The Beats. Iconoclastic representations of freedom. Romanticized. Criticized. Eulogized. But, what did it mean to be a Beat? "Howl" does not tell you because it is a biography of a poem. A poem that exercised the freedom of spoken word and thought. A poem that reinforced that same freedom as the subject of an obscenity trial. A poem that has spoken to people for nearly sixty years.

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This is our two-part examination of a film. "Howl" While seemingly simple due to its scripts written from transcripts, bears some examination to set the context for the time period in which it exists. John Helix sets that context for us in Part One as we talk about the movie. In Part Two, we will examine the facts and compare them to the film.