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Amos Lassen wrote on 01/19/2012:

We have been hearing about this film for some time and it is now about to be released—the biopic of American poet, Hart Crane, who leapt to his death from a steamship when he was 32. He was a gay man who had highs and lows (like all of us) and he was rebellious and self-destructive visionary; the son of a wealthy Cleveland businessman. He was a world traveler and spent time in New York, Paris and Cuba. James Franco is Crane and the director of the film and it is exciting to see what he did with the complex story of Crane’s life. The film is set against the backdrop of the 1920’s and it brings poetry and film together with passion and honesty.

The film is brought to us in chapters, it is based on Paul Mariani’s book of the same name and it takes us from Cleveland to New York, Paris and Mexico and emphasizes the poet’s struggles with his sexuality and writer’s block. It is filmed in black and white and it is Franco’s facial expressions that tell the story. However, he is not completely successful in showing the essence of Crane’s poetry. In attempting to make the film come across as real, there is little action. We seem to concentrate on Crane’s sexual adventures with sailors and there are quite explicitly filmed.

Crane’s life was one of passion but he comes across as part of a gay fantasia in America. We become aware of his love of Walt Whitman’s poetry and embraced its life affirming qualities.

The film is somewhat old fashioned in that there is no color and it is filmed as the 60’s movies were with a bend toward the artistic. For whatever reason, I was not totally satisfied here even though Franco gives a fine performance and I feel much better reading Crane at home than watching him being read on celluloid.

An interesting note—when the film was screened at the 2011 Los Angeles Film Festival, it was reported that there is a scene in which Franco as Crane has oral sex with another man and a prosthetic penis was used.