Corso: The Last Beat
Encyclopedia
Corso: The Last Beat is a hybrid documentary film, with on-screen narration by Ethan Hawke
and appearances by Patti Smith
, Allen Ginsberg
, William Burroughs and Gregory Corso
. It has received high acclaim from audiences in Europe and the Middle East and is heading towards a US distribution and US festivals in early 2012.
’s Gregory Corso, who despite dire hardship—infant abandonment, foster homes, living in the streets of Little Italy, a teenage prison term—became one of four in the inner circle of the Beats, along with Jack Kerouac
, Allen Ginsberg
, William S. Burroughs
... Ethan Hawke
takes us on the last odyssey of GREGORY CORSO - the most colorful of the inner circle of “THE BEATS”, who along with KEROUAC, GINSBERG and BURROUGHS, changed world culture and social history. Corso, abandoned as an infant by his Italian mother during the Depression, grew up in foster homes, on the streets of Little Italy and Greenwich Village. Corso’s father told him that his mother had returned to Italy, disgraced, an adulterer and a whore. Corso, at 17, was thrown in maximum security Clinton State Prison for stealing a $50 suit to go on a date. Protected by Mafia inmates, Corso read his way through her three-year sentence and ended up at Harvard, and eventually met Allen Ginsberg at a dyke bar in the Village, and was fused into the nucleus of “The Beats” big bang. After Allen Ginsberg’s death, Corso goes "On the Road" to rediscover his creative Muse. From Paris to Venice, Rome to Athens, Mount Parnassus to Jim Morrison’s grave, Corso reflects on the early days of "Beats." In high humor he reveals how "The Beats" emerged in Europe, and paved the way for youth culture, the sexual revolution and even hip-hop. Corso interrupts his tour to revisit Clinton State Prison and inspire young inmates. Returning to Italy, Corso muses on his lost mother, who he believes is dead and buried in Italy. In a stunning discovery, filmmaker Gustave Reininger finds Corso's mother not dead in Italy, but alive in Trenton, N.J. Corso meets his mother on film and discovers she is the Muse he has been seeking. He also discovers that his mother left him to escape the violence and sexual abuse of his father, who lied saying she had returned to Italy. Healing from a life of abandonment, emotional deprivation and abuse, Corso finishes his road trip on the Acropolis in Greece.A revitalized Corso returns to Greenwich Village, only to discover he is dying. He faces his own death with pluck and humor, comforted by Ethan Hawke, Patti Smith
and his newfound mother, Michelina.
, and after a lengthy quiz on Gilgamesh, Heraclitus, and St. Clement of Alexandria, Corso decided to allow Reininger to make a film. Reininger had made feature films and created network television but had never attempted non-fiction. Corso proved a challenge. Ginsberg offered to rein in Corso, known for his boisterous and confrontational antics, however a month after Corso agreed, Ginsberg fell it and died precipitously. Corso, with the loss of his best friend and literary alter-ego, became nearly catatonic. Beat fans would accost him, saying "Hey, You're the Last Beat" (Burroughs died shortly after Ginsberg). Corso, angered would always shoot back, "Is that your myth or mine." Reininger considered returning his funding for the film, raised privately, as Corso was non-responsive. Reininger though had an inspiration to take Corso back to Europe, Paris in particular, where the Beats had emerged, working in a small rundown hotel on the Left Bank, on Rue Git Le Coeur. Corso named it "The Beat Hotel."
Once in Europe, Corso came alive and led Reininger and his film crew on a madcap tour of France, Italy and Greece. The film is shot in the verite style, without much exposition. Corso's street theater antics kept the film's serious tone light ironic. Corso's poetry is woven into the film, with different voices. Discussions are underway with Bob Dylan to read a Corso poem, "Destiny", and with Bono to read "At Oscar Wilde's Tomb."
From Paris, to Rome, to Florence, Delphi and Athens, Corso retraces the steps of him and Ginsberg and Burroughs as young self-proclaimed poets, (though unpublished.) In Venice, Corso muses about his mother who abandoned him, and Reininger proposed finding her grave in Italy. For a year, he quietly searched cemeteries, genealogical records and official documents. His search turned up nothing in Europe, and relentlessly Reininger considered that perhaps the story of his mother's return was a lie told by his father. The search resumed in America, where again from cemeteries, hospital records, church documents and anecdotal accounts, Reininger picked up the trail of the missing mother, which had gone cold 67 years ago. Relentlessly Reininger searched and found that she was not in Italy, and certainly not dead, but 85 and living all her life in Trenton, New Jersey as a waitress, married to a short order cook. Her abandoned son was a secret withheld from her husband and two children. Corso's on screen meeting with his mother had the potential to be explosive.
Corso, about a year thereafter, developed prostrate cancer, and summoned Reininger to continue filming on his death bed. His last poker game bring great levity, a visit from Ethan Hawke, a lullaby from Patti Smith, and a final visit with his new-found mother mark the film's third act.
In addition to the film, Reininger commissioned a major bibliography of Corso's letter and holdings in various public and university libraries, conducted by Bill Morgan, the archivist for Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
The goal of the Corso Project is to restore Corso to his literary place as one of America's premier poets and social revolutionaries.
