Directed by David Cronenberg, 1991, 115 minutes

Bug exterminator William Lee (Peter Weller) flees to the international free port of Interzone when he accidentally shoots his wife Joan (Judy Davis). Following the advice of Doctor Benway (Roy Scheider) and pursued by agents of a shady international cabal known as Control he trades his addiction to bug powder for a new drug, the Black Meat. Writing becomes an addiction as Lee explores the new forms of narcotic and sexual stimulation that help him to create his novel ‘The Naked Lunch’.

The imaginative worlds of filmmaker David Cronenberg and author William S. Burroughs are so close that collaboration seemed inevitable. Burroughs was one of the first writers to explore the ideas that underpin much of Cronenberg’s cinema. His influence can be seen in the telepathic experimentation of ‘Stereo’ (1969) through the somatic sexual politics of ‘Shivers’ (1975) and ‘The Brood’ (1979), to the collision of body and machine explored in ‘Videodrome’ (1984) and ‘Crash’ (1997) where his protagonists seek apotheosis as the ‘soft machine’ envisaged in Burroughs’ writing. Cronenberg’s familiarity with Burroughs’ work and the author’s informal involvement in the production ensure that his attempt to film this supposedly unfilmable novel avoids many of the usual shortcomings of cinematic literary adaptation. ‘Naked Lunch’ combines elements of biography with material from the whole body of Burroughs’ writing which it takes as a comprehensive roman à clef.

Burroughs’ ‘Naked Lunch’ was created in the 1950s as corporations took advantage of post-war chaos to colonise and exploit new territories. Control is portrayed as a corporate bureaucracy which uses the bland language of business deals and takeovers to disguise the promotion of addiction to extend their influence. Narcotics offer a metaphor for any tool used by the powerful to manipulate the powerless. Substitute our need to constantly consume resources for the need to use drugs and the role of Control in global politics becomes easier to understand. Burroughs’ direct experience of addiction, as recorded in ‘Junkie: Confessions of an Unredeemed Drug Addict’ (1953) gives him a nuanced view: Narcotics have the potential to heighten perception and unleash creativity, but addiction destroys relationships and makes us easier to manipulate. Cronenberg leaves this tension unresolved but towards the end of the film Lee finds his wife amongst Control’s addicted customers writing the words “all is lost” repeatedly in her notebook, a prognosis of despair for Control’s perfect product and ideal customers.

‘The Naked Lunch’ also addresses our complex and pervading relationship with technology. Cronenberg represents the agents of Control as a fusion of insect and typewriter; these bizarre hybrids allow Lee self-expression but also attempt to control his behaviour. Lee has intense (and occasionally sexual) relationships with a progression of baroque writing machines: The Clarknova, Martinelli, Krup Dominator and Mujahideen embody the different styles of the work that they help to create. Here, as in ‘Crash’ (1996) and ‘Exiztenz’ (1999) Cronenberg reminds us that our relationship with technology is becoming increasingly intimate. ‘Naked Lunch’ fits neatly into Cronenberg’s attempts to chart the blurring lines between organic and non-organic life. If this notion seems too abstract or fanciful, consider how often we check our texts and e-mails each day or how much Facebook traffic effects our emotional lives. Our addiction to technological novelty promises a safer, fairer world but also enables constant surveillance, destroys notions of privacy, and makes widespread political manipulation much easier.

Despite these weighty themes ‘Naked Lunch’ is not a sombre film and the screenplay is leavened by Burroughs’ distinctive sense of humour. He grew up in the world of black and white flicks, enjoyed W C Fields and the Keystone Cops, and the dialogue sometimes mimics Burroughs’ use of vaudevillian patter (as when Burroughs is quaintly compared to a “freckle-faced boy on a fishing raft”). The film is stronger when it lets Burroughs’ distinctive verbal routines speak for themselves than when it tries to depict his imagery directly. The sequence when Lee sombrely describes a talking asshole evokes Burroughs’ style and wit perfectly but despite some wonderful mechanical effects (for example Chris Walas’ Mugwump) a poorly realised puppet of Cloquet as predatory centipede verges on the ridiculous.

