No other movie I have ever seen better captures the malaise of
middle-class American suburban society in the 1950s than
"Revolutionary Road" which is scheduled for release this month. Based
on the 1962 novel by Richard Yates, it hurdles forward like a diesel
locomotive from the very first scene. While there have not been many
good movies coming out of Hollywood this year, "Revolutionary Road"
is an instant classic. Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet are Frank
and April Wheeler, the husband and wife locked in a cycle of abuse
reminiscent of George and Martha in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf".
Unlike Albee's play, there is no final reconciliation in
"Revolutionary Road", just the ashes of a broken marriage.
While Yates was not identified with the beat generation, his
characters stepped out of Allen Ginsburg's "Howl":
who were burned alive in their innocent flannel suits
on Madison Avenue amid blasts of leaden verse
& the tanked-up clatter of the iron regiments
of fashion & the nitroglycerine shrieks of the
fairies of advertising & the mustard gas of sinis-
ter intelligent editors, or were run down by the
drunken taxicabs of Absolute Reality
full: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2008/12/13/revolutionary-road/
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