Corso: The Last Beat - Synopsis

Synopsis

The Beat Generation’s Gregory Corso, who despite dire hardship—infant abandonment, foster homes, living in the streets of Little Italy, a teenage prison term—became one of four in the inner circle of the Beats, along with Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs... Ethan Hawke takes us on the last odyssey of GREGORY CORSO - the most colorful of the inner circle of “THE BEATS”, who along with KEROUAC, GINSBERG and BURROUGHS, changed world culture and social history. Corso, abandoned as an infant by his Italian mother during the Depression, grew up in foster homes, on the streets of Little Italy and Greenwich Village. Corso’s father told him that his mother had returned to Italy, disgraced, an adulterer and a whore. Corso, at 17, was thrown in maximum security Clinton State Prison for stealing a $50 suit to go on a date. Protected by Mafia inmates, Corso read his way through her three-year sentence and ended up at Harvard, and eventually met Allen Ginsberg at a dyke bar in the Village, and was fused into the nucleus of “The Beats” big bang. After Allen Ginsberg’s death, Corso goes "On the Road" to rediscover his creative Muse. From Paris to Venice, Rome to Athens, Mount Parnassus to Jim Morrison’s grave, Corso reflects on the early days of "Beats." In high humor he reveals how "The Beats" emerged in Europe, and paved the way for youth culture, the sexual revolution and even hip-hop. Corso interrupts his tour to revisit Clinton State Prison and inspire young inmates. Returning to Italy, Corso muses on his lost mother, who he believes is dead and buried in Italy. In a stunning discovery, filmmaker Gustave Reininger finds Corso's mother not dead in Italy, but alive in Trenton, N.J. Corso meets his mother on film and discovers she is the Muse he has been seeking. He also discovers that his mother left him to escape the violence and sexual abuse of his father, who lied saying she had returned to Italy. Healing from a life of abandonment, emotional deprivation and abuse, Corso finishes his road trip on the Acropolis in Greece.A revitalized Corso returns to Greenwich Village, only to discover he is dying. He faces his own death with pluck and humor, comforted by Ethan Hawke, Patti Smith and his newfound mother, Michelina.