Tuesday | March 28, 2006 7:00 pm

Me and My Brother

Screening on Film

Directed by Robert Frank.
With Julius Olovsky, Joseph Chaikin, John Coe.
US, 1969, 35mm, color and b&w, 91 min.

Frank makes a serious attempt to deal with mental illness in this film, which begins as a cinema-verité portrait of a catatonic schizophrenic, but veers into a bizarre mixture of fact and fiction. Julius, the schizophrenic, is taken from the hospital by his poet brother (Orlovsky) and follows a tour of poetry readings with Allen Ginsberg. The result is not only sprawling and chaotic but also touching, as Frank remains sensitive to the concerns of the central character. The film features odd cameos by Christopher Walken and Roscoe Lee Browne.