues today. Felver's richly constructed film makes it clear that Ferlinghetti exemplifies free speech — his work from the 1950s on had a revolutionary affect on American society, ensuring for future generations the true meaning of the First Amendment. As owner of City Lights, he enthusiastically published new writers who had fresh and often controversial ideas.
In 1957, Ferlinghetti went on trial for publishing Allen Ginsberg's poem “Howl,” which caused a sensation for being “obscene.” While Ferlinghetti risked a prison sentence if found guilty, Ginsberg, on vacation in Europe, was unaware of the severe circumstances his friend was facing. He was found not guilty, surprisingly by a judge who was known to be extremely conservative.
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