Thursday night I saw the American movie Howl about American poet Allen Ginsberg and the obscenity trial that surrounded his poem Howl.

The movie takes place in the late 1950s, a time I am not familiar with, but avant-garde artists such as Ginsberg set the stage and paved the way for the 1960s and 1970s “youth” and sexual revolutions...topics which are well documented. Artists of my generation were influenced by Ginsberg and his contemporaries.

The movie, directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, is poetry itself in black and white, and with colour segments, weaving court proceedings, an interview with Ginsberg (played by James Franco), a poetry reading in San Francisco, and imaginative animation.

The directors' previous film was The Times of Harvey Milk, and they stick to their documentary style in Howl, recreating the trial scenes, and interview with Ginsberg. There is a clip of Allen Ginsberg, who died in 1997, at the end of the film.

John Hamm (Mad Man) and David Srathairn (Good Night, and Good Luck) play lawyers in the obscenity trial. The very handsome Franco, who has portrayed James Dean on film, has transformed into a believable Ginsberg, who was far from good looking.

Rating four bags of popcorn