#220: CRONENBERG, David: Naked Lunch (1991)
CRONENBERG, David (Canada)
Two discs
Documentary
Naked Making Lunch, a London Weekend Television documentary about the making of the film, directed by Rodley.
Illustrated essay
Archival stills
Naked Lunch [1991]
Spine #220
DVD
DVD
"Exterminate all rational thought." Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs' hallucinatory, "unfilmable" novel, is finally realized onscreen by director David Cronenberg. Part-time exterminator and full-time drug addict Bill Lee (Peter Weller) plunges into the nightmarish netherworld of the Interzone, pursuing a mysterious project that leads him to confront sinister cabals and giant talking bugs. The fruit of an unholy union between two masters of the hilarious and the macabre, Naked Lunch mingles aspects of Burroughs' novel with incidents from his own life, resulting in a compendium of paranoid fantasies and a searching investigation into the mysteries of the writing process.
115 minutes
Color
Color
Stereo
1:78:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2003
Director/Writers
David Cronenberg was 48 when he wrote and directed Naked Lunch.
Cronenberg is a Canadian filmmaker specializing in the body-horror genre. Of his 22 films (to date), six are available in the Criterion Collection.
The author Burroughs was an important member of the Beat Generation. He picked up a lifelong drug habit during the war years. He killed his second wife in Mexico City in 1951. The incident is a major scene in the film.
Naturally, all the publicity surrounding the publication of Naked Lunch helped its popularity. Of course, it had always presumed to be unfilmable.
Other Cronenberg films in the Collection:
The Film
Best to start by quoting the great Janet Maslin who writes:
“Cronenberg has treated the disjointed, hallucinatory book as a secondary source. Concentrating instead on Burroughs himself, the drug experience that colors his writing and the agonies of the creative process, Cronenberg also devises purely metaphorical versions of the author’s wild and violent sexual scenarios. The result, by turns bracing, brilliant, and vile is a screen style as audacious as Burroughs is on the page.”
Bugs, voracious typewriters, junkies of all types and forms: it’s all here in this marvelous concoction of crazy-ass cinema. Cronenberg is always entertaining.
Film Rating (0-60):
52
The ExtrasTwo discs
The Booklet
Thirty-two page booklet featuring essays by film critic Maslin, Chris Rodley, Gary Indiana, and a piece by Burroughs.
Thirty-two page booklet featuring essays by film critic Maslin, Chris Rodley, Gary Indiana, and a piece by Burroughs.
Documentary
Naked Making Lunch, a London Weekend Television documentary about the making of the film, directed by Rodley.
Illustrated essay
about the special effects in Naked Lunch by Jody Duncan, editor of Cinemax magazine, featuring artifacts from Cronenberg’s archive.
Stills gallery
Original marketing materials
Audio
of Burroughs reading excerpts from Naked Lunch.
Archival stills
of Burroughs from The Allen Ginsberg Trust.
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