While living in Paris, Reininger wrote and co-produced a French Language thriller starring Dennis Hopper, “L’Ordre et la Securite´ du Monde.” Returning to America, Reininger was a contributor to Michael Mann's “Miami Vice” and “Robbery Homicide Division.” He has written for and co-produced with directors Sydney Pollack, Michael Apted, Penny Marshall, Paul Verhoeven and other notable filmmakers.
Corso – The Last Beat,” a longitudinal, ten year feature documentary is Reininger’s featured debut.
With Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Thich Nhat Hanh, The Dalai Lama, Deepak Chopra and Sr. Helen Prejean, Reininger is finishing commitments to a feature, “The Big Question”, which he co-wrote and co-directed.
Reininger is preparing a dramatic version of “Corso ...” along with his other dramatic film and television commitments, including “Promises to Keep” a political thriller on the U.S. invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs.
Gustave Reininger was born in Kentucky, was schooled by Jesuits, and graduated from University of Chicago. He began his business career as an international investment banker with Chemical Bank (J.P. Morgan Chase.) After stints of living in Paris and London, he now resides in Los Angeles with his three children Olivia, Isabel and Haven.
Ethan Hawke
Ethan Green Hawke is an American actor, writer and director. He made his feature film debut in 1985 with the science fiction movie Explorers, before making a supporting appearance in the 1989 drama Dead Poets Society which is considered his breakthrough role...
and appearances by Patti Smith
Patti Smith
Patricia Lee "Patti" Smith is an American singer-songwriter, poet and visual artist, who became a highly influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album Horses....
, Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
, William Burroughs and Gregory Corso
Gregory Corso
Gregory Nunzio Corso was an American poet, youngest of the inner circle of Beat Generation writers...
. It has received high acclaim from audiences in Europe and the Middle East and is heading towards a US distribution and US festivals in early 2012.
Synopsis
The Beat GenerationBeat generation
The Beat Generation refers to a group of American post-WWII writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired...
’s Gregory Corso, who despite dire hardship—infant abandonment, foster homes, living in the streets of Little Italy, a teenage prison term—became one of four in the inner circle of the Beats, along with Jack Kerouac
Jack Kerouac
Jean-Louis "Jack" Lebris de Kerouac was an American novelist and poet. He is considered a literary iconoclast and, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is recognized for his spontaneous method of writing, covering topics such as Catholic...
, Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
, William S. Burroughs
William S. Burroughs
William Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...
... Ethan Hawke
Ethan Hawke
Ethan Green Hawke is an American actor, writer and director. He made his feature film debut in 1985 with the science fiction movie Explorers, before making a supporting appearance in the 1989 drama Dead Poets Society which is considered his breakthrough role...
takes us on the last odyssey of GREGORY CORSO - the most colorful of the inner circle of “THE BEATS”, who along with KEROUAC, GINSBERG and BURROUGHS, changed world culture and social history. Corso, abandoned as an infant by his Italian mother during the Depression, grew up in foster homes, on the streets of Little Italy and Greenwich Village. Corso’s father told him that his mother had returned to Italy, disgraced, an adulterer and a whore. Corso, at 17, was thrown in maximum security Clinton State Prison for stealing a $50 suit to go on a date. Protected by Mafia inmates, Corso read his way through her three-year sentence and ended up at Harvard, and eventually met Allen Ginsberg at a dyke bar in the Village, and was fused into the nucleus of “The Beats” big bang. After Allen Ginsberg’s death, Corso goes "On the Road" to rediscover his creative Muse. From Paris to Venice, Rome to Athens, Mount Parnassus to Jim Morrison’s grave, Corso reflects on the early days of "Beats." In high humor he reveals how "The Beats" emerged in Europe, and paved the way for youth culture, the sexual revolution and even hip-hop. Corso interrupts his tour to revisit Clinton State Prison and inspire young inmates. Returning to Italy, Corso muses on his lost mother, who he believes is dead and buried in Italy. In a stunning discovery, filmmaker Gustave Reininger finds Corso's mother not dead in Italy, but alive in Trenton, N.J. Corso meets his mother on film and discovers she is the Muse he has been seeking. He also discovers that his mother left him to escape the violence and sexual abuse of his father, who lied saying she had returned to Italy. Healing from a life of abandonment, emotional deprivation and abuse, Corso finishes his road trip on the Acropolis in Greece.A revitalized Corso returns to Greenwich Village, only to discover he is dying. He faces his own death with pluck and humor, comforted by Ethan Hawke, Patti Smith
Patti Smith
Patricia Lee "Patti" Smith is an American singer-songwriter, poet and visual artist, who became a highly influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album Horses....
and his newfound mother, Michelina.
The making of Corso, the Last Beat
Gregory Corso who unlike his compatriot Allen Ginsberg, avoided publicity and promotion of the "Beat" label, refused all film and biography requests. Allen Ginsberg introduced Corso to filmmaker Gustave ReiningerGustave Reininger
Gustave Reininger is the co-creator of the NBC TV drama, Crime Story. It was executive produced by Michael Mann. Crime Story was based on the Mafia in Chicago,"The Outfit," and how it got off the streets and into the boardrooms of Las Vegas casinos. The show premiered with a two hour pilot - movie,...
