Burroughs documentary a straight shooter “William S. Burroughs: A Man Within”: B-
In 1951, at age 27 (he lived to be 83), William Seward Burroughs put a bullet through the forehead of his wife, Joan Vollmer, during a drunken game of William Tell in Mexico. Performance artist and musician Laurie Anderson comments that Burroughs, author of seminal works “Junky” and “Queer” and a lifelong, avid gun collector and fetishist, must have been constantly reminded of his wife’s death, for which he was never charged. “Death Smells,” we hear Burroughs intoning in his distinctive croak of a monotone at the beginning of Yony Leyser’s affectionate but not deeply probing – nor nearly long enough – documentary. It looks at the life of the novelist and proto-Beat poet (his great unrequited love was Allen Ginsberg, who died three months before him in 1997 and whom he’s shown conversing with in archival footage). “I mean it has a special smell, over and above the smell of cyanide, carrion, blood, cordite or burnt flesh,” he drones on, quoting from his novel “Cities of the Red Night.” Actor Peter Weller, who portrayed Bill Lee, a fictionalized version of the author in director David Cronenberg’s terrific adaptation of Burroughs’ novel “Naked Lunch,” both sparsely narrates and appears as one of the many interview subjects, though none of what he has to say carries as much entertaining insight as the words of filmmaker and gay icon John Waters, who ends Leyser’s film on a hilarious, impassioned note, nominating Burroughs for sainthood. Godmother of punk Patti Smith describes her crush on the writer who was present during New York’s punk music explosion of the 1970s, as she marvels at the many phrases he coined, such as “heavy metal” and “blade runner.” Other interview subjects include Cronenberg, gender-bending musician performer Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Iggy Pop and longtime companion James Grauerholz, who lived out Burroughs’ final, shotgun-wielding years with him in Kansas, and who offers a less idolizing, though nevertheless loving take. Still, Burroughs is his own harshest critic. Acknowledging that he would never have become a writer if not for the death of his wife, the final journal entry of a man who always struggled with addictions reads: “Love? What is it? Most natural painkiller what there is.” (“William S. Burroughs: A Man Within” contains talk of drug use and homosexuality.) Not rated. At the Brattle Theatre. -- http://www.bostonherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/view/20110204burroughs_documentary_a_straight_shooter/srvc=home&position=recent Via InstaFetch -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Sixties-L" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sixties-l?hl=en.
