It was with mixed skepticism when I first heard about the upcoming version of Jack Kerouac's On the Road, directed by Walter Salles [The Motorcycle Diaries]. Today Viggo Mortensen has joined the cast. Deadline report that also Amy Adams [Julie & Julia] has been cast as "Jane" the emotionally damaged Junkie, mother of two children and wife of Old Bull Lee.
Mortensen will play Bull Lee. In Kerouac's Novel; Bull lee was an anagram for William Burroughs whose actual pen name was Bill Lee. Jane is a stand in for Joan Vollmer Adams who shared an apartment with Kerouac & Burroughs in 1944. Adams & Burroughs later married & infamously shot & killed her in 1951.
Salles is working once again with his Motorcycle Diaries screenwriter Jose Rivera. Garrett Hedlund [Tron] plays Dean Moriarty & Sam Riley [Control] is Sal Paradise, [surrogates for Neal Cassady & Keroac]. Kirsten Dunst is Camille/Carolyn Robinson [based on his second wife].
Francis ford Coppola has been struggling to bring the Novel to the screen for the last 30 years, this is a good reason to be skeptical as anybody who has read the novel will with some knowledge of the era realize it as being a very important book at a very important time;how this translates to a modern audience today is questionable. On the Road began filming in last month in Montreal & is set for 2011 summer release.
