Another Jack Kerouac novel at Sundance: 'Big Sur'

Another Jack Kerouac novel at Sundance: 'Big Sur'

Jean-Marc Barr in director Michael Polish's "Big Sur," based on the Jack Kerouac novel.

PARK CITY, Utah â€" As Sundance 2013 gets ready to close, the focus is on movies about the past â€" and one about the man who helped shape the future.

A pair of period films rounded out Wednesday and Thursday’s premieres. “Big Sur” is director Michael Polish’s adaptation of one of Jack Kerouac’s later novels, during a movie season that’s already seen “On the Road” (in theaters) and “Kill Your Darlings” (at Sundance). “Big Sur” stands out as an organic distillation of the Beat Generation writer’s language, literary influence and legacy.

German actor Jean-Marc Barr stars as Kerouac, who at age 40 is dealing with fame in the three years since “Road’s” publication and his own smoldering burnout. Kate Bosworth is the lover of both Kerouac and his buddy Neal Cassady (Josh Lucas), Radha Mitchell is Cassady’s wife Carolyn and Anthony Edwards is Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

“The Beat writers were the original rock stars,” Lucas told the Daily News. “They were vibrantly, viciously, titillatingly alive. And the Cassadys, in particular, were the ones living that way. Not that anyone had never had a ménage a trois before, but the Cassadys were sharing each other as lovers, as drug partners and sharing each other as a sort of force to them all.”

Meanwhile, “Sweetwater” takes a feminist angle on the classic revenge-style western.

January Jones stars as the widow of a murdered rancher in the 1880s. She cuts a swath of vengeance across the Old West that engulfs the men who wronged her, as well as a fanatical religious leader and a renegade sheriff. Ed Harris and Jason Isaacs co-star in film by brothers Logan and Noah Miller.

“All the while I was filming the scenes where I was stalking those men, I sort of was playing the ‘Jaws’ theme in my head,” Jones joked to The News. “It made me feel strong.”

Friday night’s closing film, “jOBS,” stars Ashton Kutcher as Steve Jobs, founder of Apple and cultural iconoclast. Set between the tech innovator’s college years in 1971 to his ascension to Apple CEO in 2000 â€" and before he announced he had the cancer that killed him in 2011 â€" the film, directed by Joshua Michael Stern, is set to be released April 19. Dermot Mulroney and James Woods co-star.

The Jury, Audience and other awards of Sundance 2013 will be handed out Saturday, closing out the indie-film mecca’s 28th year.