This is actor Peter Weller’s finest work, and he contributes a performance which mimics many of Burroughs’ distinctive mannerisms. Always elegant, watchful, and aloof with a deadpan, angular face Weller captures the confusion of Lee’s hallucinogenic journey but also its pathos as the writer mines the pain of his life to fuel his writing.  The accidental shooting and killing of his wife Joan Vollmer in 1951 provides one of the keys that unlocks Burroughs’ writing. He struggled with the implications of this act all his life and he returns to it repeatedly in his work. Unable to accept culpability or understand his motivation Burroughs never came to terms with this appalling incident, instead he blames the influence of the sinister outside forces that he calls Control. Cronenberg’s screenplay remains non-committal as to whether Control is an external entity or a personification of Burroughs’ sense of guilt but suggests that the shooting was a fated or scripted act, destined to recur repeatedly. It fertilises the writer’s creativity but at terrible cost. As late as 1992 the tragedy is still being played out in Burroughs collaborative work with Tom Waits and Robert Wilson. Their expressionist theatrical piece ‘The Black Rider’ is suffused with lyrics that describe magic bullets and head wounds trailing bloody ribbons.

Paul Weller’s impressive work is matched by a fine performance from Judy Davis as Joan Lee which veers from frank sensuality to complete emotional collapse. Roy Scheider is on bumptious form with just the right combination of farce and po-faced sobriety as Benway. His knowing deployment of hipster slang like “score” and “kick” is very funny. Lee’s “sexual ambivalence” is explored in his gentle relationship with Kiki (Joseph Scoren) and the unctuous fop Cloquet (a sinister Julian Sands). Burroughs’ routine about Bobo the “wise old queen” signals the more forthright attitude to homosexuality found in his work and his desire to move beyond clichéd stereotype. Burroughs’ literary friends Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac appear as Martin (Michael Zelniker) and Hank (Robert A. Silverman) but the film is careful to emphasise that Burroughs’ distinctive voice and interests set him apart from the convenient label of the Beat Movement. Once in Interzone Lee falls into the orbit of Tom and Joan Frost (Ian Holm and Judy Davis) as they explore the sexual and social freedoms offered by the free port. These scenes reflect the lifestyle encountered by Burroughs in fifties Tangiers and described by Paul Bowles in ‘The Sheltering Sky’ (1949). Alongside the more recognisable literary celebrities experienced readers will also recognise a host of idiosyncratic characters from Burroughs’ writing including oddball exterminators and rigorously inept flatfoots Hauser and O’Brien.

In Cronenberg’s “Naked Lunch” Burroughs writing is not simply a quotable adjunct. Design, music, imagery, and dialogue are steeped in Burroughs’ personality. The viewer will get more out of the film if they have taken some time to familiarise themselves with Burroughs writing, but newcomers are welcome too as Cronenberg invites you to explore a literary and imaginative world of remarkable complexity.  Burroughs described his Naked Lunch as knowing what you have on the end of your fork. He offers an unflinching vision of how our need to consume interacts with the mechanisms of political control to make us all addicts.

Connections

Film

‘Stereo’ directed by David Cronenberg (1969)

‘Shivers’ directed by David Cronenberg (1975)

‘Videodrome’ directed by David Cronenberg (1983)

‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’ directed by Terry Gilliam (1998)

‘Crash’ directed by David Cronenberg (1999)

‘Pollock’ directed by Ed Harris (2000)

‘Howl’ directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman (2010)

‘On the Road’ directed by Walter Salles (2012)

‘Kill Your Darlings’ directed by John Krokidas (2014)

Reading

Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky, Penguin, 2004

William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch: The Restored Text, Fourth Estate, 2008

William S. Burroughs, The Definitive Text of ‘Junkie’, Penguin, 2008

Allen Ginsberg, Howl and other Poems, City Lights Books, 1986

Jack Kerouac, On the Road, Penguin, 2000

Ted Morgan, Literary Outlaw: the Life and Times of William S Burroughs, Pimlico, 1991

Music and Spoken Word

William S Burroughs, ‘Dead City Radio’, Island, 1990

William S Burroughs, ‘The Best of William S Burroughs’, Giorno Poetry Systems, 1999

Tom Waits and William S Burroughs, ‘Black Rider’, Island, 1993

The Kronos Quartet and Allen Ginsberg, ‘Howl, U.S.A’, Nonesuch, 1996