by For Daniel Radcliffe, best known for playing the iconic role of Harry Potter, the 2013 biopic “Kill Your Darlings” radically altered his perception of what films could achieve. Up until that point, Radcliffe had focused primarily on major blockbuster movies that aimed to entertain masses of viewers. But “Kill Your Darlings” showed him that cinema could also challenge audiences, spark insightful debates, and depict subjects that had never been covered before on the big screen.
Exploring the Origins of the Beat Generation
“Kill Your Darlings” chronicles how an obscure group of friends and writers at Columbia University in the 1940s would end up birthing the Beat Generation, a radical literary movement that upended notions of what acceptable writing could depict. The film centers around the tumultuous relationship between Allen Ginsberg, played by Radcliffe, and charismatic peer Lucien Carr. Other key figures in the genesis of the Beat movement also feature prominently, including William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac and David Kammerer.
Radcliffe was already familiar with the broad contours of the Beat Generation and its mammoth influence on literature and culture. But this film showed him the pivotal backstory of how that influential movement germinated through a group of rebellious, eager, but troubled young friends clashes with the conservative establishment of their day. He could appreciate how a small group of determined artists could end up leaving such an indelible mark on society.
Confronting Forbidden Topics Head-On
“Kill Your Darlings” also stands out for tackling topics that would have been forbidden in mainstream films just years earlier. At the heart of the film is the allegedly toxic, tempestuous romantic infatuation that David Kammerer develops for the much younger Lucien Carr. While the film doesn’t explicitly depict a sexual relationship between the two, it still treats Kammerer’s taboo obsession in a non-judgmental, understanding light.
The film even climaxes with Carr stabbing Kammerer to death in Riverside Park, depicting the sheer explosiveness that can result from societal marginalization of homosexuality and related themes. While films are now more commonly presenting LGBTQ relationships, crusty institutions would never finance a film like “Kill Your Darlings” even in the early 2000s. For Radcliffe, this brave, uninhibited handling of provocative subject matter demonstrated cinema’s power to upend stale, regressive norms.
Seeing Past Escapism to Cinema’s Higher Callings
Having starred in one of the most popular, imaginative fantasy franchises ever filmed, Radcliffe was certainly no stranger to escapist cinema. The “Harry Potter” movies invite viewers to get utterly lost in an elaborate world of wizards, magical creatures and eternal battles between good and evil. It’s easy to just relax and allow your imagination go wild when watching Radcliffe cast expertly-timed spells and yank off his invisibility cloak.
But prior to “Kill Your Darlings,” the vast majority of films Radcliffe had worked on were geared for escapism and fantasy. This film awakened him to cinema’s higher callings of sparking insight, challenging assumptions, and depicting reality in all its messy, complicated extremes. He learned that the movie-watching experience could be intellectually stimulating and profound, not just offering viewers a temporary occluded escape hatch from real world problems.
How the Film Reshaped Radcliffe’s Career Trajectory
Numerous entertainment journalists have noted that “Kill Your Darlings” profoundly reshaped Daniel Radcliffe’s creative career trajectory and the types of movies he wanted participate in. The film showed him that indie movies with prestige talent attached can still tackle avant-garde themes and appeal to mass worldwide audiences. He no longer felt confined to just starring in major studios’ formulaic blockbusters to reach huge crowds.
In the wake of “Kill Your Darlings,” Radcliffe aggressively sought out edgy, imaginative indie flicks that would surprise viewers and positive shock critics. For example, he took on the lead role in the 2013 fantasy horror “Horns,” in which his character inexplicably sprouts horns and obtains devilish powers. After largely avoiding the musical genre, Radcliffe starred in the 2021 comedy caper “Miracle Workers: Oregon Trail,” which features absurdist song-and-dance numbers. It’s unlikely the traditionally cautious Radcliffe would have taken on such risky, novel roles without the inspiration from “Kill Your Darlings.”
He also gravitated toward films that tackled weighty topics that mass audiences often shy away from. He played a young lawyer fighting to lift restrictions on gay rights activists in “Stonewall” (2015). And in 2016’s “Imperium,” he startlingly depicts a police officer going undercover to infiltrate a group of violent white supremacists. Like “Kill Your Darlings,” these films underscored Radcliffe’s growing passion for diving into socially complex tales full of moral ambiguity.
Kill Your Darlings’ Lasting Influence
Over ten years since its release, “Kill Your Darlings” continues to profoundly shape perceptions of the Beat Generation’s enduring cultural influence. The film brought neglected backstories of familiar figures like Ginsberg and Burroughs to totally new audiences. It also spurred new appraisals of Lucien Carr’s central, conflicted role in establishing the Beats’ radical creative community amid society’s oppressive norms.
Some literature buffs slammed the film for inaccuracies or overly dramatizing salacious real-world events. But Radcliffe believes that like the Beat writers themselves, the film ruptured calcified assumptions regarding what stories could be told and how. Love it or hate it, “Kill Your Darlings” inarguably sparked vital conversations about censorship, homosexuality’s repression, and the roots of enduring literary movements.
Just as the Beat poets tore up the rulebook on what themes and styles were acceptable to depict in verse, “Kill Your Darlings” transgressed silver-screen norms. And in Radcliffe’s own career, the film clearly divided his work into a “before” and “after,” shaping his creative aspirations forever after. Like the young, ambitious Beat artists that the film revolves around, who found their identities and purpose through pursuing their radical artistic vision, “Kill Your Darlings” showed Radcliffe that some works of art can profoundly change society. The film taught him that cinema at its best does much more than just help viewers temporarily escape from reality’s endless problems.
