Jack is the screen adaptation of the book with the same name written by Ulf Lundell, writer, musician and poet. The book was written in 1976 and the same year Jan Halldoff made this adaptation for the screen.
Ulf Lundell is a writer very much influenced by the 'Beat Generation' and their icons: William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady and others. This book is in a way an attempt to create a Swedish version of 'On the Road' (Kerouac), though I can't say it's as original as the 'original'!
Parenthetically Lundell has also in his music been very influenced by musicians as Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen, sometimes making him somewhat of a epigone in his musical achievements too.
Jack is a young man with a lot of dreams, unrealized when beginning the film and unrealized when finishing it.
He wants to become an author and musician and in order to reach this goal he explores all the different aspects of life he believes being necessary in order to realize his dream(s).
In the beginning of the film he and his friends are all very enthusiastic and the future seems bright in every way, leading them to try alcohol, drugs and other stimuli to 'widen' their outlook on life.
As with most people - not all though - the 'enlarged mind' is drowned in the bottom of the glass, swept away in the smoke from your marijuana cigaretes or stuck to your needle in the arm.
Jack is a 'beatnick', a beaten and rather failed person, a 'looser' is one word for it but contrary to his idols in the real 'Beat Generation' his personal story is less interesting.
As this film is built around a somewhat autobiographical book by Lundell, we have all reason in the world to believe that he has lived some of the experiences Jack is going through but again: It's not enough with a bohemian life, 'grass', alcohol and travelling to make a life story interesting, it demands more than that, e.g. an intellectually intresting, inovating main character and neither Jack nor Ulf is such a person, unfortunately.
Ulf Lundell is a writer very much influenced by the 'Beat Generation' and their icons: William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady and others. This book is in a way an attempt to create a Swedish version of 'On the Road' (Kerouac), though I can't say it's as original as the 'original'!
Parenthetically Lundell has also in his music been very influenced by musicians as Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen, sometimes making him somewhat of a epigone in his musical achievements too.
Jack is a young man with a lot of dreams, unrealized when beginning the film and unrealized when finishing it.
He wants to become an author and musician and in order to reach this goal he explores all the different aspects of life he believes being necessary in order to realize his dream(s).
In the beginning of the film he and his friends are all very enthusiastic and the future seems bright in every way, leading them to try alcohol, drugs and other stimuli to 'widen' their outlook on life.
As with most people - not all though - the 'enlarged mind' is drowned in the bottom of the glass, swept away in the smoke from your marijuana cigaretes or stuck to your needle in the arm.
Jack is a 'beatnick', a beaten and rather failed person, a 'looser' is one word for it but contrary to his idols in the real 'Beat Generation' his personal story is less interesting.
As this film is built around a somewhat autobiographical book by Lundell, we have all reason in the world to believe that he has lived some of the experiences Jack is going through but again: It's not enough with a bohemian life, 'grass', alcohol and travelling to make a life story interesting, it demands more than that, e.g. an intellectually intresting, inovating main character and neither Jack nor Ulf is such a person, unfortunately.
In the role as Jack we see Göran Stangertz.
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