, and after a lengthy quiz on Gilgamesh, Heraclitus, and St. Clement of Alexandria, Corso decided to allow Reininger to make a film. Reininger had made feature films and created network television but had never attempted non-fiction. Corso proved a challenge. Ginsberg offered to rein in Corso, known for his boisterous and confrontational antics, however a month after Corso agreed, Ginsberg fell it and died precipitously. Corso, with the loss of his best friend and literary alter-ego, became nearly catatonic. Beat fans would accost him, saying "Hey, You're the Last Beat" (Burroughs died shortly after Ginsberg). Corso, angered would always shoot back, "Is that your myth or mine." Reininger considered returning his funding for the film, raised privately, as Corso was non-responsive. Reininger though had an inspiration to take Corso back to Europe, Paris in particular, where the Beats had emerged, working in a small rundown hotel on the Left Bank, on Rue Git Le Coeur. Corso named it "The Beat Hotel."
Once in Europe, Corso came alive and led Reininger and his film crew on a madcap tour of France, Italy and Greece. The film is shot in the verite style, without much exposition. Corso's street theater antics kept the film's serious tone light ironic. Corso's poetry is woven into the film, with different voices. Discussions are underway with Bob Dylan to read a Corso poem, "Destiny", and with Bono to read "At Oscar Wilde's Tomb."
From Paris, to Rome, to Florence, Delphi and Athens, Corso retraces the steps of him and Ginsberg and Burroughs as young self-proclaimed poets, (though unpublished.) In Venice, Corso muses about his mother who abandoned him, and Reininger proposed finding her grave in Italy. For a year, he quietly searched cemeteries, genealogical records and official documents. His search turned up nothing in Europe, and relentlessly Reininger considered that perhaps the story of his mother's return was a lie told by his father. The search resumed in America, where again from cemeteries, hospital records, church documents and anecdotal accounts, Reininger picked up the trail of the missing mother, which had gone cold 67 years ago. Relentlessly Reininger searched and found that she was not in Italy, and certainly not dead, but 85 and living all her life in Trenton, New Jersey as a waitress, married to a short order cook. Her abandoned son was a secret withheld from her husband and two children. Corso's on screen meeting with his mother had the potential to be explosive.
Corso, about a year thereafter, developed prostrate cancer, and summoned Reininger to continue filming on his death bed. His last poker game bring great levity, a visit from Ethan Hawke, a lullaby from Patti Smith, and a final visit with his new-found mother mark the film's third act.
In addition to the film, Reininger commissioned a major bibliography of Corso's letter and holdings in various public and university libraries, conducted by Bill Morgan, the archivist for Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
The goal of the Corso Project is to restore Corso to his literary place as one of America's premier poets and social revolutionaries.
Awards, recognition and distribution
Reininger withheld the film from the distribution market during the recent recession, which saw many independent film distributors leaving the business. Instead he took the film to European festivals. It was the audience award winner at Italy's most prestigous Taormina Film Festival. At the Dubai international Film festival it won awards in World Cinema. It was heralded in at the Rome Festival, and a Festival Litteratura in Mantua where it won Best Film. It was received at the Glasgow International Film Festival and then show as a work in progress at the Hamptons International Film Festival. Distribtuion is expected to be coordinated with the film adaptation of Kerouac's "On the Road," produced by Francis Ford Coppola.Gustave Reininger - filmmaker
Gustave Reininger is the creator of the hit NBC TV drama series (and feature film), "Crime Story." Working with Michael Mann, Reininger crafted the 1960’s period drama of the Chicago Mob and how they took Las Vegas. It discovered Dennis Farina and David Caruso and featured other prominent artists such as Julia Roberts, Madonna, Dennis Haysbert, Gary Sinise, Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon, Stanley Tucci and Kevin Spacey.While living in Paris, Reininger wrote and co-produced a French Language thriller starring Dennis Hopper, “L’Ordre et la Securite´ du Monde.” Returning to America, Reininger was a contributor to Michael Mann's “Miami Vice” and “Robbery Homicide Division.” He has written for and co-produced with directors Sydney Pollack, Michael Apted, Penny Marshall, Paul Verhoeven and other notable filmmakers.
Corso – The Last Beat,” a longitudinal, ten year feature documentary is Reininger’s featured debut.
With Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Thich Nhat Hanh, The Dalai Lama, Deepak Chopra and Sr. Helen Prejean, Reininger is finishing commitments to a feature, “The Big Question”, which he co-wrote and co-directed.
Reininger is preparing a dramatic version of “Corso ...” along with his other dramatic film and television commitments, including “Promises to Keep” a political thriller on the U.S. invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs.
Gustave Reininger was born in Kentucky, was schooled by Jesuits, and graduated from University of Chicago. He began his business career as an international investment banker with Chemical Bank (J.P. Morgan Chase.) After stints of living in Paris and London, he now resides in Los Angeles with his three children Olivia, Isabel and Haven.