Kill Your Darlings

Kill Your Darlings is Elizabeth Olsen's sixth film, which premiered at Sundance 2013.

Plot Summary
A murder in 1944 draws together the great poets of the beat generation: Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and William Burroughs.

Synopsis
In 1944, poet Allen Ginsberg (Daniel Radcliffe) wins a place at Columbia University in New York City. He arrives as a very inexperienced freshman, but soon runs into Lucien Carr (Dane DeHaan), an unruly character who holds strong anti-establishment beliefs.

Ginsberg discovers that Carr only manages to stay at Columbia thanks to a professor working as a janitor, David Kammerer (Michael C. Hall), who writes all of Carr's term papers for him. Kammerer's character is established to have a predatory relationship with Carr, still being in love with Carr, and is revealed to be pressuring Carr for sexual favors in exchange for assuring that he cannot be expelled.

As Ginsberg spent more time with Carr, he soon meets William S. Burroughs (Ben Foster), who is far into drug experimentation, and the writer Jack Kerouac (Jack Huston), who was a sailor at that time and expelled from Columbia. Together, these ambitious people decided to start a new literary movement named The New Vision as a rebellion towards laws, institutions and Ginsberg and Carr's lawful professor Steeves. As Ginsberg spirals into the lifestyle of drugs, alcohol and cigarettes along with his new found friends, he slowly starts developing romantic feelings for Carr.

Carr tells Kammerer he is done with him and recruits Ginsberg to write his term papers instead. Kammerer, in retaliation, puts Kerouac's cat into the oven only for Kerouac to discover and rescue it in the middle of the night.

After a while, Kerouac and Carr attempt to run off and join the merchant marine together, hoping to go to Paris.

There is a confrontation between Carr and Kammerer, during which Kammerer is killed by stabbing (and perhaps also by drowning). Carr is arrested, and asks Ginsberg to write his deposition for him. Ginsberg is at first reluctant to help the unstable Carr, but after digging up more crucial evidence on Kammerer and his past relationship, he writes a piece entitled "The Night in Question". The piece describes a more emotional event, in which Carr kills Kammerer who outright tells him to after being threatened with the knife, devastated by this final rejection. Carr rejects the "fictional" story, and begs a determined Ginsberg not to reveal it to anybody, afraid that it will ruin him in the ensuing trial.

From Carr's mother, it is revealed that Kammerer was the first person to seduce Carr, when he was much younger and lived in Chicago. After the trial, Carr testified that the attack took place only because Kammerer was a sexual predator, and that Carr killed him in self-defense. Carr is not convicted of murder and receives only a short sentence for manslaughter.

Ginsberg then submits "The Night in Question" as his final term paper. On the basis of that shocking piece of prose, Ginsberg is faced with possible expulsion from Columbia. Either he must be expelled or he must embrace establishment values. He chooses the former, but is forced to leave his typescript behind. A week or two later he receives the typescript in the mail with an encouraging letter from his professor telling him to pursue his writing.

Cast

 * Daniel Radcliffe as Allen Ginsberg
 * Dane DeHaan as Lucien Carr
 * Michael C. Hall as David Kammerer
 * Jack Huston as Jack Kerouac
 * Ben Foster as William Burroughs
 * David Cross as Louis Ginsberg
 * Jennifer Jason Leigh as Naomi Ginsberg
 * Elizabeth Olsen as Edie Parker
 * John Cullum as Professor Steeves
 * Brenda Wehle as Permissions Librarian
 * Erin Darke as Gwendolyn
 * Craig Chester as Businessman
 * Lenore Harris as DA Secretary
 * Mark Ethan as Campus Guard
 * Zach Appelman as Luke Detweiler
 * David Rasche as Dean
 * Quinlan Corbett as Billeting Officer
 * Dawn Newman as Jazz Singer
 * Clancy O'Connor as Tour Guide
 * Jon DeVries as Mr. Burroughs
 * Leslie Meisel as Edith Cohen
 * Sarah Hollis as Harlem Club Patron
 * Nicole Signore as Page
 * Olen Holm as Sailor
 * Michael Cavadias as Ray Conklin

Trivia

 * In 2008, while performing the Broadway play Equus, Daniel Radcliffe auditioned and got the part of Allen Ginsberg. Radcliffe went on to film the last two Harry Potter movies, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011), and with him unavailable for filming, Chris Evans, Jesse Eisenberg, and Ben Whishaw were cast without Radcliffe. Shortly after, financing for the film fell through. When director John Krokidas started again with the film, he offered the role of Allen Ginsberg back to Radcliffe.
 * In this film, David Cross plays Allen Ginsberg's father, Louis. In I'm Not There (2007), David Cross played Allen Ginsberg himself.
 * Chris Evans, Jesse Eisenberg, and Ben Whishaw were originally cast in the lead roles.
 * Actor Ezra Miller turned down the role of Lucien Carr, which was then given to Dane DeHaan.
 * Daniel Radcliffe met girlfriend Erin Darke on set.
 * Some library scenes were filmed at the New York Academy of Medicine.
 * First feature film directed by John Krokidas.
 * Shot on film instead of digital. Cinematographer Reed Morano is a big fan of the medium.
 * Dane DeHaan was cast after John Krokidas saw his performance in the TV series In Treatment (2008) and Jack Huston for his work in Boardwalk Empire (2010).
 * Jesse Eisenberg was originally attached to the project. After he completed The Social Network (2010), he contacted director John Krokidas and apologized that he didn't want to play another student.
 * Filming on location was usually complicated by children passers-by freaking out at the sight of Harry Potter in the flesh.
 * Daniel Radcliffe and Dane DeHaan became very good friends while making the film, and were even roommates for a while.
 * Daniel Radcliffe auditioned for the part of Allen Ginsberg while he was appearing on Broadway in "Equus". Radcliffe actually offered to audition as opposed to being asked to do one.
 * This isn't the first time Michael C. Hall has played a gay character called David. He portrayed David Fisher for five seasons on the HBO hit, Six Feet Under (2001).
 * Daniel Radcliffe wore brown contact lenses to play Allen Ginsberg. He also had his hair permed.
 * Two years after their initial meeting, John Krokidas plucked up the courage to email Daniel Radcliffe once his project was back on track. Radcliffe replied almost immediately with "Abso-fucking-lutely".
 * Dane DeHaan revealed during a Q&A that he was actually strangling himself during the attempted suicide scenes.