07-08-2013, 02:00 PM
What are yours? One of mine is Naked Lunch, David Cronenberg's 1991 adaptation of William S. Burroughs' novel of the same name: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102511/ It epitomises why I don't like Beat literature very much. In my opinion it's a nasty, vacuous, pretentious work about a cretin (Peter Weller) who spends the film justifying himself.
Burroughs' novel was autobiographical, but that doesn't help matters for me. Cronenberg's surreal images are sometimes interesting, but they're caked in a meandering narrative about sweet fuck all. Burroughs either hates or patronises most of his characters, except maybe the one representing himself, and the film can't escape that. As a story, its only purpose so far as I can tell is to distance the Weller/Burroughs character from his accidental killing of his wife, Joan Vollmer. Burroughs killed Vollmer in real life, while they were drunkenly playing a party trick where he shoots an apple off of her head. This story could have been fascinating, if approached honestly, but Burroughs seems more interested in excusing and painting himself as a tortured hero. Tortured, maybe. Hero, no.
The narrative dips in and out of surrealism, as Weller imagines himself as a spy for a mysterious organisation run by sentient bugs. Boring shit after boring shit then happens, some of which involves Ian Holm as a sinister tourist, Roy Scheider from Jaws shows up, then it ends. Beat literature attracts a lot of passionate supporters, but it's just not for me, I guess. To those who can like and see the beauty in Naked Lunch, good luck to ya.
Burroughs' novel was autobiographical, but that doesn't help matters for me. Cronenberg's surreal images are sometimes interesting, but they're caked in a meandering narrative about sweet fuck all. Burroughs either hates or patronises most of his characters, except maybe the one representing himself, and the film can't escape that. As a story, its only purpose so far as I can tell is to distance the Weller/Burroughs character from his accidental killing of his wife, Joan Vollmer. Burroughs killed Vollmer in real life, while they were drunkenly playing a party trick where he shoots an apple off of her head. This story could have been fascinating, if approached honestly, but Burroughs seems more interested in excusing and painting himself as a tortured hero. Tortured, maybe. Hero, no.
The narrative dips in and out of surrealism, as Weller imagines himself as a spy for a mysterious organisation run by sentient bugs. Boring shit after boring shit then happens, some of which involves Ian Holm as a sinister tourist, Roy Scheider from Jaws shows up, then it ends. Beat literature attracts a lot of passionate supporters, but it's just not for me, I guess. To those who can like and see the beauty in Naked Lunch, good luck to ya.
