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Naked Lusts and Natural Painkillers: Portrait of a Literary Outlaw

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Naked Lusts and Natural Painkillers: Portrait of a Literary Outlaw Naked Lusts and Natural Painkillers: Portrait of a Literary Ou... http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/11/17/movies/17will.html?p... This copy is for your personal, noncommercial use only. You can order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers, please click here or use the "Reprints" tool that appears next to any article. Visit www.nytreprints.com for samples and additional information. Order a reprint of this article now. » November 16, 2010 MOVIE REVIEW | 'WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS: A MAN WITHIN' Naked Lusts and Natural Painkillers: Portrait of a Literary Outlaw By STEPHEN HOLDEN “Death smells.” That pronouncement, delivered by William S. Burroughs with the granite hauteur of a smirking Grim Reaper begins “William S. Burroughs: A Man Within,” Yony Leyser’s sympathetic documentary portrait of the formidable proto-Beat author of “Naked Lunch.” “I mean it has a special smell, over and above the smell of cyanide, carrion, blood, cordite or burnt flesh,” he continues, reading this excerpt from his novel “Cities of the Red Night” as the camera studies a face that suggests the stone bust of a patrician zombie. A little later in this documentary, “A Man Within,” there is a pungent video of Burroughs’s incantatory recitation of his 1986 “Thanksgiving Prayer,” a facetious rundown of horrors to be grateful for — “Thanks for the American Dream to vulgarize and falsify until the bare lies shine through” — juxtaposed with a double-exposure of the poker-faced author and a rippling American flag and other patriotic symbols. Later there is an amusing deadpan rendition of Burroughs croaking Marlene Dietrich’s signature song, “Falling in Love Again,” in German, from his 1990 album, “Dead City Radio.” Narrated by Peter Weller, who played a Burroughs-like character in David Cronenberg’s movie “Naked Lunch,” “A Man Within” is embellished with scratchy line drawing that evokes Burroughs’s skeletal vision of humanity. There is not a word or image wasted in a documentary you wish ran an extra half-hour beyond its condensed 90 minutes. It is all either blood-chilling or hilarious. For those who celebrate Burroughs as one of the darkest and greatest of all comic artists, he is an extreme social satirist of Swiftian stature, whose quasi-pornographic images offer a stark, ghastly/funny photonegative image of the American body politic. “A Man Within” is a kind of genealogy of hip that connects Burroughs, who was born in St. Louis in 1914, the wealthy Harvard-educated grandson of the founder of the Burroughs Adding Machine company, with many currents of America’s outlaw cultural tradition. He 1 sur 3 02/12/10 17:10 Naked Lusts and Natural Painkillers: Portrait of a Literary Ou... http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/11/17/movies/17will.html?p... was a close friend and sometime lover of Allen Ginsberg, with whom he is shown in conversation — and an idol of punk rockers like the Clash, the Dead Kennedys, Iggy Pop and Sonic Youth. Foremost among his admirers is Patti Smith, who recalls having a crush on him and credits him as the source of pop-culture terms like “blade runner,” “heavy metal” and “soft machine.” Besides Ginsberg, who died in 1997, another great friend and inspiration was Brion Gysin, the Surrealist artist whose application of the Dadaist cut-out technique to writing Burroughs enthusiastically adopted. While burnishing the Burroughs mystique, “A Man Within” assiduously tries to humanize an author whom it is all too easy to view as an avenging nihilist, a black hole of icy misanthropic contempt. It goes into considerable depth about his homosexuality. A product of the pre-gay liberation era, he had a physical passion for Ginsberg that was mostly unrequited, and for most of his life relied largely on hustlers for sex. His on-and-off heroin addiction and writings about drugs may have made him a hipster saint, nicknamed “the pope of dope,” but his message about heroin was a warning not to take it. He was obsessed with control, and for many years was controlled by his addiction. Two family tragedies stalked him. In 1951, while playing a drunken game of William Tell in Mexico, he accidentally put a bullet through the head of his wife, Joan Vollmer, whom his friend, the poet John Giorno, says he loved deeply. “I’m forced to the appalling conclusion that I would never have become a writer but for Joan’s death,” Burroughs is remembered as saying. As a commentary, Burroughs is heard quoting from Edwin Arlington Robinson: “There are mistakes too monstrous for remorse.” In 1981, his son, Billy Burroughs, who had tried to emulate his father, died of acute alcoholism. It was the only time, Mr. Giorno says, that he ever saw Burroughs weep. Two of the most articulate of the film’s many commentators include John Waters, who sees his own work in the same outsider tradition and who regards Burroughs “as almost a religious figure,” and the gender-bending musician and performance artist Genesis Breyer P-Orridge. Late in life Burroughs softened somewhat, recalls James Grauerholz, his companion and executor of his estate. They moved to Lawrence, Kan., where Burroughs, an avid gun fetishist, took up visual art and produced “shotgun paintings,” made by shooting a can of spray paint placed in front of a plywood board. His last words, scrawled in a journal shortly before his death in 1997, are among the most conciliatory he ever wrote: “Love? What is it? Most natural painkiller what there is.” William S. Burroughs 2 sur 3 02/12/10 17:10 Naked Lusts and Natural Painkillers: Portrait of a Literary Ou... http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/11/17/movies/17will.html?p... A Man Within Opens on Wednesday in Manhattan. Written and directed by Yony Leyser;edited by Ilko Davidov; produced by Carmine Cervi, Mr. Davidov and Mr. Leyser;released by Oscilloscope Laboratories. At the IFC Center, 323 Avenue of the Americas, at Third Street, Greenwich Village.Running time: 1 hour 14 minutes. This film is not rated. Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company Home Privacy Policy Search Corrections XML Help Contact Us Back to Top 3 sur 3 02/12/10 17:10.
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