Kerouac, the Movie (1985) Jack Kerouac was a Beat Generation writer who took the nation by storm upon the publication of his novel On the Road. Kerouac's legacy and influence are explained via interviews with Kerouac's friends and contemporaries such as William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Herbert Huncke, and Edie Parker. Narrator Peter Coyote reads sections of Kerouac's (mostly autobiographical) books as an actor recreates scenes from Kerouac's life.