AllMovie

After the success of his 1957 novel On The Road, Beat writer Jack Kerouac was unable to deal with his newfound fame and retreated to a cabin on the California coast, where his existential struggles became the basis of another novel, Big Sur. This documentary from filmmaker Curt Worden explores Kerouac's experiences at Big Sur through interviews with Kerouac's friends and contemporaries Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Carolyn Cassady, Joyce Johnson, and Michael McClure, as well as the reflections of admirers such as Tom Waits, Sam Shephard, and Patti Smith. Dramatic voiceover readings by actor John Ventimiglia (The Sopranos) and an original soundtrack by Son Volt's Jay Farrar and Death Cab for Cutie's Benjamin Gibbard complete this evocative portrait of a literary legend.